If the rotor hits a hill or a tree, the helicopter -- which could be carrying above 2,000 litres of fuel with the engine running at very high RPM -- disintegrates.
Ruling out the possibility of Naxals shooting down the helicopter of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, Union Minister M M Pallam Raju on Thursday said the mishap that claimed Reddy's life took place due to bad weather."The possibility of a Naxal strike on the chief minister's helicopter is ruled out completely. It was an accident due to bad weather. There is no hand of Naxalites," Minister of State for Defence Raju said.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday formally announced the death of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others in a helicopter crash.The wreckage was found by Air Force helicopters at 8.30 am on a hillock, which is 8 to 9 km from Atmakur, he said."The bodies are still lying on the hillock and all efforts are being made to retrieve them. I don't know how long the process will take," said Chidambaram.
Senior Andhra Pradesh minister K Rosaiah is likely to be made the acting chief minister in the wake of Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's death in a chopper crash. Highly placed Congress sources said the party was not in a hurry to convene the meeting of the Congress Legislature Party, to elect Reddy's successor, and the meeting could take place three or four days later.Rosaiah, 77, is Andhra's finance minister and the number two in the state cabinet.
B Raman believes that any inquiry into the mishap must ask five questions about the security officer's ability to communicate with his headquarters.
The two pilots on board in the helicopter carrying Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, which went missing a hour after it took off from Hyderbad on Wednesday morning, were identified as Captain S K Bhatia and co-pilot M S Reddy, according to sources.
'Had there been an involvement by the Naxalites, we would have had some communication by now. Since there has been no communication, I can say that they may not be involved or behind this incident,' Union Home Secretary G K Pillai tells rediff.com
Over 60 per cent of the electorate exercised their franchise on Thursday in the by-election to the four Lok Sabha and 18 assembly seats,in Andhra Pradesh, widely seen as a referendum on Telangana statehood issue.The polling was largely peaceful barring stray incidents of clashes among political rivals.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia had misgivings on how and why the chief minister could raise so much money by selling government land, but eventually cleared the annual plan that was promised to be funded by a 32 per cent increase in the state's tax revenues. He put on record his doubts in a 3-page communication to the prime minister on April 23, 2008, a copy of which is with rediff.com
IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A), which had agreed to set up a campus in the state, has not been able to start work due to the political uncertainty caused by the Telangana issue.
An official condemned the attacks saying such abhorrent violence is a blot on the conscience of humanity.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy on Friday said the CB-CID is independently probing the financial fraud in Satyam Computer, as it appeared likely that its founder Ramalinga Raju would be arrested.
Even before the government of Andhra Pradesh could officially declare any part of the state as drought hit, the failure of monsoon has started taking a huge toll on the state's farmers.
The much-awaited second State Reorganisation Commission might not see the light of day during the United Progressive Alliance regime. A significant section of the Congress leadership is not keen on setting up the panel to avoid fuelling the agitation for carving out a separate state of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh.
Evangelist Anil Kumar aka Benjamin Komanapally's debut in Secunderabad bore all the hallmarks of a gala event. A sprawling parade ground packed with nearly 1.5 lakh people, a 250-member choir and guests including Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, his wife and only daughter.After it was revealed that Anil Kumar was the chief minister's son-in-law, the TDP and BJP demanded an inquiry into the source of funding for such large-scale publicity.
The ambitious scheme "Abhay Hastam" (Hand of Reassurance), providing pension to every member of women's self help group after crossing the age of 60, will be launched by Andhra Pradesh government from November 1, the Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said on Thursday.
Praja Rajyam party leader and actor Chiranjeevi has taken his fight directly in to the camp of his 'enemy's fort'. He started his "Praja Ankitam Yatra" in Kadapa district from Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's home constituency Pulivendula today amid tight security.
A special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Wednesday reserved its order till September 23 on the bail plea of the jailed YSR Congress chief Y S Jaganmohan Reddy in a case related to alleged quid-pro-quo investments in the companies owned by him.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday rejected as "false" and "malicious" a news report on some Telugu TV channels alleging it may have had a hand in the helicopter crash that killed former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.
The engagement between the Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's niece Veronica Reddy and popular Telugu film star Mohan Babu's son Vishnuvardhan Babu has created quiet a flutter. Veronica is the daughter of Sudhakar Reddy, the CM's brother.
