Police said, some persons gang raped her when she went to a family court in connection with a dispute. The victim informed the police that, when she was going along with a friend in the Katni area, two motorcycle-borne assailants took her away to an uninhabited place and raped her.

This happened when her friend was walking ahead of her while talking on his mobile phone. Stating that she lost her consciousness, the techie said the assailants raped her again after she recovered and decamped leaving her to fate at the place.

Police who registered a case under Nirbhaya Act are looking for the assailants and the girl’s friend who have gone untraced since then.

While the nation is struggling to come to terms with the latest spot-fixing scandal in the IPL even college students are busy making fast bucks from betting in IPL matches.

According to a report a student won Rs 22,000 in a few days in last year’s edition. by just investing Rs 1,000 . He gambled on the match results, performance of particular players and the number of runs scored per over. The student had reportedly gambled Rs 1,500 on Chris Gayle’s performance and received Rs 3,500 in return.

He said the amount of money he receives from home for his expenditure isn’t enough and the bucks earned from betting in the IPL makes up for the shortage.

Coastal Andhra and Telangana recorded highest temperatures of 44 degree Celsius while 43 degrees were recorded in Rayalaseema.

Ramagundam, Nizamabad, Medak, Adilabad and Rentachintala in Guntur district recorded 44 degrees Celsius.

About 43 degrees were recorded at Tirupati, Kadapa, Nalgonda, Hanmakonda and Guntur. Kurnool, Anantapur, Mahaboobnagar and Hyderabad recorded 42 degrees, while Nandigama in Krishna district, Nellore and Hakimpet in Rajahmundry record.

Drinking water and animal fodder have become a major deficit item in spite of the Government spending crore to supply them in intensely hit regions of the state.

Hyderabad:

E Ramya, daughter of ruling Congress party legislator Eeli Nani, approached the Legal Services Authority in Guntur, claiming that she was kept under “house arrest” by her father since she married her classmate Sandip in 2008 after a love affair.

She alleged that Nani, who represents Tadepalligudem assembly constituency in West Godavari district, also got Sandip “kidnapped” by police. Stating that she fears for his life, she urged the authorities to intervene in the matter.

The girl cried before the judge, who ordered police to shift her to the women’s protection centre.

Ramya revealed that she was in love with Sandip, her classmate in an engineering college. They married secretly after a four-year-long affair. However, her father refused to accept the marriage and did not allow her to move out of the house.

Meanwhile, talking to reporters in Tadepalligudem, Nani said he or his relatives would never interfere in the life of his daughter. He denied the allegation that he kept her under house arrest or got Sandip kidnapped.

He also broke down before the media, saying no father should face what he was going through.

Washington:

“There are some specific abuses of H-1B,” Senator Richard Durbin, said during a Congressional hearing on immigration reform by the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, during which the lawmakers discussed threadbare the H-1B visa issues.

In fact, Senator Durbin went on to brand the top  Indian IT companies as outsourcing firms.

“These outsourcing firms like Infosys, Wipro, Tata and others — Americans would be shocked to know that the H-1B visas are not going to Microsoft; they’re going to these firms, largely in India, who are finding workers, engineers, who will work at low wages in the US for three years and pay a fee to Infosys or these companies,” Mr Durbin alleged.

“I think that is an abuse of what we’re trying to achieve here. Most people would think, well, Microsoft needs these folks, and they’d be shocked to know that most of the H-1B visas are not going to companies like yours; they’re going to these outsourcing companies,” Durbin alleged.

He said this during the hearing in which two Indian Americans testified before the committee and supported the allegations of the Senator against Indian IT firms.

Brad Smith, general counsel and executive vice president, legal and corporate affairs, Microsoft, too supported the Senator on the issue.

“I personally think it’s important that we both recognise the need for these firms to evolve their business model — I’ve had these conversations myself with them in India — that encourages them to focus on hiring more people in the US,” he told lawmakers in response to a question.

The proposed comprehensive immigration bill if passed by the Congress and signed into law by the US President would bar companies from hiring people on H-1B visa if 50 per cent of their employees are not Americans.

The US India Business Council and  Confederation of Indian Industry have opposed such a move and said that this is against the spirit of India-US strategic relationship.

