Low cost sensors would radically change water management by farmers in the country. Experts are working on low cost sensors which could be handled by farmers and their school going children.

1. 4 NEWS |HYDERABAD | FRIDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2014
They claim to make AP capital Singapore model. But Singapore
capital area is only three acres
— Famers’ leader Yalamanchili Sivaji
Land identified for mega solar park
VENU K KODIMELA
Hyderabad: Farmers who
have been bogged down by
unpredictable climatic con-ditions
and erratic mon-soons
can now heave a sigh
of relief as experts are
working on mini weather
station prototypes for farm-ers
at an affordable cost.
With the help of these
prototypes, farmers can get
real time information about
their farms and weather
conditions on their mobile
phones before taking vital
decisions on water use and
fertiliser and pesticide ap-plication.
The city-based Water
and Land Management
Training and Research In-stitute
(WALAMTARI) has
come up with sensors to
monitor the use of water in
farm sector. They were un-veiled
at a national work-shop
on Climate Change
and Water: Improving Wa-ter
Use Efficiency, held in
the city recently. The sen-sors
would monitor surface
water flow, soil moisture,
relative humidity, temper-ature
and send real time
data to a mobile phone.
The information will help
a farmer to use water effi-ciently
and improve pro-ductivity
of farm. The sen-sor
is affordable and priced
at Rs 2,000. A pilot study
is being conducted in
Telangana and Andhra
Pradesh by involving farm-ers
and students. A com-mand
centre is being read-ied
at the institute to
monitor the project.
The programme, Cli-maAdopt,
assumes signifi-cance
as both the States are
witnessing huge variations
in rainfall – more intensive
rain, short spells of rainy
season and prolonged dry
periods.
In view of rising demand
for water from domestic,
industrial and farm sector,
National Water Mission
recommended that the
stakeholders ought to im-prove
water use efficiency
(WUE) by 20 percent in
the country.
Today, farm sector is
vulnerable to erratic mon-soon
and unpredictable
weather conditions. Farm-ers,
scientists and policy
makers are concerned
about potential impact of
climate change on food
security.
L Narayan Reddy, Direc-tor
General, WALAMTARI
stressed the role of water
management in different
sectors. “To improve water
use efficiency, it is neces-sary
to quantify amount of
water used for farming.
There is no proper mecha-nism
to monitor flow of
water in canals and distri-bution
of water. The sen-sors
help the farmers to
save water and improve
farm productivity. The
smart technology could be
used for pest and disease
surveillance with the help
of weather forecast besides
crop insurance.”
Sai Bhaskar Reddy
Nakka, co-ordinator, Cli-maAdapt
Project, informed
that the sensors developed
by the institute would be
open source knowledge.
Free mobile app will be
available for iPhone, An-droid
and MS Windows for
accessing information.
These prototypes
will help farmers
get real time
information about
their farms and
weather
conditions on their
mobile phones
10-year-old girl
raped by
policeman’s son
VICTOR RAO
Hyderabad: Wednesday’s
incident of firing at KBR
Park, in which Arobindo
Pharma chief was targeted,
not only highlights the rising
gun culture in the city but
also poses a bigger question
on police’ lackadaisical atti-tude
towards missing
weapons.
The AK-47 which was
used to fire at Nityananda
Reddy on Wednesday went
missing since December 26,
2013. Ironically, an FIR was
lodged with the Narsingi Po-lice
only on February 3,
2014. After that, no action
has been taken till it was
found its way into the hands
of the constable, P Obulesu,
the assailant. Unfortunately,
there are no regular internal
audits for missing weapons
in the police department.
When a weapon goes miss-ing,
the possibility of it end-ing
up in the wrong hands is
of great concern to police.
On August 5, 2014, cops
arrested a formal Naxalite
Bandaru Hanumanthu
Rayudu alias Hanumanthu
alias Sanjeev, 35, near
Gandhi Statue in Chilkalguda
area with a gun and three live
rounds were confiscated
from him. In 1995, he sur-rendered
before the CK Pally
police in Ananthapur district
quitting the People’s War
Group. A couple of years
ago, hotelier Azeemuddin
threatened a family by point-ing
gun at them. This incident
was reported from
Kushaiguda under Cyber-abad
Commissionerate.
