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Felicitation to Kuchipudi dance exponent Bhagavatula Yajna Narayana Sarma and dance performances by students of Hamsadhvani Kuchipudi Natyalaya formed part of the World Dance Day-2010 celebrated jointly by The Hindu and the city-based Element School of Visual Arts on Thursday.

The sprawling auditorium of Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao Government College for Music and Dance at Durgapuram was the venue for the colourful event that began with ‘Vinayaka Koutam' by Yamini and Manojna, which was followed by ‘Pushpanjali' by Surekha, Chaitanya and Geeta Purnima.

The pleasant evening weather felicitated the connoisseurs of classical dance to enjoy the performances of dance students of various ages. Expressing happiness over the felicitation, Mr. Yajna Narayana Sarma, the septuagenarian who won accolades from people of the rank of President of India and Ambassadors for his stunning performances, said that he was amused by the performances of the youngsters.

“I must thank the management of The Hindu for felicitating me on this occasion. I consider it a big honour,” he said, in a humble tone.

Performance for Annamacharya's kriti ‘Kattedura Vaikunthamu' by Mahati and Likhita and for Tyagaraya kriti ‘Paluke Bangaramaye' by Lasya and Sashank were well received by the audience with a loud applause.

The Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation is introducing a two-day package tour from Hyderabad to Krishna and Guntur districts during this summer.
As part of the tour, the tourists will visit Bhavani Islands, Undavalli caves, Anjaneya Swamy temple
in Ponnur, Uppalapadu bird sanctuary near Guntur, Suryalanka beach in Bapatla and finally Amaravati, the historical Buddhist centre.
The APTDC has noticed that the demand is very high for the two-day package to Krishna and Guntur districts from Hyderabad.
The APTDC Vijayawada divisional manager, Mr Ramakrishna, told this newspaper the price of the tour package would be released to the media very soon.
Mr Ramakrishna said the tour begins on Friday in Hyderabad and ends on Sunday morning.
The tourists will arrive at the Bhavani Islands from Hyderabad and take breakfast in either Berham Park or Bhavani Islands.
Later, they travel in buses to the tourist places in the two districts and reach Hyderabad after their last halt in Amaravati on Saturday evening.
“Shortage of buses is the biggest impediment being faced by the Tourism Development Corporation,” said the divisional manager.
Referring to the recovery from the loss sustained in the September floods, Mr Ramakrishna said the visitors are increasing in the Berham Park, Bhavani islands and collections are also mounting in the restaurants and there is good response to the boating. The APTDC has resumed power supply to the guest houses in Bhavani islands after a gap of more than five months. The power lines were washed away and the tower was badly damaged in the Krishna floods.
After sustaining lakhs of rupees of loss due to infrastructure damage in the island as well as closure of island for many weeks, the department is gradually recovering. Corporate offices in the state resumed parties in the Bhavani islands and income on boating is increasing gradually.

The municipal commissioner, Mr G. Ravi Babu, has instructed the engineering and town planning officials to take steps to immediately vacate the residents in Machavaram Down area to speed up the construction of the Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) project in the city.

Water supply

The bandh called by Telugu Desam and Left parties against the government’s failure to check price rise badly affected normal life in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday.

Leaders and activists of the opposition parties held demonstrations in towns and villages across the State and also staged sit-in in front of depots of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC).

Passengers had a tough time as APSRTC suspended its services in cities including Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada & other districts.

Shops and other business establishments remained closed at various places in the state, while the educational institutions were on vacation. CPI state secretary K Narayana and CPI(M) State secretary B V Raghavulu led the protest at the busy RTC Cross Roads Junction in Hyderabad, bringing traffic to a grinding halt.Police took the two leaders and scores of Left activists into custody and shifted them to the police station at Gosha Mahal locality. Telugu Desam Chief N Chandrababu Naidu met the Left leaders there.

Failure of the Congress governments at the Centre and in Andhra Pradesh to keep the prices of essential commodities under control has made life difficult for common people, Mr. Naidu alleged.

The historical Kondaveedu fort will get a facelift. The district administration has taken steps to develop the fort in coordination with various departments to attract tourists. The state government has given a nod to develop the fort at a meeting held under the aegis of the Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, and other ministers.
A welcome arch would be built in Kondaveedu village. The endowments department will develop the temples near the fort at a cost of Rs 50 lakh. The district collector, Mr B. Ramanjaneyulu, has asked the tourism, panchayat raj, roads and buildings and the forest departments to develop the fort. The district administration will lay a road to the Kondaveedu fort and allot Rs 2.55 crore for the development of the fort.
The roads and buildings department will lay a road to an extent of 5.1 kilometres to the fort on the hillock from Chenghizjkhanpet. The endowments department will develop the Balakrishna temple, Ramalingeswara Swamy temple, Narasimha Swamy temple, Mulamkeswari Ammaravari temple which were built during the Reddy kings’ regime. The forest department will set up a deer park, build a guest house, hotel and develop the tank at Vedalla Cheruvu. The Panchayat raj department will lay a road from Phirangipuram to the fort. Another road would be laid from Kondaveedu village water tank to Venkatapuram.

The tourism department will build the welcome arch at Kondaveedu village and an administrative building in the village. The International Society for Sri Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon) has submitted a proposal to develop the Kondaveedu fort. The state government agreed to allot land near the fort to the Iskcon. The representatives of the Iskcon agreed to build a temple at Kondaveedu.
The district administration has made all arrangements to set the foundation stone for the development of the historical fort on April 26 at Kondaveedu. Ministers Mr Kanna Lakshmi Narayana, Ms Geetha Reddy, Mr Gade Venkata Reddy, Mr Botsa Satyanarayana, Ms Galla Aruna Kumari, Mr Mopidevi Venkata Ramana and the Narsaraopet MP, Mr Modugula Venugopala Reddy, will attend the meeting.

The Left parties and the Telugu Desam leaders on Monday appealed to the people to extend support for the bandh to be observed on April 27 protesting against the failure of the UPA government to check spiraling prices of essential commodities as well dema-nding the government to roll back the fuel prices.
The 13 Opposition parties across the country had given a call for the nation-wide bandh in both urban and rural areas.

The TD district convener, Mr Devineni Umamaheswara Rao, CPI(M) district secretary, Mr V. Umamaheswara Rao and the CPI leader and former MLA, Mr K. Subbaraju, told mediapersons that the UPA government failed to check the sky-rocketing of commodity prices. They demanded that the Central government roll back the fuel prices.
They said 13 parties and many trade unions are joining the nation-wide bandh on Tuesday. They submitted a representation to the APSRTC regional manager, Mr A. Koteswara Rao, to stall services on Tuesday in support of the proposed mass agitation. The Opposition leaders said they appealed to the traders to extend support for the agitation.

One enumerator has been appointed for every 150 households in Krishna Districts to carry out ‘House Listing', ‘Housing Census' and filling of the National Population Register (NPR), District Collector Peeyush Kumar said.

The collector appealing to the people to extend all their cooperation for the 2011 Census said that the first phase of the survey would begin on Monday and go on till June 10, a 45-day stint.

The House Listing and Housing Census would be done prior to the filling of the NPR. The enumerators had to fill 35 columns in the House Listing and House Census.

The NPR schedule had 15 questions like name of the family/household head, date of birth, place of birth, nationality, name of spouse, present and permanent address.

The information collected in the house listing and Housing Census was confidential and would not be provided to any authority including a court of law, he said.

Anybody who violated the confidentiality of the information was punishable under the Census Act.