Muralidharan Pillai & Pramod Toppo
Port Blair, Sept 29: Miss Prabhabati Biswas of the Bharatiya Janata Party has been elected as the new Adhyaksha of the Zilla Parishad, North & Middle Andaman, while Shri A.T. Rao has been elected as the new Upadhyaksh.
At a gala meeting organised at the conference hall of the Parishad at Mayabunder today, both the leaders were elected to their respective posts in the presence of the State President of BJP, Shri Vishal Jolly.
Congratulating both the newly elected Adhyaksha and the Upadhyaksh, Shri Jolly expressed confidence that under their leadership the Parishad will script a new story of success and development in the district.
Shri Jolly has also extended hearty congratulations to all the candidates of the party who have emerged victorious in the recently concluded Panchayat elections and all the newly elected members of the Zilla Parishad, N&M Andaman, as well.

Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, September 28: A physically challenged man was found dead at Corbyn’s Cove beach this morning at around 06:30 am. The victim has been identified as Mr Sandeep Samanto, a resident of Birchgunj Dakiya Pahad.
According to reports, the man left his home on 25th September at 07:00pm and was not seen after that. As Mr Samanto didn’t return till the next day, the worried family members registered a missing complaint of Sandeep Samanto on 26th September at PS Pahargaon.
As per reports Mr Sandeep Samanto got married just two months back and there were also reports of dispute between husband and wife.
According to Dy. S. P South Andaman, Mohd Aslam, Police is suspecting foul play in this case as there was thick rope around the neck of the victim.
Police has sent the dead body for postmortem and the police has registered a case in this regard. As per highly placed sources, the police have picked up three persons, including victim’s wife, for interrogation.

Sarthak Kanjilal & Dilip Majhi
Port Blair, Sept 28: The Consumer Co-Operative Stores Ltd. has assured the residents of North & Middle Andaman that the issue of LPG cylinder shortage will be solved very soon.
Channel One News had recently shown exclusive footage that how people of Mayabunder region have to fight with each other to get a LPG cylinder. Channel One News had also shown footage of how people are climbing from every corners of LPG distribution truck to get a cylinder.
When questioned the newly appointed Secretary of CCS, Mr Paramasivam said that he is trying his level best to solve the distribution issues of North & Middle Andaman.
He further said that he is trying to acquire a depot at Mayabunder as per norms essential, so that the nearby areas can be covered easily for which works are in progress.
He further added that there is an urgent need of trucks to distribute cylinders and there is also a proposal of acquiring new LPG Truck. He assured that in three months the problems of the N&M district will be solved.

Trinath

Billyground, Sept 27: In spite of repeated criticism from almost all sections of the society, the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has failed to ensure reliable telecom services in the Middle Andaman region. According to reports, BSNL services in Middle Andaman has been completely black-out for the last three days and subscribers have been left with no means of communication.

Repeated calls to the SDPO Mayabunder, atleast 20 times in three days, failed to garner any response. The SDPO Office at Mayabunder is not responding to telephone calls and the whereabouts of the SDPO remains unknown till date.

After failing to contact the SDPO Mayabunder, the Swadesh Nagar Telephone Exchange was contacted to ascertain the reasons for the telecom black-out. However, the officials of the Telephone Exchange too refused to share any information in this regard.

Investigation, later conducted by Andaman Sheekha, revealed that some Daily Rated Workers of BSNL posted in the region have ceased from performing duties as their wages for the last three months have not been released.

Despite submitting their grievances before the SDPO Mayabunder, the officer remained unmoved to their plight. Due to the tussle between the DRMs and top officials of the BSNL, subscribers of the region are forced to face hardships due to communication breakdown. The general public of the area are now demanding the intervention of the Lt. Governor for an early redressal of the issue.

Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, Sept 22: The Bharatiya Janta Party today won 11 seat out of 24 seats of Port Blair Municipal Council.
The results were declared this afternoon in which Congress got 6 seats, TDP 2 seats, AIADMK, DMK got one seat each while three seats went to independent candidates.
The Panchayat and Municipal Elections were conducted in Andaman and Nicobar Islands on 20 September 2015 and today the counting of votes is being done.
While PBMC results are already out the final results of Panchayat elections will be out only by late evening, as unlike Municipal elections in PBMC elections ballot papers were used.
As per reports from ward no. 01, S. Kannan, DMK from Ward No. 02: Someshwar Rao, Bjp, Ward No. 03 Ramzan Ali, Independent Candidate, Ward No. 04 Rani, AIADMK, Ward No. 05 Selvi, TDP, Ward No. 06 Pratima Benerjee, TDP, Ward No. 07 IP Singh, BJP, Ward No. 08 K Ganeshan, Congress, Ward No. 09 Anusiaya Devi, BJP, Ward No. 10 Sheela Singh, BJP, Ward No. 11 Vinita Malhotra, BJP, Ward No. 12 SNN Grigori, BJP, Ward No. 13: Upasana Prasad, Congress, Ward No. 14 B Eshwar Rao, BJP, Ward No. 15: C H Babu, BJP, Ward No. 16: S Usha, BJP, Ward No. 17 Dharmendra Narayan, Independent candidate, Ward No. 18 Rubana Aziz, BJP, Ward No. 19 K Muthu, Congress, Ward No. 20 M Armugam, Congress, Ward No. 21 K Arubadi, INC , Ward No. 22 Vashali Rani Dayal, Congress, Ward No. 23 Sanjay Meshak, Independent and from Ward No. 24 R N K Uday Kumar, BJP won the elections.
Soon after the declaration of results there were celebrations in all the wards of Port Blair Municipal Council. Winning candidates brought out rally to express gratitude to voters.
From ward number 3 there were reports of some violence, where supporters of losing congress candidate attacked the supporters of winning candidates and media persons.
TDP which got only one seat in last PBMC elections got two seats this time while Trinamool Congress which won one seat in last elections did not even contest the elections this time.
The BJP is presently two seats short of complete majority and in case of a tie-up with recently lost friend TDP the BJP will rule the PBMC. For Congress there is still a little hope, in case the party is able to convenience a few independent candidates, all TDP candidates, AIADMK and DMK candidates, as well. It will be interesting to watch how the permutation and combination of Andaman politics works.

Sheekha Bureau
Port Blair, Sept 22: In a shocking incident, supporters of the Congress Party attacked crew members of a Channel One News after reports of loss of the party in Ward no. 3 surfaced on Tuesday. Considered a Congress bastion, the local leaders were highly hopeful of victory in the Municipal Elections in Ward no. 3.
But after the defeat of Congress candidate, Mr Selvam, supporters of the candidate resorted to clashes with supporters of other parties. Soon after the crew of Channel One News arrived the spot to cover the incident, the Congress supporters attacked them and snatched Cameras and Mobile Phones.
The Police immediately arrived at the scene and took control of the situation. Several youths of the area involved in the clashes were picked by the police team for interrogation. Further investigation is underway in the incident, according to reports.
Meanwhile, the Congress party candidates from Ward no. 3, Mr Selvam has extended his apology to Channel One News on behalf of the party workers for the incident. He also extended apology to complete media fraternity as according such attack on media is always taken very seriously by all local media units.
“I am extremely sorry for such act of the supporters. I got defeated in this election and on that the supporters have done such act, I am too upset,” said Mr. Selvam.
The Congress Party which had dominated the Port Blair Municipal Council for years managed to bag just 6 seats in the current Municipal Elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party bagged the largest number of seats, 11, in the civic body, while TDP secured 2, DMK and AIADMK secured one each and Independent candidates bagged 3 seats in the elections.
Meanwhile, this is worth mentioning here that the police team, under the leadership of SP, South Andaman, Mr. Sibesh Singh, Dy.S.P (SA) Mrs. Mohd. Aslam, Dy.S.P (CID) Mr. Subodh Goswami, SHO PS Chatham, Rashida did a commendable job by controlling the mob and giving protection to media team.