Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh), Oct 18 : The countdown to the launch of Chandrayaan-1, India’s first unmanned moon mission to be launched on October 22, will start on Monday.

Satish Dhawan Space Centre Associate Director M Y S Prasad said, "The countdown will start on Monday early morning."

On Friday, the spacecraft was moved to the launch pad.

Prasad said that preparatory activities, including checking of various parameters in payloads, to start the countdown are going on.

TATA group would set up an aerospace and precision engineering unit near Hyderabad in Andhra Paradesh. The state had also tried to lure TATA for the relocation of Nano car plant. But Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi successfully captured the small car project. 

The proposed aerospace and precision engineering unit would be one of its kinds in India. TATA would develop precision engineering systems for aviation industry, advanced surveillance systems as well as MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) operations. It would work in co operation with DRDL, DRDO, RCI, DLRL, BDL and BHEL.

By taking an educational computing initiative, over 5,000 schools in Andhra Pradesh would be assisted by NComputing. The announcement was made by NComputing itself, which further informed that this initiative is being taken with the aim to help nearly 1.8 million children across the state to get computing access. 

New Delhi, Oct. 10 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has asked all "like-minded parties" in Andhra Pradesh to unite for the creation of a separate Telangana state.

"The party would like to call upon all like-minded parties favouring a separate Telangana to unite and fight for the cause together. This is not a new call. It has been our open invitation since long," party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told reporters at New Delhi on Friday.

Asianet Television Network, a South India-based infotainment group, has made announcement about the launching of its Telugu entertainment channel ‘Sitara’ in Andhra Pradesh. 

Mr. Vijay Babu, Asianet Chief Operating Officer, said that the media Group would also launch a 24-hour news channel in the state by next month (Nov 2008).

Hyderabad, Oct 9: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) will today announce a pro-Telangana stand to pave way for an alliance with Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in the next year''s elections, reversing its traditional position opposing bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.

On Tuesday, at a meeting of the Politburo, chaired by party chief N. Chandrababu Naidu in Hyderabad, the issue was discussed and a decision was taken to make the announcement on October 9, coinciding with "Vijaya Dashami" festival, according to reports.