Whither Brand Hyderabad?

The ongoing political crisis in Andhra Pradesh has many wondering what will happen to Brand Hyderabad and all the glitter it has gathered over the last decade. There is concern that if AP is partitioned, then investments will move away. Unrest is already affecting the business mood and the fear is that in future, Maoist violence may increase and weaken the city, or that a partitioned state that still controls it will divert resources to other lesser developed parts.

Telangana has had genuine problems about resource allocation, an exploitative political leadership and self-respect. The jury is out on whether this warrants a partition of India's first state formed on linguistic basis - read this Hindu editorial for one view. As far as Brand Hyderabad goes, I believe the damage is not irreparable. Urbanization is a mega trend and location wise, Hyderabad taps a massive hinterland. The divisive Telugus may go and serve other metros Madras and Bangalore, like they always did (it was more so before Unification in 1956). But this is clearly not a zero sum game.

If a new state capital for Andhra-Rayalseema is created, other metros may benefit, but this will also mean more construction on the new capital, more work leading to an economic boom. The Andhra-Seema folks may work with a vengeance and leverage the huge seacoast they have for the first time. And if the Telangana issue is sorted out without partition, then the Brand will only bounce back stronger. Brand Mumbai has been resilient despite several major terrorist attacks. Brand Delhi remains strong despite turmoil in nearby Af-Pak. Didn't Japan witness a huge ascendance right after the World War II mayhem? So fellas, stay optimistic and hope that the uncertainity soon subsides, giving people like us work to do. The sun shines brighter, once the clouds clear up.

Voting in the Indian Elections 2009

Much has been written about the Indian Elections 2009 and turns out that the voting turnout in 2009 has been higher than the previous ones in 2004. More significantly the urban, educated class which has hitherto been apathetic has turned out in significant numbers to vote. I had written about this before the elections started and the hunch turned out to be true. What caused this change?

• New generation parties like Loksatta have emerged on the political scene - these seek to mirror the aspirations of the first time voters seeking change, and have enhanced the voter turnout.
  
• Movements such as Letsvote.in have added to this momentum, the turnout at the Hyderabad walk was large and showed the enthu among the IT crowd.
  
• Not to mention Jaagore which caused quite a stir in mobilising voter registrations. I was impressed with their CRM like approach to voter databases; however THE missing part was ensuring voters confirmed their names in the electoral rolls - this alone could have saved a few lakh votes, given the scale of their campaign targeting One Billion Votes.

After the election day, I checked with my friends on their voting experience - many confirmed that they indeed voted and proudly showed their index fingers embossed with the indelible voter ink (apparently in Maharashtra they smeared the middle finger, leading to a comic sight with voters showing it up). However a fairly large number also reported that their names were missing from the electoral rolls. All these cases could have been avoided if only the prospective voters had leveraged one of the many web resources available:

• http://www.pollingbooth.in/ - check your name in the rolls 3-4 weeks before the election data, if it is missing, immediately raise a request to the election office in your jurisdiction. In my case, I found my name but failed to notice the change in the polling booth; so on the election day, had to rush to the new booth i was assigned, some 4 kms away from my home.
• http://www.ceo.ap.gov.in/ - same as above, or the local equivalent
  
• http://www.ceoandhra.nic.in/Final_erolls_2009_II.html - same as above
• http://myneta.info/ - a wonderful tool comparing the profiles of the candidates in your constituency. This link showed me the picture for Secunderabad before i voted.

Hopefully the next election (which one fears, may not be too far away with the expected hung mandates) will see these trends intensify and the lessons learnt implemented. Technology would then have really helped influence change in the polity!

Dream: Coastal Living in India

I have often been asked by some people abroad, about the apparent lack of interest Indians have in 'living the coastal life' despite having a long coastline. I must admit, I did not have an answer, except mumble that the Indian idea of 'living the life' is different from what the Americans, British or the Australians may have. Indian kids in general do not grow up on the rich feast of sports and active lifestyle that kids in such countries do. Our kids are anyway constantly prodded by their parents to do three things: study, study and study more. And when these kids grow up, they don't change; in most cases active lifestyle may mean watching the next T20 cricket match, firmly ensconced on the couch with that bowl of potato chips.

Fortunately i spent my childhood in the coastal cities of Visakhapatnam (aka Vizag) and Paradip - as a child i remember awaiting our weekly trip to Ramakrishna Beach in Vizag. In Paradip, our school gang used to tear up the beach after every major exam. The tremendous feeling of post-exam-mania release would always find its vent near the Bay of Bengal. And the summer holidays had numerous bike trips from our township nestled in Paradip Phosphates, were always to the deserted beach. But all this was raw energy with absolutely no supporting infrastructure for sports like sailing, yachting, parasailing, canoeing etc. The same is true even today though some sports are faintly picking up in places like Rushikonda near Visakhapatnam. Indians are slowly waking up to a more active lifestyle, what with increasing global exposure of the IT generation: groups focused on Running (eg: Hyderabad Runners), Cycling (eg: HBC), Adventure (eg: www.hydventura.com), etc have emerged speaking of only one place - Hyderabad.

Now coming back to the coastline theme, India has all of 7,517 km of it, and except for pockets such as Goa or a few kilometres of beachfront property in major cities like Mumbai, Cochin, Madras, Visakhapatnam there is not much of Real Estate activity. Even the big boom of the last five years did not differentiate Coastal areas per se, as a hot zone. In my home state of Andhra Pradesh, the big Coastal Corridor project that was hatched by Chandrababu Naidu in his term and then continued by the Congress government was dropped due to political pressure - the government could not figure out an easy way of compensating the displaced and since it was an election year, they developed cold feet and scrapped it.

Big development is required in the coastal areas - to attract industry, the services sector which bring in jobs and hence people who will spur demand for quality houses on the beaches. Such demand will also carry a niche that demands quality coastal living.

Flyovers wreaking more havoc

Last month I had posted about the long pending flyovers in Hyderabad. Unfortunately tragedy struck earlier this month and a portion of the one of the flyovers under construction at the busy Punjagutta junction crashed after heavy rains. Two persons perished in the incident which was caused by nothing but the gross negligence by the authorities.

Even now several days after the tragedy there are no findings on the root cause not any action taken on guilty personnel. The same dirty politics that dogs the construction is holding back any remedial action.

Smooth traffic on I-Day

Last month I had posted about the smooth traffic in Hyderabad on the US Independence Day which happened to be a week day. Today on the Indian Independence Day (another week day) the traffic at Hyderabad is even more easy with most people cooped up at home watching their favourite blockbuster movies on television. Driving is more comfortable and no where near the cacophony on the roads. One wishes we had more weekday holidays or a judicious distribution of holidays across the week to give more such breathers!