Andhra: 104 liquor licencees are BPL men

                                                                          
GUNTUR: As many as 104 out of the 342 liquor licences handed out in Guntur district are held by individuals who hold white ration cards. This was revealed in a preliminary enquiry conducted by the district supply department in the past few days upon a directive received from the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). District supply officer (DSO)  Krishna Rao left for Hyderabad Tuesday to submit his preliminary enquiry report to the agency which is probing illegalities in the liquor trade statewide.
Anti-Corruption Bureau director-general D Bhoopathi Babu had sent a list of 342 liquor shop dealers in Guntur district to the collector a few days ago, asking him to look into the antecedents of their holders. The probe was delegated to the DSO who sought the information from deputy tehsidars of the civil supply department. In Nizampatnam, the native mandal of excise minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana Rao, all the local liquor shops are owned by individuals ostensibly white ration card holders, joint collector N Yuvaraj  told Express. One of the liquor vend owners, Kokkilagadda Koteswara Rao is a close aide of the minister. He too has a white ration card (no wap075400500032). He is said to have paid Rs 2.4 lakh as income tax on income from his shop.

Sensex, Nifty fall; banks gain on CRR cut talk

                                                                      
MUMBAI (Reuters) - The BSE  Sensex and Nifty fell on Wednesday as a global flare-up of risk aversion hit blue chips such as Reliance Industries, though broader losses were cut as lenders gained on speculation the central bank could cut the cash reserve ratio.
Fears about the potential impact in southern India from a powerful 8.6 magnitude earthquake off Indonesia also kept investors on edge, exacerbating falls in Reliance and hitting others such as Tata Power that could have been the most impacted.
Markets are facing a series of important tests in the days ahead, with industrial output on Thursday, inflation on Monday and the Reserve Bank of India's policy meeting on April 17.
Though most analysts polled by Reuters still expect the RBI to announce a cut in the repo rate on April 17, they are paring back expectations for rate cuts through the new fiscal year started in April.
Some analysts also do not discount a cut in the cash reserve ratio, or the amount of funds banks must keep at the central bank, since such a move would most directly help ease the tight cash crunch facing lenders.
"We now expect rate cuts of 75 basis points in 2012 versus 125 basis points earlier, due to high crude oil prices and currency depreciation," said Aneesh Srivastava, chief investment officer at IDBI Federal Life Insurance, who oversees 12.5 billion rupees in Indian equities.
The Sensex fell 0.26 percent at 17,199.40 points and the Nifty fell 0.32 percent at 5,226.85.

NDMA rules out tsunami threat to India

                                                    
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in Delhi on Wednesday appealed to people, particularly near coastal areas to not panic as there was no tsunami threat to India, after the massive earthquake in Indonesia.
"Initially there was a tsunami threat, but it is not so now. The alert was issued as a precautionary step. There is no tsunami waves noticed so far in Andaman and Nicobar Islands," National Disaster Management Authority vice-chairman V Shashidhar Reddy said.
While the India Meteorological Department (IMD) put the Sumatra quake's intensity at 8.5 on Richter scale, the US Geological Survey classified it an 8.6 temblor.
The earthquake occurred at 2.08pm as per the IMD.

"So far, there is no tsunami threat," he said on national television.
In India too the National Disaster Management Authority said there was no likelihood of tsunami being formed anywhere in the Indian Ocean.
Earlier on Wednesday, India issued a tsunami warning for Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the eastern coast after a 8.7 magnitude quake in Indonesia shook major cities, causing panic and sending people fleeing onto the streets.
Hundreds of office workers in the Bangalore left their buildings while the Indian port of Chennai closed down because of the danger of a tsunami, the port said.
Indonesia's disaster management agency said power was down in Aceh province and people were gathering on high ground as sirens warned of the danger.
"The electricity is down, there are traffic jams to access higher ground. Sirens and Koran recitals from mosques are everywhere," said Sutopo, spokesman for the agency.
The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Service issued a red high-level warning for the islands, and also put out lower alerts for the coasts of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Largest earthquakes since 1900
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued tsunami watch for 28 countries, including Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, Thailand, Maldives, Britain, Malaysia, Mauritius, Syechelles, Pakistan, Somalia, Oman, Madagascar, Iran, UAE, Yemen, Bangladsh, Tanzania, Mozambique, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore.

