World-Me-My viewpoint

With the reorganisation of the state into Andhra Pradesh (balance) and Telangana, Hyderabad which was the capital now became capital of Telangana. Political leaders from Andhra tried their best to keep Hyderabad as joint capital (which is absurd considering it being surrounded by areas from Telangana) or at best as a Union Territory (a la Chandigarh). However all these were thwarted by the Union Government. During the discussion in Parliament the then UPA government promised help in construction of a capital for the state of Andhra Pradesh. This was also reiterated by Mr Modi (then PM candidate and now Prime Minister) while his election campaign in Andhra. The then Union Government constituted a committee under Mr Siva Ramakrishnan to visit all the towns in Andhra and suggest a suitable place for capital city. The present chief minister during his campaign for state legislative elections sold a dream of constructing a capital like Singapore for the state. In fact he promised that...

One of the features of Andhra Pradesh (reconstituted state) assembly is that two parties account for nearly 98-99% of the total members in the house with no representation for the party which governed previously. This has happened due to various reasons main being the division of the State into the rump state and the state of Telangana. Telugu Desam which was a main opposition in the undivided state for 10 years came into power with various promises to the people.  Some of the main promises being the loan waiver for farmers & women self help groups, promise of a job for each household, banning of illegal shops selling liquor (known in local parlance as belt shops) and last but not the promise of good governance based on their experience in government (their leader Mr Naidu was a Chief Minister of the undivided state for 9 years and main opposition leader for another 10 years).  Even though the government is constituted and swore in almost two and a hal...

With only two stages of polling remaining we are now looking at the climax of the fight in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The same set of Modi-Pawan Kalyan - Chandra Babu combine who admitted in Telangana that they were in support of the Telangana now are putting the blame on Congress and YSR Congress for the bifurcation of the state. It is a well known fact that UPA which is currently ruling the country and is expected to go out of the power on 16th May does not have the requisite strength in Parliament to pass the Telangana Bill and the main opposition BJP supported them in both the lower and upper houses for the passage of the bill. Had BJP opposed the bill it would not have gone through ending congress with egg on its face. However had they opposed the bill, BJP would have lost Telangana region but would have gained something in Andhra. May be the gain is not sufficient to offset the loss in Telangana which is why they supported the Telangana Bill. It is ridiculous now by the abov...

Campaign is in full swing for the next set of parliamentary constituencies. Claims and counter claims are in full swing. There is one more claimant for better governance now. Ms Jayalalithaa (Amma) of Tamil Nadu claims her government is better than the so called well advertised Gujarat model. She is one more in the long list of claimants for great governance. Unfortunately, Tamil Nadu may not be as great as it appears to be on paper. Unlike Gujarat there were severe and crippling power cuts in Tamil Nadu including Chennai. There was a promise by the current government at the time of assembly polls that the power problem will be resolved in 3 months once comes power. Power came to Amma but not to the people of Tamil Nadu. Whatever said and done, there is hardly any improvement in the infrastructure even in the capital city Chennai. The roads are still bad with very heavy water logging at the foot of the flyovers during the rainy season. The water levels will be around ankle high at th...

Opinion Polls Latest opinion poll by NDTV shows BJP and its allies is expected to get around 275 with the ruling Congress led front getting around 111 and rest by all the other parties together. This appears to be a far cry from the initial euphoria when Modi came into picture as BJP's prime ministerial candidate. The expectations were that BJP on its own will get the simple majority. Is there some weakening in the BJP's strength over the period? May be I am stretching my imagination too far, but I feel the final tally could be around 250 for BJP, 130-140 for Congress for the rest. If BJP and its current allies together get only this kind of a tally they will be in for a trouble in the long run as they may have to depend on one of the three ladies viz., Didi (Mamata Banerjee), Amma (Jayalalitha) or Mayavathi (behenji). If this happens we can again see the same state of policy inaction in future also. Alliances & Campaigning All the pre-poll alliances are set now ...

At last the greatest show in India has started with first phase completed on 7th April. This is expected to go for next five weeks with the campaigning heating up as the polling dates in important states draws near. Already lot of controversial utterings by the leaders are on air. There is Amit Shah of BJP and Azam Khan  of Samajwadi Party and Masood of Congress airing controversial remarks. Latest to come out is that of Mr Azam Khan dragging the religion of the soldiers who stormed the heights of Kargil during the proxy (or almost a full) war during the regime of Mr Atal Behari Vajpaye. This particular set of comments be they uttered now or 2-3 years back are highly objectionable and should be condemned. Coming to the comments of Azam Khan, yesterday I had the misfortune of watching a debate (??) on Times Now hosted by Mr Arnab Goswami. I have seen debates on several issues hosted by Mr Arnab over the period. This man is known for his loud, disrupting and passing unnecessary ...

Indian Cricket Well according to me this is not even a great subject to write about as it is following and churned on all formats of the media and literally 95% people in India follow the same. I used to be one of the 95% earlier (prior to the first scam where Azharuddin & Co were suspended). I lost my interest after the successive scandals. I remember President of BCCI was asked to step down last year itself at the time of controversy regarding the spot fixing (or whatever name it was called) but he came back through back door once again. Now the highest court in India has ordered him to step down and asked Mr Sunil Gavaskar to takeover as a President in the interim along with Mr Shivlal Yadav as the second president. With due respects to the honourable court and the justices who delivered the judgement, the first part of the judgement is ok as the one being ordered to step down is perceived to be the corrupting influence. My grouse is only with the second part, why Mr Gav...

