The Great Fall of 2009 - TELandHRA

(I guess its fair that i start calling Andhra Pradesh as Telengana and Andhra Pradesh (TELandHRA) now itself when ever we talk of a united AP)

There have been various incidents in 2009 which have put India down as a country, but yet there have been a lot of other positives which sort of made up for the negatives. But the state that had one of its worst years in the recent times could be none other than Andhra Pradesh. A state that looked to be one of the fastest developing ones, one which attracted people and money from across the world for the resources it had to offer. Everything was going on well, lots of money, employment, tourism and what not.

But as the saying goes ‘Well begun is like Half done’ (here obviously it dint begin well so this worked out in the opposite way!), Andhra kicked off its year with the disclosure of one of the biggest Corporate frauds of India in ages. The company that used to be pride of Hyderabad was involved in a huge accounting fraud. It pulled down the high flying flag of not only IT but also of Hyderabad! If there was any company that would come to anyone’s mind if u mentioned Andhra/Hyderabad, it would be none other than ‘Satyam’. This was assumed to be a one off bad thing that happened at AP.

But who was to know that this was just the beginning of a, to be not so good year. The first half of the year went on with news reports claiming different stories and figures about the Satyam scam, people were scared about their jobs, many even tried to leave Hyderabad to get a better job elsewhere. By the time the State and Central government tried to bring some sense back and got things resolved in the state who was to know that the state would lose its savior (to say so!). The second half of the year gave AP an even bigger shock in the form of the demise of Mr.YSR, which was another blow to the state which hadn’t completely recovered from the Satyam fiasco.

Hundreds of suicides happened across the state which who knew was to be followed by protests across the state to push Mr.YSR’s son as the next CM. The race for the next CM began and the number of MLA’s and leaders flying to and fro to 10 Janpath increased manifold as the state started facing what was to be another wasteful political clash within the alliance that was running the government. Centre kept its cool and has remained with its make shift CM till date.

The race to the hot seat hadn’t resolved and the state was still having a lot of unrest going on, while there were a lot of like minded people with vested interests who wanted to make use of this situation to bring back a five decade old issue which could have been on hold for another 10-15 decades per say. The state is seeing clashes day in and day out while the year is yet to end.

The separation of Andhra into 2 states would create a lot of operational and other issues which could do more harm to the state than the violence that these parties are doing to make their point. Our Home minister did a blunder by making an announcement without consulting the concerned parties and the larger interest of the state. He seemed to have succumbed to the fast that Mr.Rao managed to pull off with well planned violent acts across the state using students and other forces.

( Image Courtesy - http://www.ndtv.com/news/images/story_page/map1story.jpg)

There couldn’t be a year in recent times when Andhra had such huge lows and we haven’t even dealt with their Maoist and other issues per say while thinking about other macro things that have popped out at may be a not so good time.

To me, it seems like the start of the fall of a great state that Andhra Pradesh has been and to be more precise the happening city that Hyderabad used to be. I guess that would go to the newly formed state of Telangana( sort of seems to be unavoidable to me looking at the political stakes and scenario in the state now, though I wish it never happens and AP remains united) and who knows what lies ahead for Hyderabad? A round of many other problems( Various international companies are already rethinking about their plans of Hyderabad and AP as such) or some stabilization in due course!

Today’s Favorite Line – If everyone cared and nobody cried, If everyone loved and nobody lied, If everyone shared and swallowed their pride, Then we'd see the day when nobody died…

Today’s Favorite Song – Everything I do, I do it for u ( Bryan Adams)