KCR hopes to heal bifurcation wounds with world Telugu meet
THE EVENT WILL BE ATTENDED BY AROUND 200 DELEGATES FROM 60 COUNTRIES.
Afshan Ashiq of Srinagar has metamorphosed from being the poster girl of stone-pelting to being the captain and trainer of hundreds of girls in Kashmir who are interested in playing football.
The tall girl, who was captured on lens throwing stones on the security forces when the latter tried to physically assault the protesters, during this year’s students’ unrest in the summers, in which girl students took the lead in and around the protest centre of Women’s College of Srinagar, was seen interacting with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh along with other girls of her football team on Tuesday.
She not only briefed Singh about the poor sports infrastructure in the Kashmir Valley but also asked Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to improve the same, in particular the sports facilities available for the girls in Srinagar and the rest of Kashmir.
Afshan Ashiq is now being projected as somebody who could de-radicalise the youth. Afshan told the media that sports can serve as the best medium to de-radicalise the youth. Afshan was in New Delhi as the captain of Chief Minister’s team. She is also the goalkeeper of the team. She has now gone to Mumbai to watch the Indian Super League football match. However, she said that the police and the security forces need to behave with the protesting girls, while proclaiming that she has no regrets for throwing stones on men-in-uniform, who had misbehaved with her and her colleagues near Women’s College in Srinagar during the summer agitation.
Afshan talked in detail to Singh about the impediments to women’s sports sector in the Kashmir Valley. She was all praise for Rajnath Singh who issued on-the-spot instructions for better infrastructure and facilities for girls interested in football.
According to the J&K Sports Council officials, soon after Afshan Ashiq’s photograph and video clips became viral, she was called by Mehbooba Mufti who told her that she would get all the support from the government. In the R.S. Pora area of Jammu near the border, Mool Singh is hoping for divine intervention so that his captive son Randeep in Saudi Arabia can walk free and come back home. Randeep was working as a chauffeur with a private company in Saudi Arabia. Mool Singh said that his son’s employer has taken away his passport and is not giving his son any salary. He said that he is getting frantic messages from his son to rescue him.
The family has sought the intervention of Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, so that Randeep comes back to the village. Mool Singh said that he has raised the issue with the state government and recently met Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh. The family members told the media that Randeep Singh has sent information that he along with two others have been kept hostage by the company over salary issues. Nirmal Singh said that he has taken up the issue of Randeep Singh with the Central government and that he is hopeful that the issue will be resolved. Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is organising a five-day World Telugu Conference in Hyderabad from Friday, 15 December to 19 December, to highlight the contribution of Telangana in making Telugu, one of the ancient languages of India, flourish. The exercise is being seen as his attempt to heal the wounds of people who resisted the bifurcation of undivided Andhra Pradesh.
KCR, who is an MA in Telugu from Osmania University, and also a lyricist in Telugu, has taken up the responsibility of conducting the world Telugu meet. Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu will be the chief guest at the inaugural function, while President Ram Nath Kovind will grace the valedictory function.
What surprised all is KCR’s decision to invite his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N. Chandrababu Naidu to the inaugural ceremony, which will be held at the L.B. Stadium in the heart of Hyderabad on Friday evening.
KCR has announced Rs 50 crore for conducting the world meet which will be attended by around 200 delegates from 60 countries and 7,800 delegates from within India including scholars of different languages such as Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam.
Telangana Cultural Department secretary Burra Venkatesham told The Sunday Guardian that the conference will be remembered not only for its grandeur and scale, but also for its role in promoting the Telugu language and unearthing hidden angles of its rich literature and heritage. “We want to cater to the needs of around 15 crore Telugu speaking people all over the world,” he said.
This is not the first time the world Telugu conference is being held. The first one was held in Hyderabad in 1975 when the J. Vengal Rao led Congress government was in power in Andhra Pradesh and the second time it was held in 2012 at Tirupati when the N. Kiran Kumar Reddy led Congress government was struggling to keep AP united. The first one was a big success, but the second one went unnoticed.
