Telugu Desam Party president and AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu appears to be keen on getting out of Hyderabad as early as possible, as he is feeling suffocated in the Telangana regime.

Naidu is learnt to have told his Cabinet colleagues that the government would have to be shifted to Vijayawada by June 2, the day when erstwhile united AP was formally bifurcated to carve out separate Telangana State.

“There is no need for us to operate from alien land. I want all the major offices to be shifted to Vijayawada by June 2 and operate from there till the new capital is constructed,” he said.

The TDP chief said the Medha Towers on the outskirts of Vijayawada should be readied as a make-shift Secretariat by June 2 for operation of the government offices.

He instructed the officials to make arrangements for the stay of employees to be shifted from Hyderabad. If Naidu has his way, the Andhra employees would have to vacate Hyderabad in the next two weeks!

Hyderabad may be become the city in India to be entirely covered by Google Street View after the Internet services giant Google gets permission from the union home ministry.

The company agreed to a request made by Telangana government in this regard, said a statement by the state government here on Tuesday.

Telangana Information Technology Minister K. Tarakarama Rao, who is currently on a visit to the US, held talks with Google Street View team including Manik Gupta, director of product management and Narayana Tummala, ground truth engineering lead for Google.

Street View lets one explore places around the world through 360-degree, panoramic and street-level imagery.

While it has been extensively used in US, Canada and many European countries, its applications in India have been limited so far. Google has launched Street View in some of the tourist sites like Taj Mahal, and Qutub Minar in partnership with the Archaeological Society of India.

Google is in talks with the union home ministry to get their permissions for conducting the Street View exercise at a city wide level. This permission is expected to be given shortly.

“Upon the request made by the minister, Google has agreed to make Telangana the first state which will get Street View for one complete city namely Hyderabad to begin with, with subsequent extension to other major cities and towns,” said the statement.

Google has also agreed to support specific requests made by the minister to utilize Street View for monitoring of deviations from approved building plans, property tax collection, and mapping of industrial land bank located in different parts of the state.

The delegation led by the minister explained the Google team about the water grid project and how the same duct lines are going to be utilized to provide fiber optic cables to every household.

Google has embarked on a similar project called Google Fiber, which has been piloted in eight cities in the US.

It has agreed to study the Telangana model in detail through their country team in India and explore the possibility of contributing to this project, the statement added.

You might have heard stories about rich people paying huge amounts to get a “fancy number” for their cars. But, a businessman from Chandigarh has paid around 8 lakhs for a VIP number and that too for a recently purchased Honda Activa two-wheeler. Yes, you heard it right – 8,00,000 rupees for a Two-Wheeler.

Kanwaljith Walia, a food-catering business owner at Chandigarh has this undying passion for acquiring the fanciest of VIP numbers. He has already paid around 2.6 lakh rupees for getting the “CH01BC 0011” for his son’s bike. Not stopping at this, he has participated in the bidding program for “CH01BC 0001” number and has managed to buy it by paying 8.1 lakhs. But the twist is that the newly acquired number was for his newly bought scooter Honda Activa that costed him just 60 thousand rupees.

The Registration and Licencing Authority of Chandigarh is happy with the rich people’s passion for fancy numbers and are in the process of making decent money out of it. In a single day of auctioning, the authority have garnered around 78 lakhs through fancy numbers. Not a small amount, right?

Traffic police in Vijayawada city of Andhra Pradesh have penalised some youths for alleged rash driving during a “vehicle rally” they had taken out to celebrate the birthday of a local MLA’s son, who was himself present in one of the cars.

According to police, the incident occurred on Sunday evening when a group of youths had taken out a vehicle rally to celebrate the birthday of Bonda Ravi Teja, son of Bonda Umamaheshwara Rao, a TDP MLA from Vijayawada Central constituency.

“Our traffic constables manning traffic at different locations, photographed two four-wheelers and two bikes for violating the traffic rules. Those driving the vehicles were challaned under section 184 (driving dangerously) of the Motor Vehicle Act,” a senior Traffic Police officer said today.

“E-challans have been issued against the youths, who were asked to pay the fine within a stipulated period of 15-days or face further action,” the officer added.

In the footage shown on TV channels, the youngsters were seen hanging onto the doors of two four-wheelers by standing on their foot-steps besides bursting crackers while other friends were following them riding their bikes.

According to police sources, the two four-wheelers reportedly belonged to the MLA and his kin.

Don’t look for any logic in the decisions of the TDP government for it is a reincarnation of the Tughlaq regime.

The TDP government intends to bring down the consumption of liquor in AP and how does it propose to achieve this noble aim? By taking over the retail liquor business in the State on the lines of Tamil Nadu.

Since licenses given to more than 4000 liquor shops across the State are going to expire by June 30, the government has begun finalizing its new liquor policy aimed at taking over the entire business from the hands of private persons.

Ironically, the move is intended to boost revenues for the cash strapped state. And this move comes from a Party that had called for a blanket ban on the sale of liquor when in the Opposition.

How can monopolizing a business inimical to public interest and health bring down consumption? It is like, the Union Government taking over ITC to reduce smoking in the country.