AP CM Chandrababu Naidu is leaving no stone unturned to make AP as the destination for investments. Naidu, who participated in Maritime India Summit in Mumbai, has signed two MOUs which are expected to attract over Rs 4000 Crore investment into the successor state.While one MOU is aimed at the revival of Buckingham Canal, the other MOU is to set up shipping unit in Antarvedi in East Godavari district.

AP government has signed an MOU with the Dredging Corporation of India for establishing Dredging harbour and the second MOU with Inland Waterways of India is in regard with re-functioning of Buckingham Canal.Talking at the Maritime India Summit (14 April-16 April) on Thursday, Naidu described AP as the gateway of opportunities with huge coastal corridor, ports, industries, SEZs. Naidu said that this is the right time for investment in AP as the state government is giving various benefits to the investors.

He mentioned that Visakhapatnam-Chennai coastal corridor is on the cards and once this is opened, he expected that it’d make things easy for the business.On the sidelines, Naidu met various international industrialists and asked them to invest in AP.

In a shocking revelation, defected YSR Congress MLA for Vijayawada-West constituency Jaleel Khan said that 30 more YSRCP MLAs are about to join the ruling TDP. Sharply reacting to the jibes by YSRCP MLAs, Jaleel said, “In my whole political career, I’ve never seen such an Opposition party. There’s a coterie which runs the party. Neither MPs nor MLAs are given due respect within the party. One has to wait even for appointment of party chief. We can’t freely approach him. Even for MLAs, entry into Jagan’s house isn’t easy.

Whereas CM Chandrababu Naidu treats us like friends. We could go to his home without much hassles and bring problems to his notice.”Jaleel reasoned that in defections in Telangana are due to ‘Power’ whereas in Andhra Pradesh he opined that ‘lack of respect’ and ‘lack of leadership’ is pushing Opposition MLAs to join TDP.Taking up the challenge thrown by YCP MLAs, Jaleel counter-challenged, “Yes, I’m very much ready to resign, contest elections again and win again.

If I win, are they ready to close the party?” Jaleel further said, “Those who’re making these statements are also suffering in YCP. They’re also keen to join TDP. I don’t want to take names but 30 more MLAs are willing to switch the party.”Jaleel’s latest statement is making tremors in YCP which was left bruised with the defection of 11 MLAs so far.

The survey conducted by Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies on the performance of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments headed by N Chandrababu Naidu and K Chandrasekhar Rao respectively got different interpretations from various media houses in tune with their policies.But only one paper has completely ignored it: and that is Sakshi, owned by YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.While Eenadu carried a small one-paragraph bit quoting a press release from Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister’s Office stating that people are by and large happy with the Naidu government, Andhra Jyothy carried both negative and positive comments of the survey against Naidu, though it also highlighted Naidu government performance.

Though the CMS survey had some positive points for Naidu – it said 53 per cent of the people still have faith in Naidu and 59 per cent of them felt Naidu is trying to implement his poll promises, there are a lot of negative points against him.For example, the survey said people are quite unhappy over the failure of his administration in resolving people’s problems; corruption has grown by leaps and bounds in all departments; ministers are not accessible to the common people and lack of employment opportunities to the youth etc.

All in all, Naidu has failed to consolidate the support of majority sections of people, the survey said.Well, Jagan’s Sakshi could have highlighted all these points and used them to attack the Naidu government. But it completely ignored the survey results. Reason: the survey also made some critical comment against Jagan.It said the YSR Congress party also miserably failed to cash in on the growing dissatisfaction among the people over the Naidu government and that he was not able to grow politically due to inexperienced handling of the party affairs by Jagan.

So, if Sakshi has to carry the survey report, somebody would definitely question his part as well. Therefore, it is better to keep silent, Sakshi people might have felt.

The Andhra Pradesh Unit of BJP is quite ecstatic over the fact that power star Pawan Kalyan has announced his full time political entry soon. Naturally there are growing calls to distance themselves from TDP with a hope that Pawan will join them soon.The chances of Pawan Kalyan and TDP fighting each other cannot be ruled out but at the same time, there is a perception that BJP cannot be over confident about him supporting their party.

BJP is being seen as main culprit by people of Andhra Pradesh in view of the recent bifurcation!Hence Pawan cannot expect himself to ally with BJP just like that unless and until there are credible development packages and funds announced by Centre. It will be foolhardy for BJP to hope that PK will blindly support them. Not to forget, the issue of ‘Special Status’ still remains.

So, in case Pawan fights against BJP too, then YSRCP may be the only party which is readily available but will the YSRCP boss Jagan take the headache when TDP and Jana Sena themselves are not entertaining the AP Unit of BJP! This will be an interesting situation to foresee.

The Central government which is only bothered about the petty political interests in both the Telugu states has more or less remained unmoved and insensitive over several issues that have been plaguing the administration.There is now a big issue facing Andhra Pradesh regarding Section 50, 51 and 56 which notify the tax division between AP and Telangana. The pending commercial taxes pre-bifurcation according to the act will be going to the state government where the businesses are present.

Telangana has become the biggest beneficiary since majority of the businesses are actually present in Hyderabad . The most controversial clause pertains to the refund of the Commercial Taxes. Whenever a refund is claimed for the transactions before the bifurcation, both the states should pay them as per the population ratio.

AP will be paying about 58% in such cases even for the income gained by Telangana government. AP has reportedly lost 3600 Crore due to this clause. With Center remaining non reactive to the issue, the AP government had reportedly decided to approach Supreme Court.

Three days ago, President of India had presented Padma awards to various personalities who had excelled in their own fields.Among those who had this great honour were quite a few Telugus including media baron Ramoji Rao (Padma Vibhushan), popular film director S S Rajamouli (Padmasri), noted litterateur Yarlagadda Lakshmi Prasad (Padma Bhushan) and artiste Vaikuntham (Padma Sri) etc.Naturally, it is a great opportunity to felicitate these personalities who had brought laurels to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States.

From the film industry, at present Rajamouli is the only person who had got the award for his magnum opus Baahubali, which also won the national award for the best film category.In a way, Ramoji Rao is also connected to the Telugu film industry, as he had produced several award-wiinning films under Usha Kiran Movies and gave life to several artistes. So, he too deserves felicitation by the film industry.Yet, both were ignored by our great MP T Subbarami Reddy, who has the habit of hogging the media limelight by felicitating film stars.

A day after the presentation of Padma awards, TSR held a function in New Delhi and profusely felicitated Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra for getting the Padmasri award.Several celebrities including our own hero-cum-producer Mohan Babu attended the function. Wonder, why Subbarami Reddy who also produced several Telugu films, chose to ignore Ramoji Rao and Rajamouli and preferred Priyanka Chopra, who is nothing to do with Telugu films.