Corporate America impressed with Akhilesh Yadav

                                                                    
Washington:Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav seems to have highly impressed the leaders of Corporate America who think he represents the young population of India who want change and progress.
American business leaders, who recently met Yadav in Lucknow, were impressed when he asked them what his government needs to do to attract American investment in his state.
"What do we need to do invite American investment to Uttar Pradesh, to out achieve other progressive Indian State," was the question that Yadav asked the delegation of Corporate America, said Ron Somers, president of US Indian Business Council (USIBC).
Highly impressed by Yadav, Somers said the new chief minister of Uttar Pradesh "represents the young population of India, who want change and progress".
That new hope, that aspiration for progress would be center of India-US partnership, Somers said at a reception hosted by USIBC in honour of the new US Ambassador to India, Nancy Powell.

Tsunami watch lifted in most of Indian Ocean

                                                                

A tsunami watch around the Indian Ocean has been lifted hours after two powerful earthquakes hit off Indonesia’s western coast. 

The U.S. Geological Survey said the first 8.6-magnitude quake was centered about 30 km beneath the ocean floor around 430 km from Aceh province.

That prompted the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii to issue a tsunami watch for Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, Thailand, the Maldives and other Indian Ocean islands, Malaysia, Pakistan, Somalia, Oman, Iran, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore.

A wave measuring less than 80 cm high, rolled to Indonesia’s coast. There were no other signs of serious damage.

But just as the region was sighing relief, an 8.2-magnitude aftershock hit.

“We just issued another tsunami warning,” Prih Harjadi, from Indonesia’s geophysics agency, told TVOne in a live interview.

People along the western coast of Sumatra island and the Mentawai islands were told to stay clear of coasts.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre's watch remained in effect. A tsunami watch means there is the potential for a tsunami, not that one is imminent.

The 8.6- and 8.2-magnitude earthquakes triggered panic on Wednesday afternoon. Residents in coastal cities fled to high ground in cars and on the backs of motorcycles.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii lifted a tsunami watch for most areas of the Indian Ocean about four hours after the first quake. It was still in effect for Indonesia, India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and the island territory of Diego Garcia.

Major damage or tsunami waves locally were not reported.

The massive earthquake off Indonesia’s western coast triggered tsunami fears across the Indian Ocean on Wednesday, sending residents in coastal cities fleeing to high ground in cars and on the backs of motorcycles.

A strong aftershock nearly three hours later sparked a new wave of panic. Indonesia’s government responded by issuing a fresh tsunami warning.

Some residents were crying in Aceh, where memories of a 2004 tsunami that killed 170,000 people in the province alone, are still raw. Others screamed “God is great” as they poured from their homes or searched frantically for separated family members.

The initial quake was a strike-slip, not a thrust quake, according to experts. In a strike-slip quake, the earth moves horizontally rather than vertically and doesn’t displace large volumes of water.

They were still analysing the aftershock.

“When I first saw this was an 8.7 near Sumatra, I was fearing the worst,” Roger Musson, seismologist at the British geological survey who has studied Sumatra’s fault lines, noting one of the initial reported magnitudes for the quake. “But as soon as I discovered what type of earthquake it was, then I felt a lot better.

Earthquake in Indonesia: India withdraws tsunami warning

                                                            
New Delhi:  India has withdrawn the tsunami warning issued after the massive earthquake measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale in Indonesia this afternoon, Press Trust of India reports.

A second round of tremors was felt in India in cities like Kolkata and Chennai at 4.25 pm, but there was no tsunami threat from these aftershocks. India's Nicobar Islands, closest to the epicentre of the quake, is still on alert.
The Indian Air Force has kept ready for relief ops; six teams of 40 people each from the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) have been positioned at Hindon near Delhi, and at Chennai and two C-130 J heavy-lift aircrafts of the Indian Air Force are leaving for Port Blair with NDRF teams and 10 tonnes of relief material.
 
Before the strong aftershocks, the Home Secretary RK Singh said, "As of now there are no signs of a tsunami." But he said the union government was in constant touch with officials in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Odisha.

The minutes after the first quake saw emergency drills in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. On the beaches at Chennai, policemen used megaphones to ask people to leave, with little effect. Mobile phone networks were jammed in the city till 4 pm. In Andhra Pradesh, fishermen were asked to return from sea. In the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, civilians were asked to move to higher ground. In Kolkata, metro trains were stopped at 2.40 pm for nearly an hour; as a precaution, passengers were evacuated.

The quake was felt in Singapore, Thailand and India. High-rise apartments and offices on Malaysia's west coast shook for at least a minute.

In India, tremors were reported in Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and the southern part of Chennai. The tremors lasted for a few seconds. In Bhubaneshwar, people were seen running out of their homes and offices. No damage has been reported so far.

The original earthquake struck Indonesia at 2.08 pm, and first reports said it measured 8.9 on the Richter scale. It spurred warnings of a possible tsunami. The quake was later downgraded to 8.6 magnitude.