Bharat Rakshak

Rob Peter to Pay paul

If you effectively devolve down to the lowest levels of counties/wards, and devolve powers including policing, zoning, taxes and education including healthcare , you will see real responsibility and improvement.

SaiK's trolling

RamaY wrote:Stan-ji,

No one disagrees on the need for a Second State Reorganization commission. It should be done the same way redrawing of assembly and parliamentary constituencies that was done few years ago.

Redrawing of internal maps with the sole objective creating/destroying political fortunes must be fought against. This is exactly what INC is doing.

If a Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kalkota (yet to get this right, apologies RahulM ji) can demonstrate Indian pluralism with people from different regions and languages living together and prospering, then what is wrong in creating states with equal population or equal area, and removing the language and secarian barriars?

Before anything happens, the leadership must nationalize all vital resources that cause unnecessary rift between different regions. My list is -

- River Systems: Nationalize all water resources. Create a central fund to build smaller reservoirs (1-10 TMC capacity) in each district and connect them with dams and irrigation systems. Each TMC can support irrigation in 10,000 acres.

- Minerals: Nationalize them. All the mine leases will be distributed among all states equally.

- Education: Standardized education with central support for mid-day meals and syllabus.

Doing things in a hap-hazardous way, as it is done by INC always, will not help the nation.

Suraj wrote:I agree with vina. The primary driver towards small states is lack of democracy and particularly fiscal autonomy below state level. The easiest way to turn this process around is providing greater accountability at the local level, including the ability to elect and remove officials like the mayor, police chief and prosecutor (RM territory).

debadutta wrote: Agree with you about points 1 and 3. Not sure about #2. Should we also share the revenues that different states derive from the downstream industries? For example if minerals are taken from Jharkhand , but the factory is set up in let's say Maharastra, then how would this work?

Sir — It is regrettable that the Centre, in its manner of acceding to the demand for Telangana, has sent out the message that political goals can be achieved through violent agitations. The state of Andhra Pradesh itself was brought into being by means of a fast-unto-death undertaken by Potti Sriramulu. Given this history, it is not surprising that K. Chandrasekhar Rao has followed a similar path. The Telangana movement started in the 1960s under the leadership of Marri Chenna Reddy. Some new states, such as Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal, have since been formed.

The Centre has acted pragmatically in agreeing to give statehood to Telangana, which has been a neglected and underdeveloped region. Outside of Hyderabad there has been no progress in the region. However, the agitation to give Union territory status to Hyderabad is fraught with danger, as this is likely to trigger similar agitations for granting Union territory status to other big cities. The Centre should not succumb to such demands, if they crop up.


Yours faithfully,
H.N. Ramakrishna, Bangalore

ShyamSP wrote:It is also that Telengana region continues to get more than 50% government investment in some years at the expense of other regions. Despite that their leaders blame non-Telengana people.

yvijay wrote:

ShyamSP wrote:It is also that Telengana region continues to get more than 50% government investment in some years at the expense of other regions. Despite that their leaders blame non-Telengana people.

Can you provide any link substantiating above statement ? You keep saying this with out any proof. In fact, it's only after the 2004 elections, the irrigation projects were taken in Telangana in major way by YSR. By taking up projects he could effectively blunt the TRS. Atleast in Nalgonda, people were very happy with YSR.

Suraj wrote:UT status for all big cities would be a positive move. It would concentrate political and economic affairs of the city, rather that have the urban areas cross-subsidize rural ones. It is why Delhi has been able to outstrip Bombay in development in recent years. PRC follows such a system, whereby major urban agglomerations (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing) were made independent municipalities reporting directly to the central authority, rather than part of their surrounding state/prefecture.

IT, pharma majors get Hyderabad blues
Prasad Nichenametla, Hindustan Times

Hyderabad, December 15, 2009

The political uncertainty in Andhra Pradesh over formation of a separate Telengana state has Hyderabad’s industry organisations and corporate firms, particularly those in the IT and pharmaceutical sectors, worried.

“Till now, we have been able to address the concerns of our clients but if the situation is not contained it would shake their confidence and affect the future of industry here,” M. Narasimha Rao, president of the Hyderabad Software Exporters Association and head of Infosys in Hyderabad told HT on Monday.

