Govt must rethink its Maoist strategy

They have been lying low for a while. But when the Maoists struck again, it was with venomous fury, killing 14 CRPF personnel and injuring more than 15 at Sukma in Chhattisgarh. This shows that the Maoist threat is clear and present. It was only the other day that Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh had said that the Maoists ‘would soon be finished’.
Monday’s attack was the second ambush in the area in the past 10 days and contrary to the government’s view the insurgents seem to be growing in confidence. In the last two years more than 70 people have been killed in Maoist ambushes, including the May 2013 attack in Bastar that killed 25 state Congress leaders.
This attack comes at a time when there are reports that the Intelligence Bureau and the CRPF are at loggerheads over a botched-up operation to nab a top Maoist leader in early November.
Clearly, there seems to be a lack of communication among various government departments and the attack in Sukma, which shares its border with Odisha and Telangana, shows that when it comes to inter-state co-operation there are far too many loopholes.
Incidentally, on Friday, the Raman Singh-led BJP government will be completing 11 years in power in the state. The BJP came to power at the Centre and many states promising development and ‘achhe din’, but there are still development lacunae in the state that are exploited by the Maoists.
According to the ‘India Human Development Report 2011’, by the Planning Commission, Chhattisgarh’s Human Development Index was 0.278, which was the lowest in India and below the national average of 0.467. According to the Tendulkar Committee Report 2009, almost 70% of the state’s population is poor. It is this deprivation and neglect by the state that the Maoists thrive on.
The Sukma attack yet again proves that the Maoists are India’s ‘biggest internal security threat’ but to rely heavily on force to ‘smoke them out’ is not the best solution. There is a need for a policy mix that entails a demonstrable improvement in state capacity aligned with a vigorous push for inclusive development in Maoist-affected areas.

Andhra Pradesh: The dangers in Vijayawada being the state capital

N Chandrababu Naidu

Vijayawada will be the new capital of Andhra Pradesh. Chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has conveniently ignored the Centre-appointed Sivaramakrishnan committee report while naming the city on the banks of the Krishna river in his haste to get things moving in his state. The report gives three options for a capital city which are well worth considering.

Mr Naidu has, however, agreed to the committee’s suggestion to decentralise power. His political opponents have raised the fact that Mr Naidu chose Vijayawada as it has a powerful Kamma presence — a community that has traditionally backed the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). That notwithstanding, Mr Naidu’s choice also seems to have miffed the people of the Rayalaseema region, with reports that even ministers from the region were unhappy with the choice. It is now up to the CM to ensure that the people of Rayalaseema do not feel alienated and that the new capital will also help in culturally unifying the whole state.

One of the major criticisms against choosing Vijayawada was the lack of government land. Right from the time of the bifurcation, following speculation, the Vijayawada-Guntur corridor saw a real estate boom and now the government will have to buy land at a premium. The Sivaramakrishnan committee report suggests that only a quarter of the estimated `4.5 lakh crore required for the new state capital will come from the Centre.

The state will have to raise the remaining amount and in such a scenario purchasing private land at exorbitant prices will put pressure on the state exchequer. Another area of concern, which was also raised in the report, was that large areas of fertile agricultural land in and around the Vijayawada-Guntur delta region will have to be acquired. This will impact the food security of the state and will likely displace a large number of farmers. This is cause for concern in a state where about 52% of the total workforce is employed in agriculture and related services. The environmental impact real estate expansion will have on the Krishna river and its adjoining area cannot be ignored. This gains significance in view of reports that the CM is keen to have key government offices near Amaravati, a historical town situated on the river bank.

Mr Naidu, like his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekar Rao, has a golden opportunity to build a model state and not just a capital. In his previous tenure as CM of undivided Andhra Pradesh Mr Naidu focused extensively on building urban assets — he was instrumental in transforming Hyderabad into an IT hub in the country — but was criticised for ignoring development in the rural areas. He must not repeat this mistake with Vijayawada.