According to experts,
these cases exhibit disturbing
trends including easy avail-ability
of guns in and around
the city and the criminal
mentality of some people
who take guns at the drop
of a hat.
It is not ‘My Home’ deal: KCR
India lost territory due to Cong: Govt
KBR shootout accused held
Security beefed up at KBR
One Interceptor, one patrolling vehicle and 20 constables will keep vigil at the park
OUR BUREAU
Hyderabad: It seems that
city police have finally
woken up from slumber after
the firing incident at KBR
Park in Hyderabad and in-creased
the security in and
around the park at all levels.
One Interceptor and one pa-trolling
vehicle, along with
20 constables, will keep vigil
of the entire park.
According to officials, half
of the constables will be
armed and half will be un-armed
and in mufti. They
will focus on main entrance
and other gates of the park.
One of the parties will keep
a watch on the pedestrians,
who move around the park.
Other parties will keep an eye
on people in the parking lots
and walkways, around the
park. While the patrolling ve-hicle
will continuously make
round of the 400 acre park,
Police personnel keep watch of KBR Park, following Wednesday’s firing incident,
in Hyderabad on Thursday
during the peak time and the
Interceptor will be ready at
the main entrance. “As en-trance
2 & 3 and 9 & 10 are
important, most of our per-sonnel
will be there,” said
Additional DCP West Zone
K R Nagaraju. The police of-ficials
will be holding a meet-ing
with the stakeholders, in-cluding
walkers and forest
officials for installation of
CCTV cameras, shortly. “We
will be taking into consider-ation
the views of residents,
forest officials and the walk-ers
association, before in-stalling
them,” said Nagaraju.
Gun culture on the
rise as cops sleep
Hyderabad: Task Force team arrested the
assailant involved in the KBR park
shootout within 12 hours of the incident
on the border of Kurnool and Anantapur
on Wednesday night. Obulesu, a constable
of Armed Reserve (AR) had boarded the
bus to Kurnool at S R Nagar in Hyderabad.
The police also arrested three others who
are suspected to be involved in the sensa-tional
case.
The police also suspects that three
other home guards were also helping
Obulesu in his crimes and efforts are
on to nab them. Obulesu earlier served
in the Greyhounds (the elite anti-
Maoist force) and was allegedly in-volved
in stealing AK-47.
He is said to have a record of threat-ening
and extorting money the morning
walkers at KBR Park. According to re-ports,
he kidnapped a high-level official
by pointing the same AK-47 recently
and extorted Rs 10 lakh from him. He
also threatened the official that he
would kill him if tried to inform the
police following which no complaint
was lodged. Based on the information
given by K Nityananda Reddy and his
brother, Prasad Reddy, and analysing
the footage from CCTV cameras in-stalled
at the nearby traffic signals at
Jubilee Hills, the investigation team got
gathered vital leads.
A cash bill found in the bag of the
assailant, led the investigators to a su-per
market near pillar number 22 in
Mehdipatnam area and based on the
information they gathered police
identified the attacker as Obulesu.
OUR BUREAU
Hyderabad: A mega solar
park with 1,000 MW in-stalled
capacity would
come up at Gattu mandal
in Mahbubnagar district
for which 5,481 acres of
land had already identi-fied,
Irrigation Minister T
Harish Rao said on
Thursday.
Replying to a question
in the Assembly, he said
the government was in the
process of finalising the
master plan with the assis-tance
of Solar Energy Cor-poration
of India (SECI).
The government will de-velop
the required infra-structure
in the park.
Union Ministry of New
and Renewable Energy
(MNRE) would provide
Central assistance of Rs 20
lakh per MW for creation
of infrastructure in the
park. Solar power devel-opers
also came forward in
a big way to set up solar
plants in the area, the min-ister
said.
The Minister also said
the government had urged
the Centre to allocate
20,000 solar pump sets to
Telangana as the demand
for the pump sets for agri-culture
purpose was high
in the State.
