Amaravati: A home guard was killed and another person injured when a tanker ran amok in Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada district on Saturday.
The incident occurred on national highway at Bendapudi in Tondangi ‘mandal’ (block) around 3 a.m.&nbsp;
According to police, the tanker laden with acid ran amok at RTA checkpost. It rammed into a truck parked there and also knocked down two persons on the road.
A homeguard, identified as Govindrajulu, died while being taken to a hospital. Another injured was undergoing treatment.
The tanker driver lost control of the vehicle resulting in the accident.
Police registered a case and took up further investigation. In another road accident that occurred in Krishna district, five persons were injured.
The accident occurred when a car in which they were travelling overturned after hitting the road divider in Ampapuram in Bapulapadu ‘mandal’ .
The victims were on their way to Hyderabad after attending a wedding at Attili.
—IANS
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A home guard was killed and another person injured when a tanker ran amok in Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada district on Saturday.

 One killed as tanker runs amok in Andhra

Andhra Pradesh

Amaravati:&nbsp;Five persons were killed in a road accident in Andhra Pradesh's Prakasam district in the early hours of Monday.A car rammed into a truck from rear near Cumbam in Prakasam district. All five occupants of the car died on the spot.The accident occured on Amaravati-Anantapur highway. The deceased, including three women, were on their way to Tirupati from Macherla.The deceased were identified as Animi Reddy (60), Guravamma (60), Anantamma (55), Adilaxmi (58) and Nagi Reddy (24).On receipt of the information about the accident, police rushed to the scene and shifted the bodies to a nearby government hospital for autopsy.The deceased hailed from Sirigiripadu village in Veldurti mandal of Palnadu district.Police suspect that overspeeding led to the collision. A police officer said they have registered a case and took up investigation.—IANS

Five persons were killed in a road accident in Andhra Pradesh's Prakasam district in the early hours of Monday.

 5 killed as car rams into truck in Andhra

Sriharikota:&nbsp;An Indian rocket Sunday successfully launched into orbit two foreign satellites, marking Indian space agency ISRO's 100th mission in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh."As ISRO's 100th space mission, today's launch is a milestone in our nation's space capabilities," the prime minister said here after the launch.Exactly at 9.51 a.m., the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C21 (PSLV-C21), standing around 44 metres tall and weighing around 230 tonne, with a one-way ticket, hurtled itself towards the skies ferrying two the satellites - SPOT 6, a French earth observation satellite weighing 712 kg, and a 15 kg micro satellite Proiteres from Japan.The PSLV, costing around Rs.75 crore, blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, around 80 km from Chennai.The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has now completed its 100th mission since the launch of first satellite Aryabhata in 1975 by a Russian rocket.With a rich orange flame at its tail and plume of white smoke, the rocket ascended towards the sky amid cheers of ISRO scientists and media team assembled at the launch centre.People perched atop the nearby buildings too happily clapped as the rocket went up.Space scientists at ISRO new rocket mission control room were glued to their computer screens watching the rocket escaping the earth's gravitational pull.At around 18 minutes into the flight, PSLV-C21 delivered SPOT 6 and a few seconds later Proiteres into a 655 km polar orbit inclined at an angle of 98.23 degree to the equator.Immediately on the successfully ejection of the two satellites, scientists at the mission control were visibly relieved and started clapping.Manmohan Singh, who along with Minister in Prime Minister's Office, V. Narayanasamy, witnessed the launch, congratulated ISRO scientists and engineers and EADS Astrium of France and Osaka Institute of Technology of Japan for the successful launch of their satellites."Questions are sometimes asked about whether a poor country like India can afford a space programme and whether the funds spent on space exploration, albeit modest, could be better utilised elsewhere."This misses the point that a nation's state of development is finally a product of its technological prowess," the prime minister said.ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan thanked the scientists and engineers after the launch.The remote sensing satellites send back pictures and other data. The SPOT and Indian remote sensing satellites are the two leading earth observation satellite series.Interestingly, SPOT 6 is the heaviest foreign satellite to be carried by a PSLV rocket since 1999 when ISRO started launching satellites owned by foreign agencies.Proiteres, the Japanese satellite, intends to study powered flight of a small satellite by an electric thruster and observe Japan's Kansai district with a high-resolution camera.ISRO has been carrying foreign satellites since 1999 initially as an add-on luggage to its own satellite.It was with Agile, a 350 kg Italian satellite, that ISRO started flying a commercial rocket. Till date, ISRO has launched 27 foreign satellites successfully and the Sunday mission took the tally to 29.—IANS

