$30,000 reward offered for information on missing Indian baby Saanvi Venna

safia@coastaldigest.com (Agencies )
October 25, 2012

SaanviKing of Prussia, October 25: The local police and the Telugu community have announced a $30,000 reward for information leading to the safe return of 10-month-old baby Saanvi Venna, who has been missing from her parents' apartment in the US state of Pennsylvania since Monday. Her paternal grandmother, who was baby-sitting her, was found murdered in the apartment. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has joined the massive search for the baby.

Investigators believe Saanvi was abducted between 8 am and 1 pm local time on Monday from the family's apartment in King of Prussia, a Philadelphia suburb. The baby's grandmother, 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna, had arrived from Andhra Pradesh in India in July and was scheduled to return home in January. Investigators would not immediately say how the grandmother was killed or whether there were any suspects. "All of our resources are focused on finding Saanvi and reuniting her with her parents," Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said in an interview. "The search for the child is intricately connected to the homicide investigation", he added.

The FBI is assisting in the investigation, said Frank Burton, a spokesman for the agency's Philadelphia office. The police, who issued an "Amber alert" or child abduction energency alert for the missing baby, have been searching the apartment complex and surrounding areas, apart from announcing the $30,000 reward.


Baby Saanvi's parents, father Venkata Konda Siva Venna, and mother Chenchu Latha Punuru, emigrated to the US from India in February 2007. The couple lived in San Antonio, Cleveland and Troy, Michigan, before moving to the Philadelphia-area apartment complex in June this year.They have made frantic appeals for any information on the baby's whereabouts.

Venkata Konda Siva Venna issued a tearful plea for his baby's return. "If someone finds my baby, could you please bring my baby back?" he was quoted as saying by the Philly Inquirer.

Ram Venna, the child's uncle, who has flown in from his home in San Jose, California, said, "Pleading everyone's help in finding my 10-month-old niece. Please call the police if you have any information that can help in locating Saanvi. All the family is grieving my mother's tragic death and praying for the safe return of my niece Saanvi. I hope we can successfully locate Saanvi."

Madhukar Sanikommu of Warren, New Jersey, a cousin of Saanvi's father, said the family was trying to hold on to hope that the girl would be found. "We're all devastated right now," Sanikommu said.

The Telugu Association of North America (TANA) organised a candle light vigil on Tuesday night in memory of Satyavathi Venna.


Earlier post: Indian woman killed, grand-daughter abducted in US

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Moscow, Aug 7: Russia will register its first vaccine against the coronavirus on August 12, Deputy Health Minister Oleg Gridnev said on Friday.

The vaccine has been developed jointly by the Gamaleya Research Institute and the Russian Defence Ministry.

"The vaccine developed by the Gamaleya centre will be registered on August 12. At the moment, the last, third, stage is underway. The trials are extremely important. We have to understand that the vaccine must be safe. Medical professionals and senior citizens will be the first to get vaccinated," Gridnev told reporters at the opening of a cancer centre building in the city of Ufa.

According to the minister, the effectiveness of the vaccine will be judged when the population immunity has formed.

Clinical trials of the vaccine began on June 18 and included 38 volunteers. All of the participants developed immunity. 

The first group was discharged on July 15 and the second group on July 20.

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News Network
May 28,2020

New Delhi, May 28: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey today reinforced his stance on pointing out "incorrect or disputed information about elections globally", a day after US President Donald Trump threatened to shutter social media over Twitter's actions on his posts.

Mr Dorsey appealed to "leave our employees out of this" as the face-off with Mr Trump is likely to escalate.

"Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make," Mr Dorsey tweeted.

"This does not make us an 'arbiter of truth.' Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions," said the Twitter CEO.

Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.

— jack (@jack) May 28, 2020

"Per our Civic Integrity policy (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/election-integrity-policy), the tweets yesterday may mislead people into thinking they don't need to register to get a ballot (only registered voters receive ballots). We're updating the link on

@realDonaldTrump tweet to make this more clear," Mr Dorsey tweeted.

Twitter had tagged two of Mr Trump's tweets in which he claimed that more mail-in voting would lead to what he called a "rigged election" this November. There is no evidence that attempts are being made to rig the election, and under the tweets Twitter posted a link which read: "Get the facts about mail-in ballots."

Five states in the US already conduct elections primarily by mail-in vote: Utah, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon.

For years, Twitter has been accused of ignoring the US President's violation of platform rules with his daily, often hourly barrages of personal insults and inaccurate information sent to more than 80 million followers, news agency AFP reported.

But Twitter's slap on the wrist was enough to drive Mr Trump into a tirade - on Twitter - in which "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Mr Trump said.

He said that an increase in mail-in ballots - seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic - will undermine the election.

"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots," wrote Mr Trump, whose re-election campaign has been knocked off track by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned a top-10 trending hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded in to the row, telling Fox News that his social network - still the biggest in the world - has a different policy. "I just believe strongly that Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Mr Zuckerberg said in a snippet of the interview posted online Wednesday by Fox.

"I think, in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," he said.

 he claimed that the political right in the US is being censored.

"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Mr Trump said.

He said that an increase in mail-in ballots - seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic - will undermine the election.

"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots," wrote Mr Trump, whose re-election campaign has been knocked off track by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned a top-10 trending hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded in to the row, telling Fox News that his social network - still the biggest in the world - has a different policy. "I just believe strongly that Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Mr Zuckerberg said in a snippet of the interview posted online Wednesday by Fox.

"I think, in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," he said.

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News Network
April 2,2020

Washington, Apr 2: The total US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 4,000 early Wednesday, more than double the number from three days earlier, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The number of deaths was 4,076 -- more than twice the 2,010 recorded late Saturday.

More than 40 percent of recorded deaths nationally were in New York state, the Johns Hopkins data showed.

On Tuesday the United States exceeded the number of deaths in China, where the pandemic emerged in December before spreading worldwide.

The number of confirmed US cases has reached 189,510, the most in the world, though Italy and Spain have recorded more fatalities.

After initially downplaying the threat from new coronavirus in the early stages of the US outbreak, President Donald Trump warned of "a very, very painful two weeks" to come for the country on Tuesday.

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