Jaipal rushed to douse T fire in Cong - Party High Command Keen On Convincing Leaders To Give Up Their Threat To Resign

Alarmed by the threats of its MPs and other elected leaders from Telangana,the Congress high command has rushed Union urban development minister S Jaipal Reddy to Hyderabad.But even as Jaipal landed in the city,these Congress leaders added a fresh demand to their earlier one of a Telangana Bill in Budget session of Parliament: recall governor E S L Narasimhan. Jaipal,who will be assisted by PCC president D Srinivas,is on a mission to convince these Congress leaders to not renew their resignation threat if the UPA government does not introduce a bill on Telangana in the Budget session.

The high commands immediate concern is the proposed meeting of these leaders in Secunderabad at 3 pm on Tuesday where elected members from mandal parishad presidents to MPs are expected to pile up pressure on UPA.The leaders from Telangana have been given the go-ahead for Tuesdays meeting but with the rider that they refrain from passing any resolution that may embarrass the party, a source said. The Union minister,who landed in the city on Sunday,was,however,immediately greeted by protesters outside his Jubilee Hills home on Monday morning.The protesting advocates staged a dharna demanding that he should resign if the bill is not introduced.

According to sources,Jaipal held a meeting with ministers D Sridhar Babu,P Sudarshan Reddy and Komatireddy Venkata Reddy.He told them that they should not press for their resignations as the party leadership was expecting some reciprocation from Congress leaders from Andhra in the wake of the recommendations of the Srikrishna Committee, a source said. However,as of Monday evening,these leaders were firm on their resignation threat.There would be no going back on the decision to resign. We will use all democratic methods to force the UPA government to agree for the fifth option of the Justice Srikrishna report without any reservations.The report talked of some implications of the fifth option like internal security and agitations.These apprehensions do not warrant postponing the creation of Telangana, said RS MP K Keshava Rao.

Apart from Rao,endowments minister Jupalli Krishna Rao and MLC K Yadava Reddy reiterated their stand to resign.Yadava Reddy said all elected members from the region such as MPP presidents,ZP chairmen,MPs,MLAs,PCC office bearers along with ministers will attend Tuesdays meeting. Apart from the resignation issue,the meeting will discuss the issue of continuance of governor Narasimhan. These leaders believe that he was responsible for deployment of paramilitary forces in the region.His continuance would further vitiate the atmosphere, said a leader.
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T panel distorted facts


The TRS on Monday accused the Srikrishna Committee of having distorted facts in its report submitted to the Centre on December 30 on the Telangana statehood issue. While party ideologue and irrigation expert R Vidyasagar Rao is preparing a list of errors that crept into the report in regard to irrigation facilities,Prof K Jayashankar is preparing a detail note explaining how the methodology adopted by the committee in arriving at various conclusions was unscientific,incomplete and partial.  According to Vidyasagar Rao,chapter - 4 of the report says that in Telangana,irrigation facility was developed 713% while it was 390% per cent in Rayalaseema and 190% in Andhra region.If that was so then the irrigated area in Telangana should have crossed 1.4 crore acres since 1956.

But official records show that before merging Telangana with Andhra in 1956,the total land under cultivation was 20 lakh acres while now it has crossed only about 50 lakh acres.He said after the Jalayagnam was launched in 2004,as per the report,6.15 lakh acres of land had come under irrigation in the last five years of which 60,000 acres was in Telangana.But the government records say that not a single acre has come under new ayacut as the projects taken up are yet to completed.

Another major error, they say was in regard to the seven lift schemes including Kalwakurthi, Bheema, Nettempadu, Koilakuntla and AMR projects.While these projects are on the river Krishna in Nalgonda and Mahbubnagar districts,the report said they were on the river Godavari. He further pointed out that RDS (Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme) in Mahbubnagar was not getting allocated water from Krishna as per the Bachawat award as the government had diverted 39.9 tmc of water out of 70 tmc that was allocated for this project to Kurnool and Kadapa districts and also because the upper riparian state of Karnataka was utilising more than its share.

Jayashankar said the report showed the tax collection in Telangana as 8% in 2008-09 excluding Hyderabad while,according to official records submitted to the assembly by the then finance minister K Rosaiah,80% of tax collection had come from Telangana including Hyderabad.While government never excluded Hyderabad for the purpose of tax revenue,the committee excluded it and hence this method was unscientific. According to Jayashankar,since Andhra Pradesh was formed,the Telangana region contributed more than 45 per cent of income to the state exchequer through taxes.Official records also said Telangana was the highest contributor to tax revenue since 1956.For the first time,the committee report gave a different definition of tax revenue in Telangana.

Meanwhile,Telangana Employees Union decided to file a petition in the SC against  5 member Sri-krishna Committee for distorting the facts and not considering the documentary evidences submitted by Telangana organisations on various issues to it during consultations.Telangana employees union president and political JAC leader C Vittal said the Srikrishna Committee was wrong in its conclusion that the recommendations of the Girglani panel were being successfully implemented by providing jobs to Telangana people.As per the recommendations,a cabinet sub-committee,House committee and monitoring committee headed by state chief secretary should be constituted to implement them.But no such committee was constituted.Even the Presidential Order was not being implemented, he added.
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COPS HYPER REACTION DEPLORED - Withdraw forces from OU area: APCLC

Civil rights activists have demanded that the police forces deployed around Osmania University campus be withdrawn immediately.They said the police handling of the T agitation on the university campus was akin to using a big stick to tackle a small problem.Rights activists,speaking here on Monday under the banner of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee,said that the forces brought in from across the country had reacted strongly to even minor incidents that could have been handled better.They said that even residents living around the campus had been much inconvenienced due to the huge presence of the police personnel. There is a lot of anticipation among the forces when they are brought in such huge numbers from outside. In such situations,even a small incident acts as a big trigger, said G Haragopal,civil rights activist.