“We’ve seen lot of calls from our clients who wanted to know what is happening here. Today some of them postponed their visits, tomorrow it would be orders and then future investments,” Rao said.

With global brands such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Tech Mahindra having operations here, Hyderabad exported software worth about Rs 32,000 crore (Rs 320 billion) in the downturn year of 2008-09.

Former state chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, credited with IT and pharma boom here shares the anxiety over Andhra Pradesh being split.

“We (the Telugu Desam Party government) put in every effort to build this city’s infrastructure and industry — brick by brick. I went around the world bringing investments. Now, the situation is such that investments would disappear and industries would drift away,” he said.

The city’s pharma industry seems even more worried than the IT sector.

“Unlike the software industry, we make huge capital investments and setting up a unit itself is a long process. Right now we are on top. But these kinds of agitations and their aftermath would char the good image we gathered through these long years,” said M. Nityananda Reddy, managing director of Aurobindo Pharma and president of the Bulk Drugs Manufacturers Association (BDMA) in Andhra Pradesh.

Dr Reddys, Aurobindo, Shanta Biotech, Suven Life Sciences, Matrix and Indian Immunologicals are just some of the big names here. Drug exports from Hyderabad were worth about Rs 13,000 crore (Rs 130 billion) last year.

“If the state is split, many investments flowing here could be diverted to places in (coastal) Andhra and Rayalaseema (regions), which are not so industrialised, except for pockets like Vizag” said Y. Harischandra Prasad, president of the Andhra Pradesh CII (Confederation of Indian Industry).

Suraj wrote: Both the creation of smaller states and the potential UT-ization of major metros are consequences, and IMHO, positive ones at that.

Neerja Chowdhury


The genesis of the T-trouble that has suddenly erupted in the face of the Congress lies in the vacuum left by the death of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, and the intense power struggle that has ensued in the Congress. The struggle for a separate state of Telangana is not a recent phenomenon. It first surfaced as a peasants movement against landlords in the late Forties and early Fifties. Later it acquired the shape of a demand for a separate state and got new impetus only in the last 10 years.


During this period the Congress graduated from a position of proposing a Second States Reorganisation Commission which the Pranab Mukherjee Committee had made to L K Advani — and which was turned down by the then Union home minister — to a commitment to create a separate state of Telangana.

These promises were contained in the Common Minimum Programme in 2004, in the Congress manifesto and election campaign in 2009. Sonia Gandhi’s words in Secunderabad are cited repeatedly, accepting ‘in principle’ the idea of a separate Telangana. However, YSR, who had resisted a separate state assured the party high command that he would manage the situation at his end. YSR managed to keep Telangana from boiling over through a policy of carrot and stick. He set up a committee on the Telangana issue that was headed by K Rosaiah. He also deliberately picked up ministers from the Telangana region who he felt would be pliant.

As luck would have it — or he managed it — the Telangana Rashtra Samithi did poorly in election after election which pushed the issue off the radar. Frustrated with the non-action by the Congress, with which it had forged an alliance in 2004, the TRS parted ways in 2006 but fared poorly in the bypolls which followed the resignation of his MPs and MLAs two years later.

The TRS came a cropper again in the 2009 general elections winning only two out of the 17 Lok Sabha seats and 10 out of the 119 Assembly seats in the Telangana region. This is not to say that there has not been an under-the-surface feeling in favour of a separate Telangana, given its continuing backwardness compared to coastal Andhra, and the domination of the Reddys and Kammas in the state’s politics since its formation which the OBC leaders chafe against — the Telangana region comprises 60 per cent OBCs. The point is that the ‘T’ sentiment was not dominant enough to become an election issue influencing their outcome in successive polls. Till KCR decided to go on a fast. After his 2009 poll debacle, he had reportedly quipped to friends whether he should shut shop. He had not even mustered up courage to contest the elections last month for the municipal council of Greater Hyderabad.

The timing of the fast was curious and coincided with two other events, though ostensibly unconnected. One was the confirmation of Rosaiah as a full-fledged CM. The second was a CBI enquiry initiated by the Centre against the Reddy brothers for illegal mining operations. The Bellary brothers were closely associated with YSR and with Jagan Mohan Reddy, and it is possible that Jagan began to feel the heat.

