TAJA is preparing to celebrate the advent of the Sarvajit new year with style and pomp. As you might be aware, sports in various categories are progressing with enthusiastic participation by the community. Preperations are on by various participating teams for the cultural extravaganza that is planned for the evening of Saturday, April 21 2007 at the Bartram Trail High School in St. Johns county. Come over, join us, and together, let us make this an evening to remember!

Here is a sampling of what is on tap for the big day.

• Baby sitters with entertainers (Clown, balloons etc) will keep your children busy while you are watching the show.
• Pizza for children.
• Entertainment for all ages. Programs based on various genre like classical / semi-classical / movie music etc.
• DVD / Jewelery sale on the sidelines.
• Some local organizations are setting up booths along with raffles and prizes, so, do visit them.
• Pattukunte Pattu Chira (Sponsored by realestates4hyderabad) – Photos of two sarees will be displayed at their booth. To participate, just visit the booth and drop your name in the drawing box. We will draw 12 lucky finalists (6 for each saree) and who ever guesses the right price of the saree will win the saree.
• TAJA Medhavulu (Sponsored by HCL Systems) – Our MCs will ask questions and who ever gives the right answer will get a gift card.
• Professional Portrait Photography at the entrance. Each photo is $10 and the money raised will go to a TAJA Charity.
• Delicious Dinner follows the event.
• For each membership we are giving a free Telugu 'Panchamgam', sponsored by one of our partners TeluguOne.

As usual, we would like to have your cooperation during and after the event. Here are some ground rules that are required to be followed at all times within the school campus:

• No food or beverages of any type (except baby formula) will be allowed inside the auditorium.
• Use only designated areas for disposing trash. Always clean up after yourselves.
• No smoking, alcoholic beverages or controlled substances are allowed anywhere on campus. The police strictly enforce this rule, so, if you have to smoke during the event, you will have to exit onto Roberts road!
• TAJA will not be responsible or liable (for your actions) in any way if law enforcement catches you breaking these rules.

For the more inquiring/curious minds, here are some drawings of the Auditorium and the Cafeteria at the venue. For additional details about this event, please feel free to email our Ugadi coordinators.

For directions, please follow the link below.

| Sarvajit Ugadi Bonanza | 04.21.2007 | 3.00 PM | Bartram Trail High School |

As many of you maybe aware, the TAJA Ugadi 2007 celebrations are now underway. The cricket, volleyball and kabaddi finals were tightly contested. Most of the children and ladies competitions were also completed over the last weekend. Here are the results of some of the games completed over the Easter weekend.

Cricket Winners - Mourya team, led by Rama Avvaru
Cricket Runners - Kakatiya team, led by Goutham Katta
Volleyball Winners - Team led by Venkata Lukalapu
Volleyball Runners - Team led by Sai Katragadda
Kabaddi Winners - Team led by Harinath Kandala
Kabaddi Runners - Team led by Inder Katta
Bowling Winner - Jyothi Bikkumanla
Bowling 1st Runner up - Madhuri Nimmagadda
Bowing 2nd Runner up - Smitha Sinha
Bowling Group Winner - Sheetal Mouya, Madhuri Nimmagadda, Saritha Chakkila, Lakshmi Karri, Anupama Gattupalli, Swarupa Paladugula.
Tennicoit Winner team - SriPriya Miryala, Saritha Chakkila, Swaroopa Paladugula
Tennicoit Runner team - Radhika Kandlakunta, Padma Challagulla, Krishna Priya

For more details about the competition schedules, current standings and scores, please visit our website.

When we threw open the doors asking for nominations for the new committee, little did we expect that there would be a flood of direct as well as indirect nominations for the various posts. It is greatly inspiring to see that the community is more actively coming forward to help run TAJA knowing fully well that it is purely voluntary.

The TAJA AGM was held on Monday April 2nd at 6 PM at the Southeast branch of the Jacksonville Library. What was perhaps the largest turnout to date also included the somewhat rare occurence of having all past Presidents of TAJA present at the meeting. President Sreedhar gave a broad outlook of what events were undertaken over the last year. He also gave us an overview of the balance sheet. This was followed by updates by Jyothi (Telugu Badi), Aditya (Event ratings) and Sanjeev (Sports).