The State government
would provide Rs 1 lakh
subsidy on each pump set
and the Centre would also
give 30 per cent subsidy to
the beneficiary who
bought the machines, he
said. This year, Telangana
was given only 2,000
pump sets. It may be re-called
that earlier last
month, IT minister KT
Rama Rao said the State
would be floating tenders
for about 1,000-MW solar
power and this would be
one of the biggest solar
parks in the country. It is
leant that the State is keen
on harnessing all sources
of renewable energy to
plug the energy shortfall
besides meeting the grow-ing
demand.
Sources said the project
will be taken up by Telan-gana
Industrial Infrastruc-ture
Corporation in part-nership
with the Solar
Energy Corporation of In-dia
(SECI). SECI has re-portedly
given in-principle
approval for the park.
Typically 1 MW re-quires
an investment of
about Rs 6 crore and five
acres of land. Sources said
the developers of projects
would bring in their invest-ments.
The government's role
would be limited to facili-tation
and creation of nec-essary
support infrastruc-ture,
according to official
sources.
The proposed park with
1,000 MW installed capacity
will come up in 5,481 acres
of land in Gattu mandal of
Mahbubnagar district
OUR BUREAU
Hyderabad: In a
gruesome inci-dent,
a 10-year-old
girl who went
to a grocery shop
was allegedly
raped by the shop
owner, who hap-pens
to be the son
of a policeman,
in Langar Houz
area under Golconda police station limits on Thursday.
According to police, the accused Md Fasiuddin, 28,
and son of Ghousuddin, ASI, Golconda, is running the
shop. The victim, a resident of Ahmed Colony, went to
buy some grocery at about 11 am to the shop. He took
her inside the shop and raped her, police said. She was
sent for medical examination to maternity hospital in
Nayapul.
A case was registered under Section 376 (rape) of
IPC, Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 and
POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences
Act), 2012.
Affordable mini weather
stations for farmers soon
Continued from P1
In the event of the TDP member failing to prove the charges
should face stringent action by the Speaker for lowering the dig-nity
and decorum of the House, he said. Claiming to be one of
the senior most leaders in the state, the Chief Minister said that
the opposition should learn to respect at least his seniority and
desist from making wild and baseless allegations. He said he had
risen in politics from the grassroots level and was now the Chief
Minister of a new State.
He found no truth in the allegations that his government handed
over a chunk of land to My Home constructions owned by J
Rameshwar Rao after the TRS came to power. The company had
bought the land in open auction. All the payments and registration
of the land purchases were done before June 2. While the Congress
government issued the GOs they were approved by the Governor
during the period when the state was under the President’s rule,
the Chief Minister said. He further said such acts of wild allega-tions
would lead to damaging the reputation of a company and
could badly affect the investments in the new state. As TDP
leader A Revanth Reddy got up to speak Education Minister G
Jagadish Reddy and Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao confronted
him stating that he should tender apology before he could speak.
Continued from P1
Slamming the Congress for some wrong policies, Rajnath said,
“India lost precious territory to China and Pakistan due to wrong
policies of the Congress,” and added, “Congress lost Tibet to
China which acted as the ‘buffer state’ between both the countries
and Pakistan handed over Aksai Chin area to China.” India’s
stern message to China comes on the heels of its earlier warning
to China against any construction on the Indian territory. India
has firmly and repeatedly rejected China's claims to Arunachal
Pradesh and Aksai Chin, which covers about 40,000 sqkm in the
Ladakh region of Kashmir. It may be noted that Jammu and
Kashmir is going to polls over the next few weeks.
RGIA domestic terminal
named after NTR
Hyderabad: Telugu icon and founder president of TDP, N T
Rama Rao, will now share equal space with the late Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi at Shamshabad airport.
TDP leader and aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju on
Thursday ‘restored’ NTR’s name at Rajiv Gandhi International
Airport (RGIA) by ordering that the airport’s domestic terminal
be known as N T Rama Rao Domestic Terminal.
The old Hyderabad airport at Begumpet had two terminals.
The international airport was named after Rajiv Gandhi and
the domestic after NTR. “After the airport at Shamshabad was
opened, only Rajiv Gandhi’s name was given to the new air-port,”
said a senior official.