Timely help leads to volunteering by CAs
The Hindu
Sripriya created a platform to assist T.N. in bed allocation
When Sripriya Kumar sought a hospital bed for a fellow chartered accountant during the second wave of COVID-19, she received help from a senior bureaucrat. As a gesture of gratitude, she told the bureaucrat that she would like to help the government in some way. She was directed to speak to another bureaucrat, Darez Ahamed, who invited her to look at how the government managed bed allocation. And that is how her tryst began with the government’s unified command centre for COVID-19 management. People can call 104, the government helpline for all medical-related assistance, which is managed by the unified command centre. During the second wave, the number, which in normal times would address people’s health-related questions, was used to help them access hospital beds. The tour of the unified command centre left Ms. Kumar wondering if she could assist people in seamlessly locating beds. She put out an appeal in her social media groups for chartered accountants. “We started with three volunteers, and soon the number rose to 130 CAs. The maximum number of people who supported us on any given day was 102,” she recalls.The Shakti Scheme in Karnataka has completed its first year, yet the smart cards intended for the beneficiaries remain undistributed. According to Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy, while the smart cards have been prepared, their issuance has been stalled due to the absence of electronic ticketing machines (ETMs) in all buses, making them impractical.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly R. Ashok were engaged in war of words over the Lok Sabha election results on Tuesday, with the former calling the latter “ignorant and entertaining people”. In response, Mr. Ashok said the Chief Minister “sometimes wakes up from deep slumber to exhibit his arrogance and anger”.
Makineni Jishnu Sai from Guntur secured the first position in the engineering stream while Yellu Srishant Reddy from Nizampet in Telangana bagged the first place in the Agriculture and Pharmacy (Bi.P.C. stream) in the Andhra Pradesh Engineering, Agriculture and Pharmacy Common Entrance Test (EAPCET)-2024.