'Vital clues' have been collected by the high-powered committee of Directorate General of Civil Aviation, from the helicopter crash site in the dense Nallamalla forest range in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday, official sources said.Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others were killed when their helicopter crashed in Nallamalla forest area on September 2.The five-member DGCA expert team is led by R K Tyagi.
An official condemned the attacks saying such abhorrent violence is a blot on the conscience of humanity.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday said it will take over on Thursday the investigations into the helicopter crash that killed former chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.
The Andhra Pradesh government has stressed that all the mandatory maintenance work and checks were carried out on the Bell-430 helicopter before it took off for its last journey on September 2 and crashed killing the state Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others.
The pilots of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's ill-fated Bell 430 helicopter had tried to contact the Air Traffic Control, Chennai, at least twice and had desperately called for guidance, as they had lost their route. The revelations can put the ATC Chennai in dock for negligence leading to the fatal crash.
Congress MP Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, who has been critical of the party leadership, has kicked off the second leg of his yatra.
'There is no doubt he is with the Lord in heaven. He loved people and people poured their love on him. It was the people's love that got him elected as chief minister for a second term.'
The autopsy reports of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others killed in the chopper crash will be handed over to CB (CID) and Directorate of Civil Aviation probing the mishap.
Following is the statement issued by late Andhra Pradesh Chief minister's son YS Jaganmohan Reddy on Sunday, urging his supporters to immediately stop their campaign projecting him as the successor
The power struggle in Andhra Pradesh Congress after the death of Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy took an ugly turn on Sunday when the supporters of YSR's son Jaganmohan Reddy disrupted the party's condolence meeting.
The tragic death of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has led to an unprecedented outpouring of grief and sorrow across the state.While many of the late CM's followers have reportedly committed suicide, others have chosen various other ways to express their sorrow.Many villagers residing in far-flung areas, who could not afford to travel to Hyderabad or Cadippa for YSR's funeral, performed 'funerals' at their villages, with the effigies and photographs.
The Crime Investigation Department of the Andhra Pradesh police has launched its own probe into the death of Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others, who were killed when the Bell-430 helicopter they were travelling in crashed at Nallamalla forest in Kurnool district on Thursday.The CID will try to find out the answers to a host of questions ranging from why an old helicopter with a history of snags was chosen for the chief minister when a new one was available.
Rosaiah was administered the oath of office and secrecy at a simple ceremony by Governor Narayan Dutt Tiwari at the Raj Bhavan.
"The chief minister's helicopter has been located atop a hill 40 nautical miles, 73 kilometres east of Kurnool" This was the message everyone was waiting for since Wednesday when Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's chopper went off the radar.
''The fact that a huge crowd came when he had filed his nomination indicates his popularity,'' says Anjaneyulu of Pulivendla. ''He has cinema star-like glamour. As far as Cuddapah is considered, he is the king.''
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has been killed in a helicopter crash in the dense Nallamalla forest, authorities confirmed on Thursday morning.
In November last year, too, he had a miraculous escape when the AW 139 helicopter he was returning from a trip to Mahbubnagar developed a major technical snag midair
'They should have flown either to Tirupati or Chennai by regular flight and then taken a helicopter from there. Aircraft are much safer than helicopters.'
Dr P Subrahmanyam and A S C John Wesley who were with Chief Minister Y S R Reddy on his journey into interior Andhra Pradesh had served in Cuddapah's district administration
"By triangulation, we have located the area which is about 5-km radius circle and it has been identified based on the last contact with the air traffic control," Chavan, Union minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, told reporters
Hopes of finding an early clue about the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's missing helicopter suffered a setback as nothing could be found in the 41 photographs taken by a special aircraft of the Indian Space Research Organization.
Incessant rains, and not Maoists, is the major hurdle facing the security forces who have launched a massive search operation in the Nallamalla forests in Andhra Pradesh, where Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's helicopter went missing this morning, Andhra Pradesh police sources involved in the search operations have said.
Ahead of resuming his controversial yatra, Congress MP Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy paid tributes to his late father Y S Rajasekhara Reddy at the place where he was buried, on Tuesday. Jagan, who arrived at the family estate at Idupulapaya, near Kadapa, from Hyderabad by train in the early hours on Tuesday, offered tributes to his father at the burial site inside the estate.
The stamp, priced at Rs 5 was formally released by the Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy at the state secretariat. The stamp carries the picture of freedom fighter Pingali along with the two designs of national flag as they were adopted by the Indian National Congress and approved by the Father of the Nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
South Zone produced solid batting to take control of the final against North, reaching 298 for three on the second day of the Duleep trophy match in Viaskhapatnam on Thursday. Three South Zone batsmen -- Robin Uthappa (66), S Badrinath (97 not out) and Manish Pandey (74) -- smashed individual half-centuries as they posted a solid reply to North's first innings total of 337 in 70 overs.
Claiming that the Andhra Pradesh government has been reduced to minority, the Jagan camp on Saturday dared Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and his cabinet colleagues to step down from their posts and seek a fresh mandate.
According to the announcement made by chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy yesterday the new wages would be paid to workers under NREGP from May 21 onwards. Reviewing the progress of NREGP works, the chief minister directed district collectors to take up and complete all works under the programme before the onset of monsoons so that funds available could be fully utilised.
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.
The state government allotted 50 acres of land near Visakhapatnam to Satyam Computer in December 2008 at a concessional rate of Rs 10 lakh.
The former Congress MP also told his supporters in his hometown Pulivendula near Kadapa that the 2014 assembly elections in the state would be his "finals".
In a five-page letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, which was first read out on his television channel Sakshi TV on Monday morning, Jagan Reddy explained the reasons behind his decision. This is the text of his letter:
Whether the Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's son YS Jaganmohan Reddy will get the party ticket from Kadapa Lok Sabha constituency is still a subject of speculation but the young aspirant has already launched his campaign on his home turf.
The populist promises made by former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu for the forthcoming assembly elections will cost the state exchequer a whopping Rs 5,000 crore.The ruling Congress party has termed Naidu's promises a result of 'unimaginable frustration'. "He is so desperate to come to power that he is ready to make any promise to the people", said Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.
The helicopter, which crashed last September claiming the life of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others, was "probably not airworthy", but this was not a contributing factor to the accident, an inquiry has found.
Even as the schedule of Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly polls is likely to be announced in a week's time, all the major political parties have already gone all out with sarcastic television advertisements targeting their rivals.
Unlike his predecessor Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who took a tough line against separate Telangana, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah has no personal view on the bifurcation of his state and would like the Centre to find a lasting solution not a "temporary truce".
The Grand Alliance of four opposition parties -- Telugu Desam, Telangana Rashtra Samiti, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India Marxist -- who have decided to make the alleged corruption of the Y S Rajasekhara Reddy-led Congress government the main issue in the coming assembly elections, on Friday demanded that the chief minister be prosecuted under the Prevention of Corruption Act. A delegation of the Grand Alliance leaders met Governor N D Tiwari.
As the situation was limping back to normalcy in Andhra Pradesh a day after unprecedented violence and attacks on the offices and retail outlets of both the rival Reliance groups, the state government booked a criminal case against a Telugu news channel TV5 for carrying an unverified report linking the names of Mukesh and Anil Ambani to the alleged foul play behind the death of former Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in a helicopter crash in September last year.
The Andhra Legislative Assembly witnessed noisy scenes and constant exchange of words between the ruling Congress and the TDP members through the 90-minute reply by the chief minister.