Sania Mirza is an apt ambassador for Telangana

Sania Mirza

In India, political leaders often make baseless allegations to run down opponents. But even by their low standards, Telangana BJP leader K Laxman’s statement that tennis star Sania Mirza cannot be appointed as the new state’s ambassador because she is the “daughter-in-law of Pakistan” is objectionable. Mr Laxman was protesting against the K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) government’s decision to appoint Ms Mirza, who is married to former Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, as the ambassador to promote the state nationally and internationally. The objection is nothing but a desperate attempt to fan jingoistic passions and make political capital out of it. The government is well within its rights to appoint anyone it deems fit to further the name and brand value of the state. A prime example of this is Gujarat, which has appointed actor Amitabh Bachchan as the brand ambassador of Gujarat Tourism though he is not a resident of the state. Similarly, Shah Rukh Khan is the brand ambassador of West Bengal.
The view that Ms Mirza was appointed by the KCR government to appease the minority community in view of the coming elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation shows is stretching things a bit. It also shows the disrespect the politician — hopefully not the state unit of the party he represents — has for a sportsperson of Ms Mirza’s stature. The player received the Arjuna Award in 2004 and the Padma Shri in 2006 and has made India proud on many occasions. Ms Mirza is also the first Indian woman to win two Grand Slams, she won four gold medals at the 2003 Afro-Asian Games, six medals from three Asian Games, and two at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games. Her career-best ranking of 27 in singles and five in doubles is the highest for an Indian woman in tennis.
Telangana is a new state and for its progress it not only needs an efficient government but also a responsible opposition. Even though it just has five MLAs in the 119-member assembly, the BJP in Telangana must work towards the development of the state and not create a storm in a teacup.

It’s a fresh start for Telangana and Seemandhra

N Chandrababu Naidu

The creation Telangana brings to end a tumultuous chapter in Indian politics. If the previous BJP-led NDA government had shown how to efficiently go about with carving out not one but three states, the Congress-led UPA 2 government mishandled the creation of Telangana right from 2009 when it made the announcement about starting the process of creating a separate state. The Congress failed to gauge the mood of the people and take them into confidence. After dithering over the decision for four years, the UPA government in the last lap of its term decided to accelerate the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. But so miscalculated was its approach that even its chief minister, N Kiran Kumar Reddy, opposed the move. Such was the resentment of the people of the state that in this general election, of the total 42 seats in undivided Andhra Pradesh, the Congress managed to get only two. It is expected that the BJP-led NDA government, now in power, will handle the situation better and till now have made the right moves.

K Chandrashekar Rao

While the Telugu Desam Party, under the leadership of N Chandrababu Naidu, has won 102 of the 175 assembly seats in Seemandhra, K Chandrashekar Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samiti has won 63 of the 119 assembly seats in Telangana. The majority gives both the leaders a free hand to lead stable governments, which is important for the new states. Mr Naidu — who in his previous tenure as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh ushered in considerable development and turned the state into one of the IT hubs in India — appears to be the right person to head Seemandhra at this point of time. Mr Rao is a seasoned politician who has spoken up for the people of Telangana and has got the people’s mandate.
The challenge for the Centre will be to address the needs of both the states in a fair manner. Sectors like power, education, industry, irrigation need to be prioritised and resources need to be divided equitably. Every decision taken will have a lasting impact on the states and there’s no room for error. Both Mr Naidu and Mr Rao get off to a fresh start and their vision will go a long way towards setting the course in which each state will move in the coming decades. For the two leaders to deliver it is important that the Centre assist them at all steps. And given the equations at the moment, this should not prove too difficult.

Naidu doesn't think that Modi will hamper TDP's chance this time

The return of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Chandrababu Naidu to the BJP-led NDA alliance, a decade after partying ways, does not come as a surprise. Recent opinion polls have suggested that if the TDP were to return to the NDA it would boost the chances of the alliance both in Telangana and Seemandhra. The confidence exuberated by leaders of both the BJP and the TDP on Sunday, when the tie-up was announced, reflected this. However, many would say that this deal will not be a game changer in the two would-be states. The BJP will be contesting 13 Lok Sabha seats and 62 assembly seats from undivided Andhra Pradesh, though the final plan is yet to be chalked out.
Mr Naidu is no longer the ‘hi-tech’, reformer chief minister he once was. The 1999 Time ‘South Asian of the Year’, who had the United States president and the British PM as guests to witness the IT revolution in Hyderabad, has been out of power for a decade and a lot has changed during this time. The Congress, which routed the TDP in 2004, may be a pale shadow of what it was, but other parties have moved into that political space. The K Chandrashekar Rao-led TRS and the Jaganmohan Reddy-led YSR Congress have gained where the two national parties and the TDP have lost. The alliance has also seen discontent within the TDP and in the state BJP unit — TDP members staged a protest outside Mr Naidu’s house and the BJP’s Telangana and Seemandhra unit chiefs were not present during the Sunday announcement. Mr Naidu, in an interview in November 2004, might have blamed the TDP’s poll debacle in the state on its alliance with the BJP — he even attributed the communal riots in Gujarat to have negatively impacted the TDP’s chances — but today political necessities have forced him to sing a different tune.
The TDP-BJP alliance is symbiotic in many ways: It gives the BJP an important ally in the southern state and the TDP a presence at the Centre, if an NDA government comes to power.

