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Advani's five-day Telangana visit raises only heat and dust
Andhra Newsletter by Madhu sudhana Rao
25 April 2006
BJP leader L.K. Advani's five-day Telangana tour as part of his Bharat Suraksha Yatra is over. The main opposition party leader's summer sojourn across the hotbed of Telangana, his Press conferences and public meetings have left people and political leaders puzzled over the BJP stand on national and regional issues. He appears a confused man himself, particularly on the Telangana issue.
On his arrival, he said the demand for a separate state needs consensus of all parties, whereas his party president had declared earlier "BJP wants a separate Telangana."
Later, Advani averred that if the Congress tabled a Bill in parliament, the BJP would support it. A day later, he invited the Telangana Rashtriya Samithi to join hands with the BJP to achieve its separate state goal. But his offer to embrace separatists comes with a rider: the TRS has to sever its ties with the UPA government at the federal level within a stipulated period.
Now Advani has become a new player in the ping-pong T-ball game, each party throwing the blame on others and the issue finally landing in Sonia Gandhi's court! As expected, the TRS leader K. Chandrasekhara Rao was at Sonia's doorstep the day after Advani concluded his Telangana yatra to put pressure on her and the Congress.
He claimed, after meeting her in New Delhi, the T-Bill would be tabled in parliament after the current phase of elections in five states are over in mid-May. Congress leaders are now used to give such assurances whenever Rao raises the separate state issue, just to mollify him. And, the TRS chief is such a simpleton that he tells the media that the official process for bifurcation would begin soon.
Viral epidemic
CHIKUNGUNYA is as foreign to the region as the word sounds. Believed to have originated in Africa, it is a viral fever, transmitted by mosquitoes.
Almost similar to dengue, malaria and flu, chikungunya is not a life-threatening illness, but the fever leaves its victims weak for a very long time. It is surfacing in some areas off and on during the monsoon months when mosquitoes breed at an alarming rate and spread the virus fast.
But it has assumed epidemic proportions in the summer districts of Kadapa, Kurnool, Anantapur, Nalgonda and Hyderabad.
The twin cities seem to be the worst hit. According to health officials, in four months, from the day the first case was reported in the capital, more than 3,500 patients have been treated,
and the disease is not showing any signs of abating. What worries residents and authorities is the viral fever is spreading to new areas that are relatively clean.
Authorities blame mosquitoes and the recent rains for an alarming rise in chikungunya cases. It's an asinine explanation to evade responsibility. Nobody can control the movement of carrier mosquitoes or clouds that dump copious amounts of rain. Health officials say they have launched public campaigns to control mosquito breeding and set up health camps.
What is more important than this temporary measure is launching of a massive mosquito eradication programme, which is not in the hands of individuals or communities.
If urgent remedial measures are not taken now, mosquito-borne viral fevers will go out of control in the coming monsoon season.
In bad books
HYDERABAD'S bookworms know where to get hold of a latest thriller or an out-of-print tome at a cheap price.
A leisurely stroll and a patient browsing through hundreds of books stacked in tiny shops or pushcarts or spread across plastic sheets on roadside in the Koti area can reward bibliophiles with what they are looking for.
Touted as the biggest second hand book market in the sub-continent, about 100 sellers trade their stuff in the bustling Koti area. Their main buyers are students, book collectors and fiction lovers.
College and professional courses students could buy their textbooks and guides from two-thirds to half of their cover price; old books lovers could hunt for their favourite titles at bargain prices and readers of novels could pick up low priced pirated paperbacks.
The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad wants to spruce up the congested Koti area by moving the book hawkers to a subway. But the proposal has gone into the traders' bad books.
They fear they lose their business, despite civic authorities' assurances that the displaced would be given shelters and electric power in the subway. It's not a bad idea, considering the fact that the booksellers would have a secured and shady place.
But they don't want to shift to the proposed area but are willing to relocate themselves in a 'suitable' place, which means a site of their choice. The municipality has to look at another page now.
Upset win
THOUSANDS of TV viewers glued to Sony channel for two and a half hours on Saturday night to know who would be the second Indian Idol.
They were all disappointed as N.C. Karunya, the 19-year-old engineering student from Hyderabad, the only South Indian to come to the finals of the keenly fought contest, lost the most coveted title to Sandeep Acharya of Bikaner, Rajasthan.
From the very beginning, Karunya had been the toast of Indian Idol fans, at least in Hyderabad, and the way the judges had showered praise on him Hyderabadis had little doubt that he would be edged out.
The clinching moment for Sandeep at the finale was people's vote that put him above the city boy. His fans believe that he had lost because of inadequate canvassing and insufficient number of SMSs sent from the South in general and Andhra Pradesh in particular.
The highly popular contest, in which the winner walked away with Rs10 million Sony singing contract, a car and a credit card, together worth another Rs1 million, has once again brought to the fore the North-South divide.
