SAVE LANDS FROM SAND SHARKS- FARMERS STRUGGLE CONTINUES -BBC Reporting from Amaravathi Potti Dibba Lanka: Pottidibba Lanka, Devarpalli Village, Totlavalluru Mandal, Krishna District is an island in Krishna river downstream of Vijayawada, gifted with ample fresh water and rich alluvial soils. Even in peak summer months, the entire area is lush green with standing crops. The farmers are very enterprising and they even grow four crops in a year.   There is a habitation of about 60 families residing in this island. The original area of island was over 2500 acres of patta lands. With torrential rains and floods, about 1000 acres was eroded and became part of the river. The last such major flood was in 2009, left many farmers landless overnight. Farmers still pay taxes and possess titles on these lands, very much became part of river with the hope of silt formation over the years and the lands become cultivable. In fact, in last two years about 100 acres land became part...

NOTE BANDHI : A JOKE OF THE DECADE  When demonetisation was announced in November 16 , PM and FM made tall claims that out of 15.45 lakh crore worth banned currency, 30 % will not come back to circulation and it will be big revenue gain to Govt and shall be used for public welfare. With RBI annual report of 2017-18,  it’s clear that 15.31 lakh crore banned notes amounting to 99.3% is already rested in safe bunkers of RBI and looks like a big mockery is made out of demonetization. A year back when there were feelers sent by RBI that major portion of banned currency come back into system, FM tried to justify it and gave indications that the large transactions and routing of currency into bank accounts will be tracked and guilt will be punished. Unfortunately there are no such indications or not even a single case of such tracking reported and any such bold moves are very unlikely in election year. What did we achieve through demonetisation is a billion dollar question ...

“SWACHH PRASHASAN” IS ESSENTIAL TO ACCOMPLISH “SWACHH BHARATH” Launch of Swachh Bharath Abyan (SBA): NDA Government under Sri Narendra Modi leadership took up cleanliness drive as its flagship program and launched it in big way on 2 nd October,2014 (Gandhi Jayanti) and declared that India will be litter free nation by 2 nd October,2019.   The Government gave thrust to program by announcing brand ambassadors, involving corporates, conducting special drives, massive toilets construction program and  special tax (Swachh Bharath tax) is introduced. In reality it is nothing but an extension of UPA program “ Nirmal Bharath Abyan ” by changing the name to “ Swachh Bharath Abyan ”, with a promise of better delivery with measurable indicators. First three years there were lot of  campaigns, photo sessions of celebrities, corporates, political personalities with cleanliness drives, hungama from SBA ambassadors and enough hype was created. During last one year there...

*NAKED TRUTHS - INFORMATION FLOW IN GOVERNMENT - EXPERIENCE SHARING OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT * As gathered from a mandal education officer (MEO), there are about 650 students wrote 10th board exam from that mandal and out of 650 only 50 are from private schools and balance from Govt schools i.e., over 92% is from Govt schools. The same he presented to his DEO, subsequently the information is flown to Collector, Director, Secretary, Minister Education and to CM through series of Video conferences and created an impression that everything is very good. Unfortunately the ground realities are different. From the same mandal about 1000 students studied in private schools in near by towns and wrote 10th exam from there. As these are studying in schools out of the mandal, MEO conveniently avoided reporting about them. I am sure everyone in this system knew ground realities, but none are willing to touch the honeycomb. If no one is interested in looking at  ground realities and survi...

PINEAPPLES FROM SEETHAMPETA, SRIKAKULAM DIST  The well known local variety of pineapple”Simhachalam” which is very sweet with juicy pulp and gold colour  is grown in about 15000 acres in Savara tribal pockets of Palkonda and Seethampeta mandals. The quality of fruit in this area is very good due to traditional organic cultivation practices of tribals. The soils are very rich with good amount of organic matter. These pineapples contain more vitamins and protein when compare to the same fruit grown in commercial Agriculture areas. Despite the presence of ITDA, Horti Dept, Velugu, ZBNF, number of FPOs there is hardly any aggregation and marketing support, forget about value addition and storage systems. Local sandies with all sorts of exploitative methods is the only marketing venue for these poor tribals, Like the fate of most of agri commodities, the pineapple rates are Rs 6 to 8/ piece weighing around 1 to 1.5 kgs as against last year rates of Rs 14 to 18.  ...

JANMABHOOMI-SMALL INITIATIVE CAN BE OF GREAT HELP AP is having second summer due to monsoon failure and standing crops are wilting for shortage of water. Due to limited time power availability, all pump sets have to run at same time, resulting in transformers tripping due to excess load. The problem is much more in islands like ours where crop coverage is 100% due to abundant water availability.  Farmers came with a request to get one electricity Dept helper posted so that their maintenance issues can be resolved. I immediately escalated the issue and got it resolved by convincing the Dept. The existing transformer are insufficient due to upgradation of many pump sets from to 3 to 5 HP. Farmers paid necessary charges for such upgradation. The issue of transformers overload and related issues with complete details was brought to the notice of the dept and convinced them for the need of adding more transformers on urgent basis. One transformer they promised to install i...

RADHIKA VEMULA - DALIT EMPOWERMENT AN UNREALIZED DREAM The poor woman lost her son Rohith Vemula, a bright P Hd scholar in 2016 due to suspected injustice and insult happened in Hyderabad Central University (HCU) . He hanged himself to death, as he could bear the financial constraints he was put to by stopping his monthly stipend.   Bharat Mata lost one of its emerging stars. What I do not understand is whether he is OC or BC or SC or ST; he is a student of HCU, committed suicide due to prevailing situation in university as he mentioned in suicide note.   Unfortunately instead of showing empathy to the family the BJP Government and its senior leaders Sushma Swaraj, Smruti Irani tried to rake up caste controversy by claiming that Rohith is not from Dalit community.    There are clearly established cases and judgments in favour of Radhika Vemula to establish that their family belongs to SC community. In fact Guntur Mandal Revenue Officer gave SC certificate t...

AMBEDKARISM - EDUCATION IS MEDICINE FOR ALL SOCIAL EVILS  Dr B R AMBEDKAR – CHIEF ARCHITECT OF INDIAN CONSTITUTION Dr Ambedkar is a great soul born in India with exemplary knowledge and skills and always finds place on far with ever remembering freedom fighters and great leaders of the nation. Born as a Dalit, fighting socioeconomic conditions prevailing in those days and reaching to such a position, purely based on skill sets and fighting the system rather than sub serving it, is not an easy task and Mother India is always proud of this great soul. Despite Dr. Ambedkar’s ideological differences with Gandhi Ji on issues related to religion, caste, political reservations, untouchability etc, he was entrusted with the task of heading the group to prepare “Indian constitution”. It shows the maturity of socio-political leadership exhibited by our older generation leaders and I beg the present generation leaders to follow the path laid down and encourage talent rather t...