Breaking his silence on the Telangana issue, Kadapa Member of Parliament Y S Jaganmohan Reddy on Tuesday said he stands for a united Andhra Pradesh and alleged that the Telugu Desam Party and its chief N Chandrababu Naidu were responsible for the current situation in the state.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah, who took over the stewardship of the state amid a campaign by supporters by late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy to give his son the top post, said on Saturday that a meeting of Congress Legislature Party would be held before year-end.
This building, the third in the campus at Gachibowli on the outskirts of the city, has been constructed to meet global quality standards and can house more than 2000 employees, Microsoft officials said.
Rao said his pro-Telangana utterances had nothing to do with his present appointment and claimed that his focus would now be to ensure that the RTC functioned as a viable public sector undertaking.
The Andhra Pradesh government on Friday said it would ask the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the sabotage angle in the death of former chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in a chopper crash in the wake of conspiracy theories surfacing over the incident.
Exactly a month after Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's death in a helicopter crash, his family on Thursday moved out of the Andhra Pradesh chief minister's official residence in Begumpet area to their own home in swish Banjara Hills.
The United Progressive Alliance chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi kicked off her election campaign seeking mandate for another term on the basis of the "good work" done by UPA at the Center and by YS Rajasekhara Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh.
In an indication of the continuing tussle over the issue of leadership in Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister K Rosaiah further delayed his entry in to the CM's office used by his predecessor Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.
Journalists across Andhra Pradesh came out on the streets on Wednesday to protest the arrest of the editor and two journalists of Andhra Jyothy, a prominent Telugu daily, on Thursday night.Hundreds of journalists, along with the members of various political parties, took out a rally in Hyderabad from the Press Club at Basheerbagh to the Ambedkar statue at Tank Bund. They raised slogans against the YS Rajasekhara Reddy government and the police.
The end of the last session of the 12th Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly on Thursday was as stormy as most of its tenure. Almost the entire opposition stormed the well of the House to disrupt the last statement of the Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy on the issue of separate Telangana state.
The Muslim leadership striving for the recovery of the encroached Waqf property in Andhra Pradesh achieved a major success on Wednesday as the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy returned 50 acres of prime land to the state Waqf board.
A four member team of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, led by R K Tyagi, will visit the site in dense Nallamalla forest on Thursday where the Bell-430 helicopter, carrying Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others, had crashed a week ago.The team landed in Kurnool on Wednesday to start its probe into the crash, which had sent shock waves across the country and raised serious questions about the safety of the helicopters used by VIPs.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah, who took over on Thursday last after the death of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in a helicopter crash, has asked the police officials not to cause difficulties to the citizens by stopping traffic on the roads of Hyderabad and Secunderabad to facilitate the movement of his car.
Had the pilot of late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's helicopter turned west instead straying 18 kilometres east of the flight path, the chopper might not have crashed or even if it had been encountering problems, could have been crash landed in paddy fields, a senior police official who was part of the team and has a lot of experience serving in the region said.
Thousands of mourners on Friday swarmed Hyderabad to bid a tearful adieu to late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who was killed in a helicopter crash on Wednesday, on his final journey to his native Kadapa district.
Prime Minister Dr Mammohan Singh has expresses his condolences on the tragic and untimely demise of the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. In his message to the late leader's wife, Vijaya Laxmi, Dr Singh said that it was a personal loss and described the chief minister as a natural leader who was loved by the common man.
Describing Y S Rajasekhara Reddy as a 'dynamic' chief minister and human being, the Congress on Thursday said his demise was a 'tremendous loss' to the party, which will take very long to come to terms with it. Condoling Reddy's death, Left parties described him the 'popular' chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. "Reddy was the son of the soil and had special concern for the welfare of poor and other weaker sections of the society," the BJP said.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's helicopter has been traced, an Air Force official stated on Thursday morning."We have located the helicopter. It is on top of a hill. It is located at a distance of 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool," an IAF official told mediapersons on Thursday.He added that the IAF had already sent two helicopters to the area, which were looking for a place to land. "But it is on top of a hill, in a jungle, so it is difficult," he said.
While the news of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was heard with shock and disbelief all over the state, it fell like a lightening on his home district of Kadapa, specially his home town Pulivendula.
"Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy is a man with vision. His service to mankind is what basically attracted me towards him and also the Congress," Raja said in an exclusive chat with PTI on Sunday. The actor said the Congress government's welfare schemes, particularly in health care and education also drew him towards the party.
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