Naidu swears by foreign junkets, makes light of domestic woes

Playing "dead bat" to queries on politics, including the one about the meeting his party leader K.Yerran Naidu had with Bal Thackeray which sparked off a minor controversy, Naidu didn’t want the focus to be shifted from his foreign jaunt.

“Today, our per capita income is $ 400 while China’s is $ 800. In 10 years, they are aiming to double the figure. If we don’t catch up, there will be a big gap,” the Andhra Chief Minister said.

High technology, IT and software development were all fine, said one scribe, but what is Naidu and his government doing to stop despondent farmers from ending their lives. The Andhra CEO shot back: “Suicides are being reported from every state. We’re doing our best and I’m not denying that there are problems. At the same time, we can’t ignore development.”

After all, came his reminder, 23 per cent of the Indian software engineers working overseas are Telugus.

Only yesterday, as a bad advertisement for his “hitech” state, another ground nut farmer in the dry Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh consumed pesticide following the loss of his ground nut crop. The police said B. Narayana (50) took the extreme step as he was unable to bear the mounting pressure from banks and money lenders to repay loans amounting Rs 1.50 lakh. With this, the number of ground nut farmers who have committed suicide in the district in the wake of crop failure and mounting debts has risen to 26.

Naidu said unlike the Chinese and the Japanese, the Indians are “talking more on politics and less on development.” The politicians and bureaucrats here, he added, need to draw heavily from the success stories of those countries.

“They are clear about what policies they should pursue. We have to amend our procedures and create a work culture,” Naidu said. India may have missed the agricultural and industrial revolutions but it has an opportunity to catch up with the rest in information technology, he said.

India’s pride was its strength in software development, he said, suggesting that there was enormous potential for it to have greater co-operation with China and Japan which were strong in hardware but weak in software.