Telangana-Seemandhra divide stalls Parliament

The second day of the last session of the present Lok Sabha saw a ruckus in Parliament over the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh — into Telangana and Seemandhra. Scenes of MPs walking into the well of the House, shouting slogans and stalling its proceedings have now become par for the course, they were a constant feature in the previous sessions as well. Congress leader and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N  Kiran Kumar Reddy sat in protest against the Centre’s bifurcation move in Delhi and met President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday to request him to stop it. If this was not embarrassing enough, some Congress MPs even gave a notice of no-confidence against the prime minister. The political atmosphere has been so badly vitiated  that the Union Cabinet’s review on the proposal will not be of much help to the Congress. If the party were to drop the issue at this juncture, it would show the central leadership in poor light and would further antagonise the Seemandhra region. However, the political dividends of pressing ahead with the bifurcation are minimal, especially after the Andhra Pradesh assembly rejected the Centre’s bifurcation Bill.

Jaganmohan Reddy

For a party that has been in power in Andhra Pradesh since 2004, the Congress has shown an alarming lack of skill in addressing the Telangana issue. This last-minute enthusiasm suggests that the party is more interested in the poll arithmetic than the welfare of the people from both the regions. If the party thought that the bifurcation would improve its chances of winning the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the Seemandhra region, the protests from the region and its MPs have cast doubts on that. The Congress’ dilly-dallying has given a new lease of life to K Chandrashekar Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi. The Congress also underestimated the support base of YSR Congress (YSRC) chief Jaganmohan Reddy. In 2009, Andhra Pradesh, by voting in 33 of the 42 MPs, played a crucial role in the giving the requisite numbers to the Congress-led UPA to form the government at the Centre. With the YSRC, the TRS and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP gaining momentum, and the revolt within the state Congress unit, the party’s prospects in the assembly and general elections don’t look too bright at the moment.
If the discussion on the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh has reached this state, the blame is squarely on the Congress’ poor political management. Gone are the days when Delhi would decide and the states would nod in approval. The Congress has sown the wind by ignoring the sentiments of the people of Andhra Pradesh, and it is now reaping the whirlwind of discontent and protest.

Parliament: Congress' plans for a last hurrah hit the Telangana hurdle

The last session of the 15th Lok Sabha, which starts today, will be the Congress-led UPA 2 government’s final attempt to make sure that the term doesn’t come to an end with the dubious distinction of being the worst-performing House since Independence. To ensure this, the government is keen to pass more than 35 Bills during the two-week session. The Vote-on-Account, the interim rail budget and the interim general budget would be the session’s important financial transactions. The prominent Bills on the agenda before the House are: the six anti-corruption Bills; the Women’s Reservation Bill, 2008 (which has been passed by the Rajya Sabha); the Prevention of Communal Violence Bill; the Telangana Bill; the Insurance law (Amendment) Bill, 2008; the Higher Education and Research Bill, 2011; the Universities for Research and Innovation Bill, 2012, which will focus on research and innovation at the university level, and the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority Bill 2011. Two other Bills, the 120th Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2013, which will pave the way for setting up a Judicial Appointments Council replacing the collegiums system for appointing judges to higher courts and the Whistle-blowers Protection Bill, 2011, are pending in the Upper House. While these last two Bills will not lapse even if they are not passed this session, the current backlog of 54 Bills in the Rajya Sabha cannot be ignored.

Protest by Congress MPs  (file pic from The Hindu)

While the Opposition parties have accused the UPA government of ‘rushing’ through key Bills because the elections are round the corner, the Congress has much more to worry than them thanks to the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, 2013. The party is likely to face opposition from within its ranks in Parliament on the Bill. The UPA floor managers have a tough job at hand: they have to ensure that the session is not washout like the winter session when the Lok Sabha worked for just 6% of the actual hours scheduled.
Every government that has completed its term till date has passed more than 210 Bills and less than 45 Bills have lapsed during their tenures. The UPA 2 has passed only about 165 Bills and if this session is non-productive around 70 Bills will lapse. In an election year such a track record will reflect poorly on the UPA. On its part, the Opposition should also act in a responsible manner and refrain from frequent disruptions. It should ensure that order is maintained and productive debates are held on the Bills.

