Heavy rains triggered by northeast monsoon and a low pressure area over Bay of Bengal lashed several parts of Andhra Pradesh for the fourth consecutive day on Friday, prompting authorities to evacuate thousands of people from low-lying areas.
Even as the indefinite strike by the government employees in Seema-Andhra regions, opposing Telangana state completed 40 days with administration remaining completely paralysed, private educational institutions were also set to join the stir from Monday till month end.
Amid continuing protests over the creation of a separate Telangana state, Union ministers from the Seema-Andhra region met Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi and expressed the "sense of deprivation" prevailing in Andhra and Rayalseema regions.
The Group of Ministers on Telangana will meet in the first week of February to decide on the Centre's next course of action after Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy sought extension of the deadline for discussing and returning the statehood Bill.
Adopting an aggressive stance and seeking to push the Centre on the defencive, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Saturday questioned the very validity of AP Reorganisation Bill-2013 saying it was violative not only of parliamentary procedures but also the Constitution of India.
Seeking to put a lid on speculation, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Thursday said the bill for creation of the new state of Telangana, bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, will be tabled in the winter session of Parliament starting on December five.
Hyderabad, the city which is the bone of contention between Telangana and the rest of Andhra Pradesh in the proposed bifurcation of the state, belongs to all Indians and not to any region in particular, Union Minister S Jaipal Reddy has said.
The United Progressive Alliance coordination committee will meet on July 31 to finalise its stand on the vexed Telangana issue amid indications from Congress that carving out a separate state out of Andhra Pradesh is a foregone conclusion and that complexities involved in the process will be adequately addressed.
As the Congress and United Progressive Alliance government appear to be veering towards formation of a separate Telangana state, ministers and MPs from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday opposing any division of Andhra Pradesh.
After post-mortem in the local government hospital, police confirmed the case was altered to Section 302 Indian Penal Code that relates to murder.
Union Minister and Congress leader K Chiranjeevi on Saturday disapproved of his actor-brother Pawan Kalyan, who has launched a new political party, meeting Bharatiya Janata Partu's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
Noting that Aadhaar was an 'irreversible process', Unique Identification Authority of India Chairman Nandan Nilekani said on Friday they have targeted to enroll 60 crore (600 million) people by 2014.
With Andhra Pradesh on the verge of a division, the "government" in the state exists only on paper after a notification issued by the Governor and is non-existent for practical purposes.
With reports suggesting a rift between the Congress and its ally Nationalist Congress Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday dubbed the United Progressive Alliance as a "sinking ship" which is being deserted by its allies.
The Group of Minister, set up to look into the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, is all set to recommend special status to both the states under Article 371-D of the Constitution and examining a proposal to include two districts of Rayalseema in Telangana.
With many of its plans to break the impasse over the Telangana issue coming unstuck, the Congress is now reportedly toying with the idea of moving a resolution on the statehood demand in the next session of Andhra Pradesh assembly.
Clarifies over the raging media controversy over its intent to exit
Though the people of Andhra Pradesh seem to have more or less reconciled to the fact that bifurcation of the state is inevitable, political parties in Seemandhra are leaving no stone unturned to stall the proposed division process, at least till the 2014 elections.
The Andhra Pradesh chief minister has just witnessed his state's division and the idea of leaving the Congress to launch a regional party might leave him with nothing, says Aditi Phadnis
While the United Progressive Alliance government is preparing to ignore the protests from anti-Telangana members of Parliament and push through the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill in Parliament on Tuesday, the Congress' grim internal assessment is that the move may not pay the requisite electoral dividends which it had originally hoped for, says Anita Katyal
The metrological department on Saturday said that Phailin is a very severe 'super cyclone' and its wind speed may go up to 200 and 240 km per hour by noon itself.
There are indications that the BJP may not be as enthusiastic as it was on the Telangana issue now that the Congress has cleared the decks for the creation of the new state.
The Centre on Thursday evening took the first significant step towards creation of a separate Telangana state from out of Andhra Pradesh and decided that Hyderabad will be the joint capital of the two states for 10 years.