Alliances and More Looks like the main opposition party is a real hurry to get into power. The party which terms itself as “A party with a difference” is proving itself to be really different this time. They are ready to enter into an alliance with whatever and whoever ready to join them like the yet to be born party like Jana Sena started by Mr Pawan Kalyan (brother of Mr Chiranjeevi a Tollywood matinee idol). Pawan Kalyan himself is one of the leading actors in Tollywood which is dominated by the Mega family (Mega Star was / is an petname for Chiranjeevi). Jana Sena Party has been only announced days back and does not even have a proper office of its own. However the country's main opposition party is ready to join in an alliance with them. Similarly they went and allied themselves with 4-5 minor parties in Tamil Nadu as both the ruling AIADMK and opposition DMK have at the moment not allied with anybody now. Infact people in Tamil Nadu thinks now that great lady of AIAD...

Now that elections have been declared in India. As a natural consequence every party ruling, opposition or even non-entities currently but who wants to play a major role in case of a fractured mandate are busy with seat allocation, canvassing, alignments etc. Famous or infamous “Aaya Rams and Gaya Rams” or so called “Jumping Stars” who habitually move from one party to another party are very busy in their endeavours. Like some of the earlier elections there is one strong contender for the post be it in the eyes of the main opposition party or the media. For the last 4-5 months there is a frenzy on the air waves chanting “NaMo” which is the short name of Mr Narendra Modi. Now it is declared by his party that he will be contesting from two seats viz., Varanasi (in Uttar Pradesh) and Vadodara (in his stronghold Gujarat). May be I am naive about politics or may be I am not knowledgeable about the ways of politics, but I have a big doubt. Please note that I am not from any pa...

The biggest sensation during the month of February was the drama played in Indian Parliament on the bifurcation bill of the state of Andhra Pradesh. After the episodes of pepper spray, stand-in by the central ministers from the state of Andhra Pradesh and whatever should not be done in a democracy this bill was passed by the Parliament. There was a blackout on TV coverage just minutes before the voting which was attributed to a so called technical failure which came to aid in many such undemocratic activities in the past as well. Anyway, the deed (good or bad based on one's view point) has happened. Now on the one hand a game of claim for the so called good deed for Telangana is being going on by all the parties who have taken part in the voting. In Telangana, it is natural that the KCR led TRS party claims that they are the authors for the justice done to the aspirations of the Telangana and are also showing appreciation on the Congress Party and Madam Sonia for the split. At ...

Now that the decision for split of the state of Andhra Pradesh has been taken by the Indian Parliament, it is the time for politicians of both states and more particularly those from the rump state of Andhra Pradesh minus Telangana to start thinking constructively and try to make plans for development instead of crying over the spilt milk. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Still politicians are accusing each other like the classic case of Jagan Mohan Reddy and Chandra Babu Naidu that the other is responsible for the current state of affairs. Why I said the classic case of these two politicians is that, whatever happens the moment one of these conduct a press meet the discussion turns on to accusations against the other politician. This is like the famous story about a boy who knows only about a cow and try to introduce the cow into whatever story he is talking about. The people and politicians need of the so called Seemandhra needs to concentrate on starting the overall develop...

Arvind Kejriwal – This is the name which became a literally household name in India. He is being shown as the typical Aam Admi (Common Man) which is also the name of the party started by his group of social activists. Less than one year from the start of the Aam Admi Party, he became Chief Minister of Delhi. He resigned after 49 days as Chief Minister of Delhi. Within this short period, he and his colleagues were in news every hour be it supply of free water, proposal of reduction of electricity tariff, the affair of his law minister, ordering lodging of FIRs against Sheila Dixit, Former and Present Union Petroleum Ministers, Mukhesh Ambani, attempt to introduce a radical Jan Lokpal bill. Sounds very impressive – RIGHT?? Lets us look at this a little bit more closely. Kejriwal is an IIT, Kharagpur Alumini and a Ramon Magsaysay Award winner for excellence in public life mainly working for the Right to Information. He is the founder of several NGOs and is an staunch advocate of tran...

Mr Rajiv Gandhi, a former Prime Minister of India was killed by a human bomb in 1991 during an election campaign in Sriperambudur in Tamil Nadu. The group of killers were sent by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE of Mr Velupillai Prabhakaran who was killed recently by Sri Lankan Government in an internal war). The reason being dispatch of Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka for restoration of peace as a part of the accord with the then Sri Lankan President. In fact the Indian government was short charged by both LTTE and Sri Lankan government resulting in large scale killing of Indian soldiers and ultimate withdrawal of the forces by the next Indian government. It is also to be said that initially there was tacit support by the Indian government to LTTE and the then Tamil Nadu governments allowed them to run militant camps in their state. On the fateful day Mr Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a human bomb Thanu alongwith several others. There was a man hunt for the remaining mem...