----- Original Message ----- From: Sandeep Vaidya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: STOP NATO: ��O PASARAN! <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2000 9:33 AM Subject: [STOPNATO] Log in, Mr. Naidu STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement: 15% off Ashford Collection jewelry for Mother's Day! Mom will love these gorgeous pieces handpicked by our expert jewelry buyers - now 15% off and shipped FedEx overnight FREE! Spoiled as a child? Return the favor - get her gift at Ashford.com. http://on.linkexchange.com/?ATID=27&AID=1231 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Times of India, May 16 Editorial Log in, Mr Naidu Horrifying reports and heart-wrenching images are pouring in, significantly not from a place of devastation in back-of-beyond Bihar but from upwardly mobile Andhra Pradesh. Farmers are committing suicide because the cotton crop has failed; their widows are being forced to work in the houses of moneylenders and landlords in lieu of the uncleared debts. Large parts of the state are reeling under an unprecedented drought, the scale and intensity of which has claimed many lives and condemned several hundred thousands to a living death. The victims are so stricken and starved that they have lost the will and energy to survive; they cannot summon even the effort required to hunt for scarce food and instead they are settling for stuff which cattle won't eat; some can barely manage to crawl to the nearest stagnant pond to quench their parched throats; many have despaired of being able to walk the miles to the nearest water source, and are stoically awaiting death. There seems no hope on the horizon for these cruel victims of nature's rage because, as reports suggest, many of them are beyond the pale of "development" and "administration" in the absence of roads connecting them to the district headquarters. There have been reports of Lambada families in distress selling their babies; of other families letting children die, once at birth, rather than die everyday out of hunger and of child prostitution which is spreading at an alarming rate. This picture would have made sense had it been about any of the BIMARU states. But it is about a state headed by India's most information-savvy chief minister, Mr Chandrababu Naidu; the same Mr Naidu, darling of the media, whose SMART administration is computer and video-connected with district and taluk officials. So, tell us Mr Naidu, what is your information? Are these reports true, even if exaggerated? Since we haven't heard otherwise from you, we would like to know what you are doing to ameliorate the distress in which lakhs of your Telugu people are trapped? Is there relief on the way and of what kind? Are food and water being rushed? What are you doing to persuade farmers, particularly cotton farmers, that there is life after this if they don't commit suicide? What is being done to prevent parents from selling their children for a few hundred rupees? How do you plan to stop children being driven into prostitution by penury? Beyond dealing with this emergency, what kind of vision and mission does your administration have to ensure water and food security to those who are vulnerable to the cycle of famine and floods? Are you prepared with plans for water harvesting and storage when the rains come in a few weeks from now? We are astonished that this should be reported as happening in Andhra Pradesh, which supposedly is speeding ahead on the new IT highways. What is the connectivity your administration and development plans have to the millions who are more than a mouse-click away? Please tell us. Some `Plain Speaking' -- to quote the title of your recent book -- from you on these life-and-death issues would be welcomed. Particularly by those directly and direly affected.
Times of India, May 16 Editorial Log in, Mr Naidu Horrifying reports and heart-wrenching images are pouring in, significantly not from a place of devastation in back-of-beyond Bihar but from upwardly mobile Andhra Pradesh. Farmers are committing suicide because the cotton crop has failed; their widows are being forced to work in the houses of moneylenders and landlords in lieu of the uncleared debts. Large parts of the state are reeling under an unprecedented drought, the scale and intensity of which has claimed many lives and condemned several hundred thousands to a living death. The victims are so stricken and starved that they have lost the will and energy to survive; they cannot summon even the effort required to hunt for scarce food and instead they are settling for stuff which cattle won't eat; some can barely manage to crawl to the nearest stagnant pond to quench their parched throats; many have despaired of being able to walk the miles to the nearest water source, and are stoically awaiting death. There seems no hope on the horizon for these cruel victims of nature's rage because, as reports suggest, many of them are beyond the pale of "development" and "administration" in the absence of roads connecting them to the district headquarters. There have been reports of Lambada families in distress selling their babies; of other families letting children die, once at birth, rather than die everyday out of hunger and of child prostitution which is spreading at an alarming rate. This picture would have made sense had it been about any of the BIMARU states. But it is about a state headed by India's most information-savvy chief minister, Mr Chandrababu Naidu; the same Mr Naidu, darling of the media, whose SMART administration is computer and video-connected with district and taluk officials. So, tell us Mr Naidu, what is your information? Are these reports true, even if exaggerated? Since we haven't heard otherwise from you, we would like to know what you are doing to ameliorate the distress in which lakhs of your Telugu people are trapped? Is there relief on the way and of what kind? Are food and water being rushed? What are you doing to persuade farmers, particularly cotton farmers, that there is life after this if they don't commit suicide? What is being done to prevent parents from selling their children for a few hundred rupees? How do you plan to stop children being driven into prostitution by penury? Beyond dealing with this emergency, what kind of vision and mission does your administration have to ensure water and food security to those who are vulnerable to the cycle of famine and floods? Are you prepared with plans for water harvesting and storage when the rains come in a few weeks from now? We are astonished that this should be reported as happening in Andhra Pradesh, which supposedly is speeding ahead on the new IT highways. What is the connectivity your administration and development plans have to the millions who are more than a mouse-click away? Please tell us. Some `Plain Speaking' -- to quote the title of your recent book -- from you on these life-and-death issues would be welcomed. Particularly by those directly and direly affected.
