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Wednesday, December 31, 2025

NEWS TODAY 31.12.2025

Telangana man ‘digs’ his own grave

Sushil.Rao@timesofindia.com 31.12.2025

Hyderabad : An 80-year-old man from Telangana’s Jagtial district has dug his own grave — well, literally. Not willing to leave the task to his four children, or anybody else for that matter, Nakka Indrayya picked a piece of land and dug up one for himself — to be sure of where he would be laid to rest once he dies. It is close to where his wife is buried. Not just that, he visits a grave every day to waters the plants, cleans the place, and spend some time by himself. “It is my home which I have dug for myself,” Indrayya told TOI from his house in Laxmipur in Jagtial, after returning from his daily visit. That others around him find this strange, doesn’t perturb him. “It is where I will be laid after my death, so I made it as per the design that I wanted,” a rather nonchalant Indrayya said, even going on to share how the entire grave is built only with granite — since it doesn’t get damaged.

The total cost: About ₹12 lakh. Further elaborating on just why he decided to do this, the senior citizen said that he didn’t want to be a burden on anybody. And this, he added, stems from the fact that he lost his father at an extremely young age of 10. Soon afterwards, Indrayya started working — first as a local labourer and then in Dubai’s construction sector for 45 years. He lost his wife a few years ago. “There is no need to fear death. Everyone will die. I know I will die too. I also know where I will be buried,” he said going on to give more details about the grave that’s 5ft in depth and more than 6ft in length and built with the help of a mason from Tamil Nadu.

“All that one has to do is take a crowbar and move the granite on the top of the grave, for which too I have made a provision,” he said.

Govt app tells commuters to wait 19,280 minutes for MTC bus

31.12.2025

Omjasvin.MD@timesofindia.com

Chennai : Booking an MTC bus ticket on the govt’s Chennai One App may put you in for a long wait — sometimes as long as 19,000 minutes, which translates to 13 days. Hyped as a platform on the lines of top cab aggregators to book tickets and track buses, the App was designed to enable passengers to book tickets on the go and view bus movement in real time.

However, tech glitches and poor GPS integration have rendered the feature largely unusable. In the app, a bus on route 101 from Nerkundram to MGR Central was shown to arrive in 19,280 minutes. Another user booking from Rohini Theatre to Panagal Park (route 72) saw a wait time of 16,455 minutes, which is 10 days. While these buses came in less than 30 minutes of booking, commuters were left clueless while planning their trips.

The problem was worse for the old whiteboard buses, where no live trackers appeared at all, leaving commuters in the dark about whether a bus was five minutes away or already gone. At MGR Central, commuters who booked ordinary fare services such as 28 from Egmore to Thiruvottiyur, said the bus movement was not visible at all in the App, and there was no information on when the next bus would come. K Sathish Kumar, who was waiting at the Old Central Bus Stand, said he waited for 30 minutes and then left by metro.

The issue is that not all MTC buses are equipped with GPS trackers. Furthermore, some buses are not integrated with the App. While the new Ashok Leyland low-floor, ultra-low-floor, and EV buses are integrated with better GPS right from the start, the older rickety ordinary fare buses are yet to receive the upgrade. “There are 3,500 buses, and even a small wire cut in the GPS tracker may lead to wrong information showing in the app. These are glitches that will be addressed,” said Cumta (Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority) member-secretary I Jeyakumar. MTC joint managing director R Sundarapandian, who is the official spokesperson for the corporation, was not available for comment