The favorite leader of Telugu people, Dr. YS Rajasekhara Reddy had lost his life in an accident in the service of the people. Dr. YSR walked in and out of our lives leaving fondest of memories.

He was a great warrior and endeared us with his fighting spirit, and service to the people with a perennial smile on his face.

He was the greatest leader of the masses and will be remembered by one and all for generations to come.

Even though he left us physically, he remains forever deeply etched in our memories, lives and thoughts. A day would not go by for most of us without a thought of this great man.

Dr. YSR followers have been celebrating the legacy and life of the great YSR every year religiously on his Jayanthi (July 8th) all across the US.

This year, we will have a grand YSR Jayanthi celebration in Atlanta on July 18th, with some special guests like Sri. Ambati Rambabu (Official Spokesperson), Sri. Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy (Member of Parliament – Khammam), Sri. Midhun Reddy (Member of Parliament – Rajampet), Sri. Chalamalasetti Sunil (Kakinada), Sri. Alla Ramakrushna Reddy (MLA – Mangalagiri), Sri. Gadikota Srikanth Reddy (MLA – Rayachoti), Sri. Adimulapu Suresh (MLA – Santhanutalapadu), Sri. Rajanna Dora (MLA – Salur), Sri. Gudivada Amarnath (Vizag), Sri GVD Krishna Mohan (Eminent Journalist), and Smt. Vasireddy Padma have confirmed their attendance, besides some prominent local YSR followers.

Please make travel arrangements and mark your calendar to attend the event. All YSR followers are welcome to attend and cordially invited. We will update all the pertinent details in the next few days.

Veteran Ghazal singer from Telangana, Pandit Vithal Rao, who had been missing from last month in Shirdi, passed away. He breathed his last on Friday. He was 86 year old. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. However, the exact reasons behind his death is yet to be known.

Telangana Chief Minister KCR has expressed his deep condolences to the bereaved family. Mr Rao wanted to felicitate Vithal on the eve of the first anniversary of the Telangana State formation. Due to his sudden missing, he couldn’t make it to the do.

Vithal who went to Shirdi pilgrim on May 24 along with his family members had been missing from then after Sai Baba’s darshan. Since then, his family was tracing for his whereabouts.

Vithal had the distinction of being the last court singer of the Nizam of Hyderabad. He is known for his expert rendition of Sufi lyrics by Hazrat Amir Khusro and also Makhdoom Mohiuddin’s ‘Ek chameli ke mandve tale’. His students have posted a Facebook page titled ‘Finding Vithal Rao’ to trace him.

The bail petition of beleaguered TDP MLA Revanth Reddy, who was caught red-handed in the sensational cash-for-vote case, was postponed to June 30th. The ACB Court has postponed the petition to Tuesday raising hope in the TDP circles. Earlier in the day, the court took note of the  Forensic Science Lab (FSL) report over the video footage of his conversation with nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson.

When the judge questioned defense lawyer that why bail should be given to Revanth, defense lawyer replied that the total investigation regarding the case was completed and stated that ACB has already seized all the evidences. Alleging that Revanth Reddy was framed in the case, Revanth’s lawyer claimed that there was “political conspiracy” behind implicating Revanth’s name.

Lawyer Siddharth Luthra further demanded that case be registered under sections 171(B) and 171(E). Citing that the accused is Kodangal MLA and has been in jail for the past 25 days, the defense lawyer asked the court to grant him conditional bail.

Meanwhile, the prosecution argued that Revanth shouldn’t be granted bail raising suspicion that he’d influence the witnesses and distort the fact. Prosecution countered that the investigation hasn’t completed yet and said that it want to know from where the balance Rs 4.5 Crore would come from.

As soon as he was being cornered after the breakout of his shady association with the Union Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, former IPL boss Lalit Modi is in no mood to be bogged down to pressure. Instead, he is on a revelation spree in which he is letting out all the names of his detractors that he met in the past.

In his latest attack, Modi dropped a tweet bomb to stun the country by dropping the names of the Gandhi scions, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi and also Rabert Vadra. Lalit said that he met these three Congress biggies in London last year and even reminded that Congress led UPA was in power that time. Modi even questioned why these three never came out in open about their association with him.

Not stopping here, Modi further warned that his detractors can call him and that he will tell them what he feels about the Gandhi scions. Targeting Congress, Modi also said that witch-hunt will not help. While his tweets have put Congress in the lurch, this gave BJP the much needed relief.

However, soon after Modi’s revelations, Congress hit back at him saying, “No crime if Priyanka and Vadra met Lalit Modi in London.” The Congress further alleged that Lalit Modi is trying to divert the whole issue.

In a shameful revelation, the Telugu Desam Party MP from Amalapuram constituency, Ravindra Babu Pandula, made several controversial statements against the Indian Army on a popular national news channel. The MP said that people who join the Indian Army willingly enter the services to toil themselves but enjoy free perks like liquor, food, holidays etc.

The MP, even after making these ridiculous comments, did not budge and refused to apologize to the Indian Army for his shocking comments. What’s more shocking is that the MP made these comments in a reply to the retired Indian Army Major Vijay. Even though Ravindra Babu made these comments during the Ashok Gajapathi Raju’s ‘matchbox fiasco’ in April, the talk show video started to go viral only recently.

Even while the people were finding it too audacious of the Union Minister of Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju’s statement in which he said that he carries matchboxes on flights but he was never frisked, these comments again by a TDP MP have only ruined the reputation of the party and raised serious questions over the credibility of these law makers elected by their people.

One of the biggest disadvantages to Andhra Pradesh post-bifurcation is that all the major super specialty hospitals are located in Hyderabad. So for advanced healthcare, it is inevitable that one travel to Hyderabad until similar hospitals take shape in Andhra Pradesh.

But healthcare and social welfare does not seem to be a priority with the government of Andhra judging by its actions.

Andhra Pradesh is badly in need of funds and no one denies this fact. But how appropriate is it to raise revenues through promoting greater liquor consumption by the public?

The government intends to raise an additional Rs 3000 crore by taking 10% ownership of retail liquor shops and selling liquor in shopping malls apart from increasing the number of licenses for retail outlets.

Can economic development only come at the expense of social degeneration? What is this ‘boss’?

The tempers in Hyderabad may be rising once again with all the political controversies, cases and other things which are currently happening for close to a month in the common capital. Things at once look beyond control whereas the other occasion there is silence all over in the city.

All said and done, the people here are very firm on one issue, they don’t want any re-run of what happened between 2009 and 2014. It was one of the dark phases for Hyderabad with bandhs, strikes and agitation for separate Telangana statehood. No one wants to revisit the bad phase again.

However at the same time confusion and tension over Section 8 is now palpable on the faces of AP & TS chief ministers and the ruling set of ministers on both sides. In this regard, Telangana is naturally opposing imposing of section 8 and this message was conveyed in public by IT minister KTR.

Modi tweeted on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of one of India’s darkest periods saying this time 40 years ago, democracy was quashed and emergency was imposed. To this tweet, KTR added that there are attempts to stifle democracy similarly and impose outside rule on Hyderabad now and expressed hope that no such decision would be taken by centre.