Activists of APCLC said the committee had made a representation to the state home minister on January 8,seeking the governments intervention in withdrawing the forces from the university and its adjacent areas.The residents of Manikeshwarinagar (close to Osmania University campus) are bearing the brunt as the forces stationed there are not even allowing people to get out of their homes.Most of them are daily wage earners and it has become a problem for them to earn their livelihood, said G Laxman,former state president of APCLC.

Activists alleged that residents were even being asked to produce identity cards to prove that they belonged to that area.We demand that the state government withdraw the forces from that area at the earliest as it is causing a lot of inconvenience to people.Also,allowing the media,intellectuals and activists to enter the campus to take stock of things happening there can automatically put to rest a lot of speculation, said M Srinivas,joint secretary of APCLC.
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Barbed fencing causes injuries to protesters


Warangal: High drama prevailed at the collectorate here on Monday when TRS and BJP activists tried to storm it.Police tried to prevent them and in the jostling,several of them fell on the barbed iron fencing and suffered injuries.Media personnel who went to cover the agitation also fell down in the melee and hurt themselves. It all started when the TRS activists raced towards the collectorate after winding up their dharna at Ekashila Park in Balasamudram.They took out a huge rally from the park and reached the collector office late in the afternnon.To prevent them from entering the office,police blocked the road at Subedari with a barbed fencing and iron mesh.

However,the activists tried to gatecrash into the office by rushing towards the gate.In the process,an iron pole to which the barbed fencing was tied crashed.When the cops pushed them aside,the protestors fell on the iron mesh.Several of them suffered injuries. Mamnoor CI Chandraiah,some constables,Raj News regional coordinator G R Sampath Kumar,NTV cameraman Ram,BJP Thorrur mandal president Pulender,BJP leader Anil Kumar and a few others were injured when the iron mesh tore into their shirts and trousers.

Some Kakatiya University students,who were also protesting,were severely injured and taken to private hospitals for medical treatment.TRS MLA D Vinaya Bhaskar appealed to the police to immediately remove the iron mesh and barbed fencing from the government offices.He said the agitators were getting injured due to the sharp edges of the mesh and fencing. Later,KU student JAC activists went to IT minister Ponnala Lakshmaiahs residence at Ramnagar in Hanamkonda and tried to lay siege to it.However,police dispersed them.Hundreds of students divided into batches and went to TDP MLA Errabelli Dayakar Raos residence at Hanamkonda.Former tribal welfare minister Redya Naiks residence at Maripeda was also besieged by the agitators who demanded that he participate in their dharna.Obliging them,he sat in the dharna in front of the tehsildar office.

Meanwhile,KU students continued their relay hunger strike,which entered the seventh day on Monday.The students burnt effigies of the central government and shouted slogans against the Srikrishna Committee.TDP ZPTC member L Raja Babu of Bhupalpally resigned from his post.He later clarified that he would continue to be with TDP.In Nizamabad,student JAC activists took out funeral processions and performed the last rites to the effigies of Nizamabad MP Madhu Yaski Goud and Zaheerabad MP Suresh Shetkar at the NTR crossroads where TJAC leaders staged a massive dharna demanding that the government place a bill for Telangana in Parliament.MLAs Pocharam Srinivas Reddy (TDP),Yendala Laxminarayana (BJP) and Etela Ravinder (TRS) and others took part in the dharna.
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Prohibitory orders in Hyd

The Hyderabad city police on Monday imposed Section 144 in the Saifabad police station limits from January 11 to 13 to maintain law and order.According to police,no processions,dharnas,rallies or public meetings would be allowed in the city."Any person violating the orders shall be liable for prosecution under the law,"according to an official release.However,police officers,military personnel,home guards,funeral processions and persons or groups duly exempted by competent authority are exempted from it.
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Police deployed at collectorates to thwart T agitations

Nizamabad: With pro-Telangana agitators intensifying their protests and dharnas,the government has deployed paramilitary forces and state police in large numbers at all the district collectorates,political party offices,houses of MLAs,MPs,MLCs and ministers in the entire Telangana region to prevent any untoward incident. Police personnel cordoned off the collectorates and placed barbed fencing and iron meshes at the main gates to prevent the T-agitators from entering the premises.

In the wake of Telangana JAC call to stage dharnas in front of the collectorates to bring pressure on the Centre to introduce a bill on separate state in Parliament in the coming budget session,the government went into an overdrive by deploying paramilitary forces. That the cops were strictly told to thwart the agitators at any cost became all too clear when even general public,who arrived at the collector offices to submit their representations on the occasion of Grievances Day on Monday,were also not allowed to enter the premises. Sources said in the wake of recent attacks on the houses of some ministers,police were taking adequate measures to see that such incidents do not repeat.
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