The YSR Congress party government’s latest initiative “YSR Navasakam” (A new era) aimed at providing benefits of all kinds of welfare schemes to all sections of people at saturation levels is the highlight the day in the newspapers on Wednesday.
For the second time in a week, the state government issued jacket advertisements to the mainstream media, barring of course Andhra Jyothy, on the launch of YSR Navasakam from Wednesday, which it said would bring a revolution in the implementation of welfare schemes.
The scheme was obviously the lead story for Sakshi. However, both Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy have ignored this story, despite the fact that Eenadu also got the frontpage advertisement. May be, they have ignored it as enough was written about the scheme a couple of days ago.
Interestingly, English medium in government schools continues to hit the headlines in the newspapers. However, this time they focussed on the comments of YSR Congress party MP from Narasapuram K Raghurama Krishnam Raju who spoke in parliament in support of Telugu language.
Particularly, Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy carried a second lead story on how chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed anger over the MP’s comments and warned party leaders against any comments against English medium.
Though Sakshi also carried this story in the bottom half, it did not mention the name of the MP but only said Jagan had warned an MP from Godavari districts and said he would not tolerate if anybody spoke against English language which was introduced for the benefit of poor children from marginalised sections.
Similarly, the Jagan government’s decision to reduce the number of bars in the state by 40 per cent and increase the rates of liquor served in the bars was also a big news for the mainstream dailies.
Eenadu has an interesting story on how the Centre was systematically rejecting the legitimate demands of Andhra Pradesh, as was evident from the replies given by the NDA government in parliament.
The Centre has apparently stated that Kadapa steel plant and Dugarajapatnam port are not feasible, no special assistance would be given to the state to offset revenue deficit and there is no question of increasing the assembly seats till 2026.
The other reports that were missing on the front pages of other newspapers are: the decision of the Dubai-based Lulu Group not to invest in Andhra Pradesh and the decision of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams to deposit its money and gold only in nationalised banks.
Andhra Jyothy’s banner story is also its exclusive, but a negative report against the government, stating that the teaching hospitals all over the state have decided to collect fees for treatment, thereby giving up free medicare to the poor.
On the other hand, Sakshi carried a special anchor story on Veligonda project explaining how it was progressing at a high speed and the first phase is getting ready for inauguration by June.
Interestingly, Sakshi and Eenadu carried a small report on TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu’s comments on alleged false cases against his party leaders and that the party would wage a legal battle against the government. Ironically, Andhra Jyothy, considered to be Naidu’s mouth piece, ignored the same!
