“Quest for Telangana State – Perspectives and Challenges”
Seminar held @ MIT Campus, Cambridge on 8/5/2006
Telangana Development Forum, Boston chapter organized a seminar on “Quest for Telangana State – Perspectives & Challenges” on August 5th at MIT Campus. This seminar is part of the USA-wide lecture circuit organized by TDF. The meeting was attended by over 60 people including the some non-telugu speaking people representing South Asian Forum.
The first guest speaker R. Vidya Sagar Rao, Retired Chief Engineer of Central Water Commission and a nationally renowned expert on irrigation projects and river water issues articulated in layman terms, how the successive governments of Andhra Pradesh systematically denied Telangana region its legitimate share of river water. Vidya Sagar Rao stressed that if the YSR government’s ill conceived plans of “Jala Yagnam” are implemented as they are; it will have a detrimental effect on the Telangana region and will permanently deny its people the only hope of unutilized water of Godavari River. Mr. Rao felt that an independent statehood for Telangana is the only solution to get its due share of river water and sought the active support from Non-Residents Telanganites in the on-going struggle for Telangana statehood.
The second guest speaker, Dr. Haranath Polasa is a Retired professor of political science at Osmania University and a founder trustee of Telangana Information Trust (TIT) has a long history with Telangana movement. He was very active student leader during the 1969 and since then Prof. Haranath has conducted extensive research on political economy of Telangana region. Dr. Haranath pointed out how the people of Telangana were denied their due share of economic opportunities including agriculture, employment, industry and education in the combined state of Andhra Pradesh. The constitutional safe guards provided at various points of Telangana uprising have been continuously violated to this date.
The last speaker but not the least is Dr. T. Rajeshwar Rao, a prominent BJP party leader from Telangana region is a former Mayor of Warangal and member of Andhra Pradesh State BJP party executive council. Dr. Rao emphatically told the audience, his party’s commitment for restoring the statehood for Telangana. He reiterated that BJP party president Rajnath Singh unequivocally declared support for Telangana and BJP is the only national party which passed resolution for creating the Telangana state. Dr. Rao also requested all Non-Resident Telanganites to have festivities and celebrations on the historic day of September 17th when Telangana truly became independent from feudal rule.
Earlier, the seminar was kicked off with the welcome address by Venkat Maroju followed by the screening of “Still Seeking Justice” a documentary on Telangana. Sudhir Kodati, founder and General Secretary of TDF provided the overview organization and its past and present activities. The meeting also witnessed melodious songs and videos from the Telangana Dhoom Dham, a grand program held in Hyderabad city recently showcasing the Telagana culture.
Some of the prominent Bostonians attended the meeting include Dr. Devender Rao, Papa Rao, Dr. Jaspal of South Asian Forum, Dr. Gilani, a Harvard visiting scholar from Pakistan, Nasim from Indian American Forum for Political Education and Wei Qiang from MIT Sloan School. Suresh Gottimukkula, Amar Karimella, Shanti Putta, Shashi Pulla and Harikrishna Devulapally and several others helped in the organization of the event.