A strong earthquake centred off the coast of northeastern Japan shook buildings as far away as Tokyo on Friday and triggered a one-metre tsunami in an area devastated by last year's Fukushima disaster. The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, the U.S. Geological Survey said, adding that there was no risk of a widespread tsunami. There were no immediate reports of death or injury.

Amidst the consistent discouraging utterances of AICC senior leaders on Telangana, Congress ministers from the region are planning to meet the high command and brief it about the political situationin the region.
Barring labour minister Danam Nagender and marketing minister M Mukhesh Goud, all the Telangana ministers are expected to go to Delhi and stay put there till they get an appointment with party president Sonia Gandhi. Panchayat raj minister K Jana Reddy has already left for the national capital, while a few more ministers are expected to join him on Friday. The T-ministers will present a memorandum to the party president. On Monday, the Telangana ministers met the Prime Minister when the latter was in Hyderabad in connection with CoP-11. As the occasion did not provide them an ample time to discuss the issue, they told the PM that they wanted to meet him personally to discuss the issue. Telangana zealots are demanding the resignation of the region's ministers in protest against the delay by the Centre in taking a decision on the separate state issue. They hope the resignations would spur the Congress to act as per the aspirations of the people.
TJAC had openly said that it would target the T-ministers and force them to resign from the cabinet. The T- ministers want the party high command to clear the air on the Telangana ahead of the next phase of agitation being taken up by TJAC.
Meanwhile in New Delhi, Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said no decision had been taken either on Telangana or convening an all party meeting to discuss the issue. Emerging from Rashtrapati Bhavan, where he had a 30-minute long meeting with president Pranab Mukhejee, Shinde did not spell out as to how long it would take to conduct next all party meeting on Telangana.
In another development, former PCC president D Srinvas met Sonia Gandhi on Thursday to discuss the political situation in the state, especially the Telanana issue. Srinivas, however, avoided the media after meeting Sonia.

HYDERABAD: Convinced that the UPA government is not likely to take a positive decision on Telangana in the near future, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) is looking at reviving the movement for T-state by launching a massive agitation in November.

"Going by the developments in Delhi, it seems we can no longer believe in the Congress and its promise made on Telangana. We are looking at launching a large-scale agitation in November," TRS MLA T Harish Rao told TOI on Tuesday.

The TRS had initially wanted to launch the agitation in September and had also planned for convening a meeting with the party leaders including politburo members, state committee members, MLAs and MPs in the last week of August to chart out the protest plan. However, with the party supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao claiming to be getting positive signals from Delhi on Telangana, the meeting and the agitation were called off. But the Telangana Political Joint Action Committee (T-JAC) went ahead and independently organised 'Chalo Hyderabad' march on Necklace Road on September 30.

KCR camped in Delhi between September 5 and October 3 and claimed to have held talks with the Congress leaders. The TRS chief, who issued a deadline of August 20 to the Centre to make an announcement on Telangana, extended the deadline to September-end, claiming the talks were still progressing. He later extended the deadline to October end, saying the government hoped to take decision on Telangana after the Dasara celebrations, following the cabinet reshuffle expected to come into effect by then.

Although the Congress high command is said to have favoured the cabinet reshuffle , the signals that TRS is getting from the national party on Telangana is reportedly not encouraging. After the pro-Telangana activists failed to come out with an effective strategy to obstruct the ongoing state-wide padayatra of TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, who entered the region on Monday without much resistance, the TRS is desperately in need of a plot to retain its claim on Telangana and re-launching the movement looks inevitable.

"We had already clarified that if the government gives away Telangana we would celebrate or otherwise we would agitate. Our stand is intact. We will wait up to October end, and if nothing positive comes out, we would launch the agitation. There is no question of keeping quiet," said B Vinod Kumar, a former MP and politburo member of TRS.

While the TJAC has planned protests across the region on the state formation day on November 1, participation of TRS in the protests could just be symbolic.