Whether it was Jagan’s supporters who stoked the fires both of the Telanganites and later of the Andhraites, so as to embarrass Rosaiah and bring down his government is a matter of conjecture. But Congress leaders are openly making these allegations. They point out that those who had led the signature campaign to make Jagan CM were also the ones who had tendered their resignations. And it was the Congress MLAs from coastal Andhra and Rayalseema who took the lead in resigning, compelling legislators from other parties to follow suit. The draft of the resignation was also the same.

The Congress has been inept in its handling of the situation and failed to anticipate the problems the midnight announcement could throw up. The bandh call by students the next day had pressed panic buttons in Delhi and it was felt that an immediate announcement could take the sting out of an escalating situation which threatened to spin out of control. The deteriorating health of KCR is also cited as a reason but it could not have been a major consideration for he could have been force-fed.

The Congress leadership had made some ground preparations once KCR’s fast was underway — like getting the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet and the Congress Legislature Party to authorise the party high command to take a decision on Telangana, and instructing the CM to hold an all-party meet. All parties, except the CPI(M) and MIM, had promised their support for Telangana and wanted the Congress to bring such a resolution in the state assembly (but took a U turn two days later).

Congress leaders were in touch with KCR, eliciting a promise that he would break his fast the moment they made the announcement — which is what he did. He is also believed to have assured them that if Telangana was formed, TRS would merge with the Congress.

Where the Congress failed was to anticipate that the (former) empire of YSR would strike back. That while Jagan may have overtly accepted the high command’s decision to install Rosaiah as CM, neither he nor his mentor K V P Ramachandra Rao were reconciled to it. They had the backing of the economically and politically powerful in the state. YSR had been given a free hand in the selection of tickets in the 2009 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, and the MLAs continue to be loyal to his son.

The high command also failed to anticipate the rash of demands the grant of Telangana would unleash in the rest of the country, suddenly making the creation of small states an all-India issue. The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha got into the act within hours. So did Mayawati who is making a case for the division of UP into three units.

It is all very well for Pranab Mukherjee to say that Telangana does not mean that other regions are about to get statehood. But the manner in which the announcement was made, under obvious pressure, has sent a message that the government will relent only under pressure. This may spawn a new kind of street politics in the weeks to come.

The Congress bosses calculated that they would sweep in Telangana and keep power in the remaining parts of Andhra, given the reality of the Reddy versus Kamma line-up and Kamma versus Kapu fight. Now the party finds it can neither backtrack on its promise of Telangana and at stake here is the very authority of the government of India, nor can it go ahead with it, given the violence and threatened resignations of 20 ministers.

Postponing the decision could lead to loss of support in both regions. The Congress has really shot itself in the foot in a state which brought it to power at the Centre in 2004 and helped to retain it in 2009.

[email protected]

About the author:

Neerja Chowdhury is political editor, The New Indian Express

Congress MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy today made common cause with his bitter rivals, the TDP, to press for a united Andhra Pradesh, even as Congress MPs clashed in the Lok Sabha over the Telangana issue.

ramana wrote:The Irrigation projects were charted out under CBN. The plans the finances etc. When YSR came he implemented them with gusto.

The big problem till then was to find a way to finance these huge schemes. The rivers flow at the bottom of Deccan valley and the cultivable land is at higher elevation. In fact it has ~three times the flow and ~three times the elevation of lift irrigation schemes in the world. So the way out was to get World Bank financing and to get the projects bid in piecemeal to keep it feasible to implement in a time bound manner.

As for Greater Hyd there are amazing plans to make it a world class city to dawrf all others in S Asia.

ravi_ku wrote:Ramay garu,

A small quibble. The solar and wind power work only because of huge govt subsidies. They are one of the most costliest power out there. Hydro being cheapest, coal second.

ramana wrote:What if KCR is made the CM for rest of the term and future post is rotated? Off course TRS get merged with INC.

ShyamSP wrote:

ramana wrote:What if KCR is made the CM for rest of the term and future post is rotated? Off course TRS get merged with INC.

