LADY LOCO DRIVER SHOWS THE WAY
Supriya Sunam, a loco pilot, stormed the male bastion in the railways by giving the first ride of the Hyderabad Metro Rail to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekar Rao and other dignitaries. The 24-year-old Nizamabad native did her M.Tech at CBIT Hyderabad. Along with Ms Sunam, 35 loco pilots from various parts of state are steering Hyderabad Metro trains and taking lakhs of commuters safely to their destinations. This was acknowledged by all Hyderabadis.
DIGITAL LITERACY SURGES
A year after demonetisation, the country’s youngest state Telangana topped in digital transactions in the entire land. While people of TS are embracing technology, Mukhra, a village of just 650 people in Adilabad district, are stepping ahead and using digital wallets for payments. During Dussehra festival this year, villagers of Mukhra made digital payments at temples using e-wallets, breaking all the traditions and adopting new technology.
LIVE LIKE A HYDERABADI
Hyderabad has been ranked as the top Indian city in the Quality of Living ranking for the third year in a row, according to Mercer’s Quality of Living rankings released globally in March 2017. Both Hyderabad and Pune rank higher for quality of living than the country's more traditional business centres, Mumbai and New Delhi, ranked at 154 and 161 respectively. Hyderabad was ranked 144.
BATTLING TERROR SUSPECT BAREHANDED
K. Srinivasulu, a police constable working for the Counter Intelligence Cell of the Telangana police, received ‘Shaurya Chakra’ from the President of India. He is the only police official from South India to receive the medal for an exemplary display of valour in 2016. Srinivasulu, in the course of surveillance, on found a terror suspect moving on a motorcycle with a woman pillion rider on Doddla Naga Mangala Road. On accosting them, the terror suspect turned his bike and hit the constable’s two-wheeler. The suspect stabbed Srinivasulu in the abdomen and tried to flee. But the cop did not give up and held on to the suspect tightly till more forces arrived and he was taken into custody.
GLOBAL SUMMIT & DIZZYING HEIGHTS
2017 was hands down the year of Hyderabad ecosystem, with the city hosting the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. Telangana won laurels from the US government and the Centre for successfully hosting the acclaimed international summit. The father and son duo of KCR and KTR were highly appreciated for making the meet a success. President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump wrote a letter to K. Chandrasekhar Rao appreciating the government effort. First-time moderator K.T. Rama Rao took charge of a panel discussion with four powerful women from across the world, and conducted it effortlessly.
IMMERSION THAT WAS A PERFECT 10
Kudos to the Khairatabad Ganesh Utsav Samithi team for the early and smooth conduct of Ganesh immersion. Adding a new chapter, the idol in 2017 was moved from the pandal at 6 am on the 11th day and immersed much before the sunset. While, the Hyderabad police and GHMC staff performed remarkably, the 11-day affair turned out to be well-organised. No untoward incident was reported from any part of the city.
PILOTING WOMEN’S CHARGE
Indian Air Force gets two more women fighter pilots. Pratibha Singh and Shivangi Singh graduated from the Indian Air force, Dundigal and joined the advanced stream of fighter aircraft training. The two were among 15 women officers who will join the IAF. With the commissioning of Pratibha (Rajasthan) and Shivangi (Varanasi), the total number of women fighter pilots in the IAF has gone up to five.
DON’T MESS WITH THESE SENIORS
P. Darshan, 67, and his wife Balangani, 62, of Ghatkesar foiled an attempt of two motorcycle-borne chain snatchers. The elderly couple were rewarded by the police for fighting chain snatchers bravely. The two were travelling on a scooter when the chain snatcher tried to snatch the mangalsutra from the elderly woman. The couple restrained the accused and foiled the attempt. The police caught the suspect and arrested him based on clues obtained from them. The Commissioner of Rachakonda felicitated the elderly couple.
THE MISSILE GIRL
Behind the development of India’s Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) Shield is a bright defence scientist Shashikala Sinha from DRDO. The woman scientist is the project director for ‘The of AAD’ that successfully scored a direct hit on incoming missile. The 57-year-old mother of two spearheaded India’s charge in building an impregnable BMD. Shashikala, with the Research Centre Imarat (RCI), is an expert in the development of flight vehicles, RF Seekers, Radomes, radar cross sections and related technologies.
YOUNG ACHIEVER VS OLD HABITS
Narasimha Donthineni, a student of IIM-Rohtak and a graduate from CBIT Hyderabad, won the Indian Young Achiever Award for his work on modernising public libraries in the city under GHMC limits. Narasimha had fought for the efficient functioning of public libraries in Hyderabad. He found that Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) had collected '339.87 crore as library cess between 2006-2013 but remitted only '38.1 crore. He filed a public interest litigation against the GHMC and the state government for non-remittance of the library cess. The state filed a counter petition supporting him.