The issue was also raised by the Union Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, when he met the Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, in Washington last week on the sidelines of the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Mr Chidambaram told Mr Lew that “temporary relocation of knowledge workers should not be confused with immigration.”

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr Smith told lawmakers that he had told the Indian companies three years ago to change their business model which was heavily dependent on H-1B visas.

“I told them that three years ago. They better recognise that there’s no large country in the world that allows people to employ over half of their people from outside the local population. So I do support that,” he said.

“I do think it’s important that one not eliminate their ability to do good work, because they also do good work.

I don’t want to lose sight of that,” he added.

Neeraj Gupta, CEO and cofounder of Systems in Motion, who once was on the H-1B system, said the number one users of H-1B and L-1B visas are the offshoring industry.

“Also, the number one reason why enterprises use off showing programmes is for cost reduction. Isn’t there a direct correlation?  How could one miss the linkage that the visas are primarily being used for lower costs? It did not matter who the beneficiary of these visas is.

“It could be a large offshore company with headquarters in India or the US or a global major like IBM or Accenture,” he said.

Gupta said the US market is the largest revenue source for offshore vendors.

“H-1B visas allowed them to create easy mobility and keep utilisation rates high. The first question an Indian business would ask was why do we need to hire an American worker when we can get a cheaper resource in India, benched in India at a lower wage and mobilised on an as-needed basis,” he alleged.

“The offshore majors mostly hired H-1B employees because the current policy provided them a subsidy,” he said, adding that there’s a lot of resources available that one can hire and train here in the US.

“The majority of the work done by H-1B employers is really not specialist work. Most of them have between three to eight years of experience and they go on to do work for large IT departments for US banks, insurance companies, telecom operators.

“This is not the kind for which we need more H-1B visas such as what Google and Microsoft might need and is not traditionally considered specialised work,” he said.

The issue was also raised by the Union Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, when he met the Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, in Washington last week on the sidelines of the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Chidambaram told Lew that “temporary relocation of knowledge workers should not be confused with immigration.”

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr Smith told lawmakers that he had told the Indian companies three years ago to change their business model which was heavily dependent on H-1B visas.

“I told them that three years ago. They better recognise that there’s no large country in the world that allows people to employ over half of their people from outside the local population. So I do support that,” he said.

“I do think it’s important that one not eliminate their ability to do good work, because they also do good work.

I don’t want to lose sight of that,” he added.

Neeraj Gupta, CEO and cofounder of Systems in Motion, who once was on the H-1B system, said the number one users of H-1B and L-1B visas are the offshoring industry.

“Also, the number one reason why enterprises use off showing programmes is for cost reduction. Isn’t there a direct correlation?  How could one miss the linkage that the visas are primarily being used for lower costs? It did not matter who the beneficiary of these visas is.

“It could be a large offshore company with headquarters in India or the US or a global major like IBM or Accenture,” he said.

Gupta said the US market is the largest revenue source for offshore vendors.

“H-1B visas allowed them to create easy mobility and keep utilisation rates high. The first question an Indian business would ask was why do we need to hire an American worker when we can get a cheaper resource in India, benched in India at a lower wage and mobilised on an as-needed basis,” he alleged.

“The offshore majors mostly hired H-1B employees because the current policy provided them a subsidy,” he said, adding that there’s a lot of resources available that one can hire and train here in the US.

“The majority of the work done by H-1B employers is really not specialist work. Most of them have between three to eight years of experience and they go on to do work for large IT departments for US banks, insurance companies, telecom operators.

“This is not the kind for which we need more H-1B visas such as what Google and Microsoft might need and is not traditionally considered specialised work,” he said.

Ron Hira, associate professor of public policy, Rochester Institute of Technology, alleged that right now the majority of the H-1B programme is being used to hire cheap indentured workers.

“The bulk of demand for H-1B visas is being driven by the desire for lower cost workers, not a race for specialised talent or a shortage of American talent. The results show this. All of the top 10 H1B employers last year used the programme principally to outsource American jobs to overseas locations.

“Outsourcing firms have received the majority of H-1B visas issued last year. Globalisation and outsourcing will happen, but we shouldn’t be subsidising and promoting it through flawed guest worker policies,” Mr Hira said.