What if all Telugu areas join Telengana (meaning Telugu land). They would be happy that they got separate Telengana.

by Ramay

- River Systems: Nationalize all water resources. Create a central fund to build smaller reservoirs (1-10 TMC capacity) in each district and connect them with dams and irrigation systems. Each TMC can support irrigation in 10,000 acres.
- Minerals: Nationalize them. All the mine leases will be distributed among all states equally.
- Education: Standardized education with central support for mid-day meals and syllabus.

Doing things in a hap-hazardous way, as it is done by INC always, will not help the nation.

kmkraoind wrote: Even Sammaka and Sarakka are the victims of islamic fundamentalism. .

Let us sum it up. The Congress sowed the seeds of linguistic states in 1920. Three days of unrest in 1952 led Jawaharlal Nehru to concede Andhra without consulting the government of Madras in any depth; the same prime minister then overruled the State Reorganisation Commission and forced the merger of Andhra and Telangana in 1956.

Telangana began agitating against the forcible union as far back as 1969. Finally, in 2004 the Congress joined the TRS to defeat the Telugu Desam, conceding Telangana as the price of the alliance.

(And the Telugu Desam did the same in 2009. Neither the Congress nor the Telugu Desam has the moral authority to oppose the creation of Telangana.)

I am neither a proponent nor an opponent of small states. What depresses me is the prospect that the Congress will make the situation worse through procrastination.

Nehru accepted Andhra on December 19, 1952; it was established on October 1, 1953. The Shah Commission was set up on April 23, 1966 to demarcate the Hindi speaking areas of Punjab; Haryana was created on November 1, 1966. Why is the Congress talking wildly of taking five years to create Telangana?

Again, what is this talk of Hyderabad being a joint capital? Take a look at the map; the city is surrounded by Telangana. The impracticality of joint capitals was understood by Rajaji over Madras (Chennai) in 1953 and by Y B Chavan over Bombay (Mumbai [ Images ]) in 1960. On the other hand, there is a history of bad feeling over Chandigarh. Why should anyone follow the worse example and ignore the better ones?

One final point: There is much moaning and groaning over the Telangana leading to the creation of more states. Why is everyone scared of small states?

Madhya Bharat (not to be confused with Madhya Pradesh), Bhopal, Patiala and East Punjab States Union (distinct from Punjab), Saurashtra, Kutch, Ajmer, Coorg, and Vindhya Pradesh were viable states up to 1956. Nehru forcibly merged them into larger states, creating much bad blood.

Andhra Pradesh is essentially an unworkable proposition today. (Even lawyers in the high court descended to fisticuffs over Telangana!) Why not summon a second States Reorganisation Commission to see which proposed states are viable? Or would the Congress prefer to wait until Telangana is replicated elsewhere in India?

ramana wrote:TVR Shenoy provides a history of how linguistic states came about. it wasn't with Sri Potti Sriramulu's fast unto death but in 1920 itself when pradesh Congress Committees were organised on linguistic basis.

Now let us examine another book: Small states syndrome in India By Braja Bihārī Kumāra. Please search Google books, you will get it. Page 52. The gist of which is:
1. Montagu-Chelmsford Reform favored formation of linguistic States.
2. Annie Besant, Chairperson of the Congress of Calcutta session in 1917 opposed it.
3. Tilak and Gandhi favored it.
4. All-India Congress Committee officially accepted it in 1920.
5. Election manifesto of Congress in 1948 supported it.
6. After independence, national leaders' position on this changed.
7. Now Ambedkar and Gandhi opposed it.
8. Nehru-Patel-Sitarammaiya Committee deliberated it in 1948 and it opposed the formation of linguistic States.
9. Dharm Committee was formed by Dr. Rajendra Prasad to study this again in 1948.

enqyoob wrote:Perhaps the whole point of this circus is to destroy the "Telangana" movement once and for all, by getting it debated and defeated in the Andhra assembly and having it laughed out of Andhra by the Hyderabad and Coastal Andhra power circles?

MMS sarkar has been showing a few glimpses of sense, e.g. in going after the Naxals after all these years of ignoring those terrorists. Maybe the fallout from all this ro-dho in AP will be better unity and maybe even more honest governance? All these AP politicians who have been both pro- and anti-Telangana are now seen to be out of both boats and in hot water.