Telangana: Congress disagrees with Kiran Kumar Reddy's script for Andhra Pradesh

N Kiran Kumar Reddy

‘The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing’ — this phrase best  describes the present crisis the Congress is facing in Andhra Pradesh. The Congress-led UPA at the Centre wants the creation of India’s 29th state Telangana, by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, but the leaders in Hyderabad are literally in two minds. While chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy is opposing the move, his deputy, Damodar Raja Narasimha, is for a separate Telangana state. In a move that highlights this divide and which puts a question mark over the Centre’s plan to introduce a Bill for a separate Telangana in Parliament, Reddy on Saturday issued a notice to Speaker Nadendla Manohar seeking a motion for returning the draft Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill to the Centre. Mr Reddy rejected the Bill stating that it did not give a ‘reason/basis’ for the bifurcation of the state. On Monday, the divide came out in the open with repeated adjournments of the assembly and with Mr Narasimha even demanding Mr Reddy’s resignation.
At the heart of the debate are the sentiments of the people on the Telangana and Seemandhra sides — both sides feel that they have been given short shrift. While one side of the divide blames the government for delaying the creation of the Telangana state, the other side criticises the ‘unjust’ division of the state and its resources. The state government, and the Centre, should have seen this coming. They should have taken the people from both sides of the divide into confidence, listened to their grievances and arrived at a formula that was acceptable to all parties. It was not for want of time that the party finds itself in the present mess — the call for a separate Telangana has been on for decades and it has been more than three years since Justice BN Srikrishna handed over his committee’s recommendations on the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
No matter how things pan out in Andhra Pradesh, one thing is clear: the Congress has failed to read the mood of the people. It has for far too long been unclear on its commitment to the creation of Telangana. This suggests bad political management and will have an impact not only the on the state elections but also on the Lok Sabha elections, both to be held in a  few months. If opinion polls are anything to go by, the Congress, which had won 33 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from the state in 2009, will find it very hard to even get half of that tally. For a Congress that has been on the backfoot after the drubbing it received at the recent assembly elections held in four states, this is not good news.

Kachchatheevu: A no man's land everyone wants

Kachchatheevu, an uninhabited island, a little over a square kilometre in area, has been a bone of contention between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka for decades. The Rajya Sabha on Monday saw MPs from Tamil Nadu criticising the Centre for its affidavit to the Supreme Court, which stated that no portion of India’s land was ceded to Sri Lanka. The Centre was responding to a petition by Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, filed in 2008, seeking the apex court to declare unconstitutional the 1974 agreement. Tension over the island came to focus in 1974 after the Centre signed an agreement with Sri Lanka accepting that Kachchatheevu was not a part of India. According to the agreement signed between the two countries, fishermen from both sides can use the island to dry their nets and even pray at the St Antony’s shrine in the island. Politicians, across the political spectrum in Tamil Nadu, claim that the Centre ceded the island without passing a resolution in Parliament and thus it is an invalid agreement. To bolster their claims politicians claim that the island was under the king of Ramanathapuram and later under the Mdaras Presidency. Over the years, especially after the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka, there have been an increasing number of reports of confrontation between Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen and cases of the Sri Lankan navy firing at Indian fishermen. More than 150 Indian fishermen have been arrested and are at present facing trial in Sri Lankan courts.

The manner in which the Centre ‘ceded’ Kachchatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1974 should be seen not as an aberration but as a general tone adopted by New Delhi while dealing with the states. Much of the problem surrounding the rights over the island could have been avoided if in 1974 the Centre had taken the then state government in Tamil Nadu into confidence. Today, a similar pattern can also been seen in the way the Centre has gone about unilaterally on its decision to carve out a Telangana state out of Andhra Pradesh, so much so that it has not even won the support of its state leaders on the decision.
For our democracy to be robust and to function in the manner it is meant to, the Centre cannot treat the states as lackeys. States should be seen as equal partners in the democratic process and in decision-making and should be consulted on matters that concern the respective state. This is all the more important in a coalition era where regional parties play an important role in government formation at the Centre.