Noting that many claim that the H-1B guest worker programme is primarily used as a bridge to permanent immigration, Mr Hira said top H-1B employers have no intention of ever applying for green cards for their workers.

Accenture, for example, received a remarkable 4,000 H-1Bs last year alone, but it only applied for eight green cards.

“Outsourcing is only the most visible and obvious symptom of the underlying problems. Programme misuse is widespread even beyond the outsourcing terms.

“This is due to two fundamental problems: First, H-1B workers are cheaper than American workers, and second, American workers do not have a first and legitimate shot at jobs and, in fact, can even be replaced by H-1B workers. Simply put, there’s no shortage necessary before hiring an H-1B worker,” Mr Hira said. (PTI)

Born in 1927 at Mogalturu in West Godavari district, Ravuri Bharadwaja later shifted to Tadikonda in Guntur district. He had written more than 130 books, including 24 volumes of short stories, nine novels, four plays and five radio plays. He also wrote a number of books for children. “Paakudu Rallu,” a graphic account of the life behind the screen of film industry, is considered to be his magnum opus. “Jeevana Samaram” is his yet another master piece.

According to inside reports, it is heard that the AP industrial belt has taken a death blow due to the ongoing power cuts. The report has also revealed that nearly 70 percent of industries in Andhra Pradesh are shutting down due to power cuts. Among them, the majorly affected are the small scale and medium scale units which are totally wiped out.

Even the large scale units are now facing the threat because their production capacity has reduced to only 12 hours while they are supposed to function 24 hours. The final nail on the head is hit as the government authorities and officials have reportedly raised their hands and asked the industrialists to deal the power problem in their own way.

Software engineer in the US, who went missing while on a vacation last week, has been found dead, the American police said. PV Sarath Kumar, 35, worked with TCS and lived with his wife in Chicago. He was from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh and had moved to the US seven years ago.

Last week, he went on a trip to the Niagara with the visiting family of his cousin. On the way back, at Washington DC, the family noticed he was missing and thought he had missed boarding the bus after a stop for coffee.

When no news came of him, his anxious parents in Guntur filed a police complaint. They were worried that he may have been harmed.

Sarath’s wife Manjula did not go on the trip with him.

After professing love over a year over mobile phone, a 23-year-old engineering post-graduate had the shock of her life on seeing at their first meeting that her ‘sweetheart’ was a 67-year-old man.

The woman from Thiruvanathapuram had come the other day in search of the man she adored but broke down and fainted when she met him for the first time at the Kuthuparamaba police station, near here, police said.

Police said the woman had waited at the bus-stand for the man for long but he did not turn up. On seeing her roaming about, some local people informed police and she was brought to the station, police said.

On questioning her, police came to know about her quest and obtained the mobile phone number of the person she had been looking for eagerly.

They contacted the ‘lover’ and asked him to come to the police station immediately. When the ” boyfriend” finally turned up, she was shocked to find a grey-haired man, police said.

The man, however, told police that he was speaking to her just for fun and had no other intention.

Police later contacted her parents and sent her back home. (PTI)

A large part of exterior decoration of the Taj, comprising geometric designs in grey and black marble, has fallen off and no attempt has been made to replace it. “The Taj often attracts up to 1 lakh tourists a day. Unless the entry is regulated, marble, which is a soft stone, is going to disintegrate,” said Rajiv Narain who heads a travel operators group in Agra.

“The carrying capacity of a monument must be taken into account, especially when marble is known to face wear and tear. The Taj is suffering from tremendous stress. There is no ticketed entry for schoolchildren who come in huge numbers,” Mr Diwedi pointed out.

But these are not the only problems that beset India’s best-loved monument. The entire structure is wracked by an malodorous odour that comes from the nearby Taj corridor being used as a dump for the city’s waste.

“The Taj corridor should have been dismantled and greened. Instead, it is being used as a graveyard for the city’s cattle,” pointed out environmentalist Raman, a member of the newly-appointed Supreme Court monitoring committee.

The latest threat facing the monument are declining water levels of the Yamuna river, which, experts claim, have adversely affected the tomb’s structural integrity.