The new committee was then officially nominated by the first three Presidents based on the nominations that were received. While you will have a chance to meet most of them during the Ugadi Bonanza later this month, here is the list of the Sarvajit committee members...

• President - Mallikarjuna J
• Vice President - Srinivas Y
• Secretary - Aditya V
• Treasurer - Janardhan K
• President Elect - Dora D
• Past President - Sreedhar N
• Event Coordinators - Saishankara V, Padma P, Sashi V, Aruna K, Murali G, Dayakar R
• Sports Coordinators - Venkata L, Vasudeep Y, Mahendra G, Radhika K
• Web Coordinator - Srinivas N
• PR - Ramesh G
• Youth Coordinators - Sandeep K, Nityasree S
• Telugu Badi - Srilatha P

Jet Airways may finally be able to buy Air Sahara after all! After prolonged arbitration, Sahara was valued at a revised figure of Rs. 1800 crores. Jet seems to be in agreement with this revised vlauation and we can expect an official announcement in the weeks to come.

Jet had made a bid to take over Sahara last year, but the deal soon hit troubled waters as Jet thought that Sahara was overvalued. Jet had already paid Air Sahara an amount of Rs 500 crores towards the failed bid.

Tata Motors has entered into a joint venture with Fiat with an investment of Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) at Ranjangaon in Maharashtra to manufacture 100,000 cars and 200,000 engines annually. The four-door car will be designed to seat 4 or 5 people, with the 600 cc engine at the rear. The car is expected to be priced starting at 1 lakh rupees.

Not to be left behind, Habib Motors of Pakistan is launching a small car of its own! In what can be seen as a scaled down version of the model TATA intends to produce, this is a bare-bones four-wheeler. Sporting a 175 cc engine, the Sitara is an open top city-cart. The car runs on petrol, has a 10-litre fuel tank and a four speed manual transmission. It can achieve a top speed of 60 kmph.

Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will be coming up with a refinery at Kakinada. The ONGC Kakinada refinery would have a capacity of 15,000 million tonnes and would cost the corporation about Rs. 20,000 crores. ONGC Chairman RS Sarma said that a company Kakinada Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd was already registered and that a viability study was undertaken. The Export Oriented Unit would be built in about four to five years time. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd will have a 46% stake in this refinery.

The Andhra Pradesh government sanctioned Rs. 10 crores each to the three new IIITs being set up at Idupulapaya in Kadapa, Basar in Adilabad and Nuzvid in Krishna on Monday. While reviewing the status of the new universities and 21 Century Gurukulams on Monday, the Chief Minister directed the Finance department to release the money to the IIIT centres this academic year.

He said that the 21st Century Gurukulam proposed for Basar be shifted to some other place in Adilabad district since a new IIIT would be established there. The proposed Telangana University at Nizamabad would have 5777 acres of land and the one at Nalgonda, 100 acres. The Nalgonda District Collector has been asked to handover the land for the construction of buildings.

The US government can open its consulate in Hyderabad and start operations early in 2008 provided the State Government hands over the Paigah Palace to them by next month. The US State department under secretary for management Henrietta H Fore conveyed this to the Chief Minister, Dr. YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

A ten-member delegation called on the Chief Minister in the Assembly premises and held discussions with him. HUDA is presently functioning from Paigah Palace and the State Government had in principle agreed to hand over the heritage structure to the US government for opening the consulate. The US Government evinced interest in the Assembly proceedings and the ongoing developmental programmes in the State.

Forbes names Pune as the third fastest emerging global city for 2007. Other cities (ranks in brackets) in this list are: Chengdu, China (1); Toulouse, France (2); Warsaw, Poland (4) and Abu Dhabi, UAE (5).

France once again sets record for the world's fastest train on rails. The french train reached a maximum speed of 574.8 kph during an early April run.

The first-ever Indian mango-tasting festival in the US will be held this year in Washington DC (starting) from June 27.

Baja Auto to launch CNG two wheelers this summer.

Air Deccan starts daily flights on the Hyderabad - Bhubaneshwar (via Delhi) and the Vizag - Bhubaneshwar sectors.

AP Legislative council is re-formulated after a gap of 22 years.

US based Well's Fargo Bank's back office in India starts operations in Hyderabad.

Visakha Refinery of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) has achieved the highest annual crude throughput of 9.2 million metric tons as against (it's previous record of) 7.8 mmt accomplished in 2004-05.