The monsoons came late over the semi-arid regions of central India this year.

While several farming villages suffered from drought, Kothapally village in Ranga Reddy district of Andhra Pradesh had water in their wells for drinking and irrigating crops.
Empowering people

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and a consortium of partners including international, national, governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) empowered the people of Kothapally to cope with drought for more than nine years through community watersheds.

Visakhapatnam, Aug. 13: The wildlife wing of the state forests department decided to seek conservation plan for highly endangered species from all the forest conservators on the Andhra Pradesh coast. Responding to a report appeared in these columns,

Visakhapatnam, Aug. 13: The district administration is making all arrangements for distributing forest land to the tribal farmers who have been cultivating there since generations. In the first phase an extent of 60,000 acre in Paderu revenue division alone would be distributed and the process would be launched by the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, during his visit to the district on August 17.

Visakhapatnam, Aug. 12: The district collector, Mr Sanjay Kumar, asked the agriculture officials to focus on the drip irrigation. Talking to the officials at a review meeting held here on Tuesday, the collector told them to encourage farmers to cultivate cashew, mango and orange through drip irrigation as per the fertility of the land under state government's Indira Prabha scheme.

Hyderabad, Aug. 12: Reliance Industries has decided to go ahead with crude oil production from the Krishna-Godavari (K-G) basin Dhirubhai-26 fields as there are no legal restrictions on oil production from the basin. RIL sources said production of crude oil will start from the third week of September and an estimated 20,000 barrels of oil are likely to be produced per day during the initial period.

Kadapa, Aug. 9: The Telugu Desam (TD) president, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, alleged that the government was taking land from the poor in the name of establishing Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and demanded the release of a white paper on SEZs.

Speaking to newsmen at Potladurthy in Yerraguntla mandal in Kadapa district on Saturday, he said the white paper should include details on purchase of land in various parts of the state, their market rate, amount paid to farmers, fees paid in registrar offices and allocation of lands.

Hyderabad, Aug. 3: As many as three suspected cases of dengue have been reported from Kukatpally in two weeks. Citizens residing in Borabanda, Ameerpet, Malkajgiri, Uppal, Singareni colony and Saroornagar have been lodging complaints against the mosquito menace in their regions. At least 264 cases of malaria have been reported at government hospitals alone in the last four months.

WE HAVE got to face up to the fact that India as a whole is in the midst of a serious energy deficit. Insufficient power could well turn out to be the Achilles heel of this country's dream of making rapid economic strides to fight poverty and to remain lodged on a relatively high growth trajectory. It is instructive to note that in spite of the economic reforms of 1991, the power industry has not been able to attract the expected level of private investment, domestic or foreign.

Hyderabad, Aug 1: Water levels in Singur and Manjira reservoirs have plummeted drastically. With no significant rain even as half the season is over, water board officials are hoping for the best. Singur and Manjira reservoirs have emerged as the two main sources of water supply to the city after the Osmansagar and Himayatsagar reservoirs almost dried up.