PIONEERING EFFORT IN SANITATION
Ms Haseena Begum is a 49-year-old home-maker living in Talab Katta, located close to the Charminar and falls within the South Zone limits. The place is infamous for its sub-par infrastructure and poor sanitation. But to everyone’s surprise, Ms Haseena Begum has been doing her bit to keep her locality clean. She has been segregating waste, biodegradable and non-biodegradable, for long — much before the municipal corporation began encouraging it. She finally reaped the benefits of 18 years of toiling when GHMC rewarded her with Rs 50,000 for separating wet and dry waste at household level.
THE STANDOUT START-UP
Dr Meghana Kambham of the start-up ‘Care N Grow’, incubated in T-hub, is the first company to be granted a ‘patent pending’ status for contribution to preventive medicine. The start-up has developed an application by which a comprehensive medical check-up can be done in a classroom by teachers using a smart phone. Across the world, only four women entrepreneurs were selected with Meghana being the only one from India.
CHARMINAR, A ‘SITE’ TO BEHOLD
Charminar, Hyderabad’s historic emblem, was selected as Swachh Bharat icon by the Centre in November 2017. The monument is one among the 10 icons chosen in the second phase of the Swachh Bharat Mission. The other nine are Gangotri, Yamunotri, Mahakaleshwar temple, Ujjain, Church and Convent of St. Francis of Assissi, Goa, Kaladi in Ernakulam, Gomateshwar in Shravanbelgola, Baijnath Dham, Devghar, Gaya in Bihar and Somnath temple in Gujarat. In all, 100 iconic sites will be identified across the country for development with focus on sanitation.
On a roller coaster ride
Mortuary menace
Unclaimed bodies rot in Osmania Hospital. GHMC, which collects unclaimed bodies to perform the last rites, does not turn up regularly. With stretchers almost filled, three to four bodies were kept on tables. The hospital authorities and the government swung into action following Deccan Chronicle’s expose. Nearly 40 bodies were taken away for last rites. Civic officials stated that henceforth they would dispose of the bodies every alternative days.
The Nayeem connection
In a major embarrassment to the TS police which claimed of a fair probe into the illegal activities of slain gangster Nayeem, five officials, including an SP rank officer, were suspended after they were found having links with Nayeem when he was alive. Around 16 officials were asked to tender an explanation for their alleged links with the gangster.
Bitter pill
In an incident that exposed apathy at Gandhi Hospital, a 44-year-old patient, Sarikonda Raju from Begumpet, had to enter the hospital on his son's toy bicycle after he was refused a wheelchair by the ward boys who demanded money for the service. After Raju expressed his inability to grease their palms, the ward boys left the injured man unattended. Raju's wife pushed the toy bike to move him around the wards. Raju, 45, a painter, had suffered an electric shock when he came in contact with a hanging live wire and suffered injuries in his head.
Stirring controversy
Prof. Kancha Ilaiah stirred a controversy in 2017 with his book Samajika Smugglurlu Komatollu. The well-known author was under attack from the Vyshya community in TS and AP, who took to streets demanding a ban on the book which led to law and order problem.
However, Prof. Ilaiah put up a brave front and defended his book and even dared the Vyshya community to have an open debate with him. In the book, Prof. Ilaiah explains why other communities dislike the Vysyas — a trading community. He advises them to join the Indian Army to fight for the nation.
Law unto himself
In a first of its kind incident, an IPS officer was caught cheating in an entrance test. Safeer Karim, 29, an assistant superintendent of police in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, was arrested in October for using high-tech devices, including a micro-camera and a small earpiece, during the UPSC entrance test in Chennai. Kareem placed the camera under the shirt's collar and connected it to a mobile phone via Bluetooth. He took pictures of the question paper and transmitted it. His wife, on the other end, was dictating him answers. His wife, Joicy Joyce, was arrested from Hyderabad. Kareem, a 2015 batch officer, said that a Malayalam movie, Commissioner, inspired him to join the police service.
No Love lost
Dirtied and vandalised, the popular ‘Love Hyderabad’ had to be dismantled and shifted from Tank Bund to People’s Plaza, no thanks to the irresponsible behaviour of Hyderabadis . The typo graphic structure was completely defaced with scribbling, shoe marks and stains. The monument was erected to offer a recreational facility but the callous way in which the public treated it did bode well for it.
OU’s loss Manipur’s gain
In a shocking move, Indian Science Congress (ISC) was shifted to Manipur University from Osmania University. Students slammed Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and the vice-chancellor for it. E Murali, a 20-year-old student, allegedly committed suicide inside the OU hostel. The incident triggered protests, creating security concerns in the campus and ISC was postponed over security reasons. In its over 100-year-old history, it was for the first time ISC was put off. Students now allege that OU may never get the chance again to host ISC.