An Indian rocket Sunday successfully launched into orbit two foreign satellites, marking Indian space agency ISRO's 100th mission in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

 India's maiden small rocket mission fails, two satellites unusable

Sriharikota:&nbsp;The maiden launch of India's brand new rocket is keeping the country in suspense as to its fate on Sunday morning.Hoping to celebrate in advance the country's 75th anniversary of Independence in style the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched its freshly minted rocket Small Satellite Launch Vehicle - Developmental Flight (SSLV-D1).On its first developmental flight, the SSLV-D1 carried an earth observation satellite-02 (EOS-02), formerly known as Microsatellite-2, weighing about 145 kg and the eight kg AZAADISAT built by 750 students of government schools facilitated by SpaceKidz India.About 12 minutes into the rocket's flight, ISRO announced the separation of EOS-02 and the AZAADISAT.However after that there was data loss, ISRO said leaving the nation in suspense."The AZAADISAT got separated. We can know about the satellite only at night," Dr. Srimathy Kesan, Founder and CEO, SpaceKidz India told IANS.Speaking about the mission, ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said: "The SSLV-D1 mission was completed. All the stages of the rocket performed as expected. There is some data loss in the terminal stage of the rocket."He said the data is being gathered to know the status of the mission.At about 9.18 a.m. the rocket broke free of the first launch pad here and went up into a cloudy sky. The rocket's progress was smooth with all its solid fuel powered engines performing well.The three-staged SSLV-D1 is primarily powered by solid fuel (total 99.2 ton) and also has a velocity trimming module (VTM) powered by 0.05 ton of liquid fuel for precise injection of satellites.India's newest rocket is 34-metre tall and weighs 120 ton.As per the flight plan, just over 12 minutes into its flight, the SSLV-D1 should deliver into space the EOS-2 satellite and then the AZAADISAT a few seconds later.According to the ISRO, the SSLV is a ready to transfer rocket with modular and unified systems with standard interfaces for production by the industry.The SSLV design drivers are low cost, low turnaround time, flexibility in accommodating multiple satellites, launch-on-demand feasibility, minimal launch infrastructure requirements and others, ISRO said.The commercial arm of ISRO, NewSpace India Ltd plans to transfer the SSLV technology for production in the private sector.The Indian space agency said the EOS-02 satellite is an experimental optical imaging satellite with high spatial resolution. The objective is to realise and fly an experimental imaging satellite with short turnaround time and showcase launch on demand capability.Launch of small satellites will be a dominant factor in the global space sector with about 7,000 satellites expected to be up in the sky by 2027, V.K. Saraswat, member, Niti Aayog had said at a space seminar.In all, about 7,000 small satellites are expected to be launched between 2018 and 2027 with a total value of $38 billion, Saraswat said.—IANS

The maiden launch of India's brand new rocket is keeping the country in suspense as to its fate on Sunday morning.

 On its maiden flight India's small rocket keeps the nation in suspense (Ld)

Amaravati:&nbsp;An alert conductor of a state-owned APSRTC bus averted a tragedy after the driver fell off the vehicle after a collision with a car.Passengers of the bus heaved a sigh of relief after the conductor took to the steering and controlled the vehicle after it had moved about 150 meters without a driver.The incident occurred on national highway near Kavali town in Sri Potti Sriramulu Nellore district on Wednesday. The bus belonging to Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) with 24 passengers was on its way from Kavali to Nellore town.According to police, a speeding car coming from the opposite direction rammed into the bus. Such was the impact of the collision that the bus driver fell off the vehicle onto the road.The collision sent panic among bus passengers as the vehicle continued moving without the driver. As the passengers started crying for help, conductor Nagaraju jumped to the driving seat and applied brakes, averting a disaster.The driver and 10 passengers of the bus received minor injuries in the collision. The car's front portion was badly mangled in the collision but both the occupants survived with injuries.—IANS

An alert conductor of a state-owned APSRTC bus averted a tragedy after the driver fell off the vehicle after a collision with a car.