Gold Treasure found in Kerala Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple

Around 90,000 crore worth treasure (Nidhi) has been found in the secret cellars of the famous Kerala Temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu - Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram). The 7 member paper appointed by the Supreme Court of India, has been preparing the list of valuable found in the cellars of Sri Padmanabhaswami Temple. The temple has 6 Secret Cellars (Nilavara – a place to keep assets safe) from Cellar A to Cellar F. Opening of each of these chambers is revealing a virtual treasure trove with precious diamonds, golden ornaments, emeralds, jewelleries, rare antique silver and brass platters and golden idols. An estimation of above 90,000 crore treasure was valued at the completion of the 6th day of valuing the assets of Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India.

Golden idol of Mahavishnu worth Rs. 500 Crore

The main treasure found on the 6th day was a one foot (12 angulams) height golden idol of Lord Mahavishnu and a 30 kg golden ‘anki’. This golden idol of Lord Vishnu is believed to be the replica of the ‘utsava vigraham' used in the temple. The golden idol of Padmanabhaswamy studded with more than 1000 previous stones is valued to around Rs. 500 Crore. Another golden idol of Lord Sree Krishna was also found which weighs around 5 kg.

Golden Coins, Ornaments, and Human figurine

Several golden coins were also unearthed yesterday which are believed to be issued during the reign of Krishnadeva Rayar in the 16th century AD. Numerous golden ornaments which were used to adorn the main deity were also found in the Vault marked A. Ornaments studded with emeralds were also found on Saturday. Numerous golden human figurine weighing 1 kg, golden bangles, golden rope, are other interesting treasure found in the Vishnu Temple.

Golden Coconut Shells

Another interesting finding was two coconut shells made of pure gold. One of this golden coconut shell was students with rare antique stones including emeralds and rubies.

Cellar B To Open on Monday

Cellar B is the remaining one secret vault which is yet to be inventoried. It is said that this cellar haven’t been opened for more than 100 years. The remaining articles in Cellar A will be inventoried on Monday afternoon and Cellar B will be opened only after that.

Achuthanandan steps down as Kerala Chief Minister

Thiruvananthapuram, Saturday, May 14, 2011: With LDF losing power in Kerala to UDF by a wafer thin margin, Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan today submitted the resignation of his ministry to the Governor and said he would lead the opposition in the Assembly if his party entrusted the job to him.

Governor RS Gavai accepted the resignation and asked Achuthanandan to continue as Chief Minister till the new ministry is formed by UDF, which secured 72 seats in the 140-member house.

Speaking to reporters later, the 87-year-old Marxist veteran, who spearheaded the Left Democratic Front’s campaign, said the party accepted the people’s verdict and would not indulge in any undemocratic means to remain in power.

“People have given their verdict. We will not do anything undemocratic to undermine that. When we get a chance to seek a mandate, we will compete and try to return”, he told reporters after handing over the resignation.

Congress-led UDF wins with a slender margin in Kerala

New Delhi: Battling against the charisma of an octogenarian chief minister and the taint of corruption allegations, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) struggled past the post in Kerala’s assembly elections.

The UDF won 72 seats compared with 68 for the Left Democratic Front (LDF), led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM.

The slender majority, the lowest margin in the history of Kerala’s coalition politics since 1957, together with the below-par performance of the Congress will have an impact on the stability of the government that will be formed. The Congress will be beholden to two of its key allies—the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which won 20 seats, and the Kerala Congress-Mani, which won 15 seats.

The initial reactions of coalition partners indicate that the Congress will face a considerable challenge, especially in distribution of cabinet portfolios. In fact, there is a chance that the allies will demand the creation of the post of deputy chief minister.

Political observers say the verdict has caused alarm in the CPM as well as the Congress.

“While strategic errors from the leadership in the election strategy resulted in the LDF missing a historic opportunity to get a second term, the internal strife in the Congress led to its very poor performance,” said N.P. Chekkutty, a political analyst and executive editor of Thejas newspaper. “There will be serious trouble in both the parties against the current leadership.”

Congress leaders privately concede that the state leadership, which was “busy in infighting”, failed to cash in on the troubles afflicting the LDF.

“Both Oommen Chandy as leader of the opposition and Ramesh Chennithala as state unit chief have completely failed to make use of the atmosphere in favour of the party,” said a Congress general secretary on condition of anonymity.

Madhusudan Mistry, Congress general secretary in charge of Kerala, admitted that “infighting” may be one of the reasons behind its performance. “But it’s difficult to say unless we analyse the results,” he said.

Smaller parties will wield a lot of influence in a UDF administration, said Vinoj Abraham of the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram.

“Smaller parties are going to be the decision-makers and if their demands are not met, they can create trouble for the government,” he said. “They will have their say on who will lead the government, to portfolios, to each and every decision of the government.”

Though he led the LDF to a better-than-expected performance in an unusually personality-oriented election, 87-year-old V.S. Achuthanandan’s future looks bleak. Omitting any references to the outgoing chief minister, CPM politburo member Sitaram Yechury attributed the LDF’s performance to good governance. “The slender margin shows that there was no incumbency factor,” Yechury told reporters in Delhi. “The fact remains that the achievements of the LDF government put it in good stead with the people.”

The CPM in Kerala is a divided house with one section siding with party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and the other with Achuthanandan, who was expelled from the party politburo for indiscipline in 2009.

Still, the LDF’s performance is likely to force a change in the CPM’s approach to electoral politics. Observers point out that the CPM reinstated Achuthanandan as the party’s leader in the elections after realizing that he had popular support. This signalled that winning elections was more important than adhering to the party line.

Though the rivalry between the two factions had affected governance, Achuthanandan’s campaign against corruption and his squeaky clean image, when the Congress at the Centre was struggling to deal with graft charges against its leaders, immensely assisted the LDF campaign.

The near reversal took place even as the political momentum favoured the UDF till very recently—it had scored landslide victories in the May 2009 general election and the October 2010 civic elections.

Some analysts also see a message of continuity in the verdict. “The results show that the people want continuity and they were not so unhappy with the policies of the current government. So whoever comes to power is likely to continue with current policies,” Abraham said.

Kerala Assembly Election 2011 results online

The Election Commission has made extensive arrangements to get the results of the Kerala Assembly elections online. The polling for the 140 assembly seats to constitute the 13th Legislative Assembly in Kerala was held on April 13, 2011 and the counting of votes starts at 8 am on May 13. There are 140 counting halls across 64 locations.

The results will be available on www.trend.kerala.gov.in and www.ceo.kerala.gov.in. Briefing the media, Nalini Netto IAS, Chief Electoral Officer, Kerala said, “All arrangements for the counting is in place across the state. The trends of counting will be available in the first half an hour. The speed of the results would depend on the number of voters and the number of candidates in the constituency. We hope

The counting statistics dissemination is being handled by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) with computer programmers supported by Keltron. Trends, a software package developed by NIC Kerala would be used for real time compilation of results. Another software, Genesis, is also being used by the Election Commission for generation of results.

The Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) has assigned 90 engineers across the 14 Districts to support the counting process and attend to any technical issue related to the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The support system would have additional printers and power packs to meet any emergency need.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission has instructed that laptops and mobile phones would not be allowed inside the counting halls. On a trial basis, in one constituency in each district, every table will have a video camera and monitor to help the counting agents have a closer look at the counting and the EVMs.