Last issue of AP magazine released

Hyderabad: ‘Andhra Pradesh’ magazine, which has been on the stands for the last 57 years, came out with its last issue in the united Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday. With the pictures of the new Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Ministers-elect of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh -- K Chandrasekhar Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu-- making it to the cover page, the issue of the magazine has a photo feature with the pictures of all the 294 MLAs of the undivided Andhra Pradesh.

An article on former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao has become the special attraction. In their forward and messages, both commissioner of Information and Public Relations (I & PR) Dana Kishore and director Subhash Goud hoped that good days were ahead for the people of both States in future.

The first issue of the magazine was published in November 1956 with Andhra Pradesh map on cover page. Since then, the monthly magazine was being published with the information of government welfare programs and development projects being implemented in the State.

Kapila Kasipathi, then commissioner of I & PR was the first editor of the magazine followed by Bandaru Parvathala Rao, Narendra Luther and others. The magazine faced hiccups in eighties with the change of its name as “Telugu Samacharam” for three years. But, it came out again to its old name ‘Andhra Pradesh’ and it might be continued with the same name in the residuary Andhra Pradesh.

The commissioners of I & PR worked as editors of the magazine for many years. But, men of letters such as Kudurthi Anjaneyulu, Kappaganthula Laxmana Sastry and ABK Prasad worked as editors of the magazine and enhanced the pride of Telugu language with their writings. Mahabharatham and a novel written by Vasireddy Sita Devi were published as serials. Special issue of Andhra Pradesh was published and released on the dais of Fourth World Telugu Conference held at Tirupati in 2012.

Commissioner Dana Kishore said in the forward of the magazine that the Telugu people would continue their fraternity and affection after constitution of Telangana as 29th state from June 2. “I hope employees in both States would work with commitment for the development of their respective States,” he said. Speaking to The Hans India, magazine chief editor G Valliswar said that they changed the shape of the magazine from 2006 by introducing success stories of people in rural areas and increasing literary content.