The Telangana government is not treating the previous meets as precedents. “The first one was held to conceal the excesses of Emergency by the Vengal Rao government and to cover the wounds of separate Telangana movement in 1969 and Jai Andhra movement in 1971. The 2012 meet was a poor show to hide the latest Telangana agitation,” Telangana government adviser K.V. Ramanachary told this newspaper.
Ramanachary contended that the earlier world Telugu conferences were entirely dominated and dictated by linguists and litterateurs from the Andhra region. “Suppression of Telangana poets, writers and linguists’ contribution to Telugu language and literature is one of the reasons for separate statehood demand,” said Ramanachary in an interview to this newspaper.
As far as Telangana is concerned, this is the first WTC and it would entirely focus on the role and contribution of poets, writers and critics of Telangana to Telugu language and literature. Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University (PSRTU) in Hyderabad has been commissioned to publish 100 books on Telangana’s poets, writers and linguists.
KCR has directed his ministers and officials to conduct pre-event meetings in all 31 districts of Telangana and to ensure a large number of school and college students attended the WTC. Around 6,000 Telugu teachers and lecturers are being given paid holiday to attend the event.
A large number of Andhra people, estimated to be around 40 lakh, stay in Hyderabad and another 25 lakh people in the districts. They command control over a majority of businesses and industries in Telangana.
Interestingly, most of Andhra settlers in Hyderabad and the districts have turned supporters of KCR and the ruling TRS after the division of Andhra Pradesh. They overwhelmingly backed TRS in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections last year, which the party won.
KCR has sent a delegation of WTC to Vijayawada last week to invite Telugu writers and scholars to the WTC. PSRTU Vice-Chancellor Prof S.V. Satyanarayan told this newspaper that there was a tremendous response from the people of Andhra to the event. “We were surprised to see such warmth and affection from Andhra people,” he said. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Writers’ Association has given a call to boycott the WTC. It attacked KCR for rolling out a red carpet to those who opposed the creation of Telangana. President Ram Nath Kovind will have a shortened annual southern sojourn in Hyderabad from 22 to 26 December. This is a brief five-day visit here compared to at least a fortnight stay by earlier Presidents Pranab Mukherjee, Pratibha Patil and A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. Usually, the President of India spends every yearend at Rashtrapathi Nilayam in Secunderabad, the twin city of Hyderabad.
This will be the first southern sojourn of Kovind who took over as the President five months ago. The shortened stay of the President has surprised the Telangana government, which has already extended an invitation to him for the valedictory session of the World Telugu Conference (WTC) from 15 to 19 December here.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has announced that the President has consented to be the chief guest at the valedictory of WTC and has planned a grand ceremony to felicitate him on the occasion. The message that Kovind would be here only on 22 December has caught the CM’s office unawares and they are unsure if the first citizen would make it possible for the WTC event.
“We are trying to contact the President’s staff to see to it that the VVIP would be present at the WTC concluding ceremony. We hope that he would come here on 19 December, even if his southern sojourn begins on 22 December,” said an official in the CMO. The President was at Visakhapatnam on 8 December to participate in a function held by the Indian Navy.
The Telangana government is planning to host a grand reception to Kovind during his stay in Secunderabad which will also be joined by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan will host a dinner in honour of the President and the President will host a dinner to important personalities from both the states, during his five-day programme.
AP CM Naidu, too, is planning to introduce his Cabinet colleagues to the President at one of the two dinners. KCR is planning to unveil a souvenir of WTC through the hands of the President, if he cannot make it to the valedictory. According to a tentative programme from Rahstrapathi Bhavan, Kovind will also attend one or two events in Karnataka and Kerala during his sojourn here.
A few Dalit associations and Opposition parties like YSR Congress and the Left parties are likely to meet him over some public issues. A Dalit rights group from AP has announced that they would seek reduction of jail term to two Dalit youths Chalapathi and Vijayavardhan Rao, life convicts now in the Rajahmundry central jail.