YSR ON CLOUD NINE

New Delhi, 19 October 2005

Hyderabad, October 20 (INFA): Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy is on cloud nine ever since the Congress scored a spectacular victory in the municipal elections recently.  He goes ga-ga over the accolades he received from the UPA Chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the recent party Chief Ministers’ conclave at Chandigarh. 

YSR, as the Chief Minister is known, is doubly pleased with Mrs. Gandhi’s compliments on the twin issues of Telangana and Naxalite problems.  She endorsed the two-pronged strategy of the Andhra Pradesh Government on the Naxalite issue and also expressed satisfaction at the efforts made by the Reddy regime for the development of the Telangana region. 

These were two crucial issues on which the Congress Government had drawn flak, mainly from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) and the two left allies, the CPI and CPI-M.

The breakdown of the peace talks with the Maoists in October last year, resulting in the recrudescence of Naxalite violence and encounters since January has put the State Government in a tight spot.  Things are back to square one, with the re-imposition of the ban on CPI-Maoists and its frontal organization. 

So far as Telangana is concerned, the TRS had tried to put the Chief Minister on the mat by pulling out its six ministers from the Cabinet in July last, to protest against the Chief Minister’s “anti-Telangana decisions and actions”. 

At the intervention of the High Command, Reddy met the TRS president and Union Labour Minister,  K.Chandrasekhar Rao in Delhi recently and agreed to address the concerns of the TRS on Pulichintala and Polavaram irrigation projects and job for the locals.

At the same time, the Chief Minister worked on a political strategy to marginalize the TRS even while claiming that the Congress would prefer the appointment of a second State Reorganisation Commission to go into the demand for separate Telangana State.

Changing his posture recently, Reddy told the National Integration Council meeting that the Telangana sentiment had subsided due to the steps taken by his Government over the last 16 months for “accelerated” development of the Telangana region through expeditious completion of irrigation projects.---INFA

IDMA DONATION TO EARTHQUAKE-HIT

New Delhi, October 20 (INFA): The Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association (IDMA), an organisation of 600 Indian pharmaceutical manufacturing companies, has decided to donate medicines worth Rs. 25 lakh to the earthquake-affected people of Pakistan.  As a symbolic gesture, some medicines were handed over to the delegation from Pakistan, led by the Chairman, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi. 

The IDMA has also donated medicines and money for the earthquake-hit people of Jammu and Kashmir in response to appeal of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.  The Association is committed to mitigate the sufferings of humanity at this difficult juncture.----INFA