AP people extend support to Congress again

This is not like regular election. The battle was not one side or the battle was not between 2 traditional parties. 2 new parties emerged, Praja Rajyam and Lok Satta.

The founder of Prajarajyam being Dr Chiranjeevi, it started and emerged with lot of hype. Party president and family took the rein of the party and slowly at the end, it was completely a family party. Party president being crowd puller attracted many people to attend road shows but failed drastically to turn them into voters. Party was open to leaders from other parties. In this process, it concentrated less of cadre formation at ground level. At the end, Allu Aravind became the sole decision maker and Chiranjeevi was inaccessible for many people to receive and review any complaints. Both Chiranjeevi and Aravind were on high dreaming bigger picture and failing to capture reality. Party was a disaster with its president losing to gain confidence of voters in his own constituency.

The founder of Loksatta being Dr Jayaprakash Narayanan (Ex IAS), it emerged as more technical party and bagged lot of youth following. Dr JP with his powerful speeches attracted many young people and turned them into voters. Being an IAS officer, his speeches were little technical, motivating and attractive. But JP's words some time doesn't match his action. JP always try to forecast himself as a different guy in arena and avoids doing few things which people really need. There is no other known leader in Lok Satta party apart from JP.

TDP, a traditional party has left no stone unturned. It uses film stars from nandamuri family to the max and it joined hands with other parties like TRS, CPI and CPM. This alliance and the publicity attracted few voters and party performed better compared to previous term.

Congress, with its various schemes reached the borders. Waiving loans, Free cure in private hospitals, Houses to poor etc schemes has made congress single largest party. In addition, party will act very soft towards corruption or terrorism which bagged them lot of votes. Pure vote bank politics worked out in Andhra Pradesh and India. Ofcourse, other parties failed in doing vote bank politics as well. Congress looked like a better party compared to other 3 parties and voters decided to extend support.

All the best Congress and All the best Andhra Pradesh.

Back in Hyderabad

To Continue my last post, i got the passport in the same week (Friday). I have made my arrangements to return to India on Saturday. My Company's travel desk ppl were kind enough to execute my short notices. On Friday evening, i made some quick shopping to buy few things for my nephew and niece. Return journey was good as i was reaching my home. This time Lufthansa did some favor to me in the form of personalized seat monitor and set of movies to watch from Frankfurt to Hyderabad.

The days passed, My father came to visit me on Tuesday and i had plans to visit Pune that week end to meet rest of my family members. At the same time, i was supposed to travel to UK that week end. UK trip was uncertain and this resulted in cancellation of my Pune trip. Then UK trip got postponed. My inside asks me, when i will be good at taking decisions during uncertain times? I would say, soon, may be after 5 more such incidents. Anyway, i could not meet my family that week.

I think that week was destined to meet my friends. In the middle of the week, i had very good time with an old new friend. I have invited my friends to visit Hyderabad during the week end and they did it. Saturday being the D-day for our state (Elections results are going to be announced on that day) and the sun is right on our head, we did not plan anything out side. We started partying inside and we were eager about election results. Election results were little unexpected and disappointing. But the party didn't stop. The 20-20 match between Deccan Chargers and Kolkatta Knight riders was like a thriller added to our party. We partied till the morning recollecting the incidents in the past. Without sun, it would have been far batter, but take it as it comes.

UK trip is yet undecided....

Monday Morning

I was eager and was expecting something to happen last week when Monday started. I was waiting for my passport to come back. It was on 30th April (Thursday), my stay was getting expired and British embassy was still holding my passport(from 15 days) for Business visa processing. I know, i have a valid reason but am worried about remark on passport that i am staying longer than i was legally allowed to.

To brief something about process, it will take 5-15 working days for British embassy (Los Angeles) to process any travel visa. But they opened my packet after 10 days on receiving my application and they started calculating 5-15 days from the day they opened. We have asked them to cancel my application and send the passport back immediately, they didn't respond even to that. Looks like they have SLA of 20 days to respond to faxes. This sounds obnoxious, but will have to bare them.

Now we applied for extension on my stay for 1 more month. This Monday is quite good, fresh, no expectations, no nervous feeling.....Bare with boring stay for few more days for my passport and few bucks....Now uncertainty is all over, don't know the next day.

Paper Media on its way?

While it has been a month i heard about Chicago Sun times from www.hmm-m.blogspot.com, its now Source Interlink the magazine distributor and Publisher filing chapter 11 and going private.

Source also increased its magazine rates recently. Are people really giving a glance at the articles on tables? In my experience, NO in recent days.

If Honda releases a new car, a review of a magazine by source interlink after a month will be useless while internet world would have circulated lot many things about that car.

Paper media is not an easy thing to be wiped out, but it surely will become more or less like mails through post card.

http://www.foliomag.com/2009/source-interlink-files-bankruptcy-goes-private

Source is still in Business anyway, all the best for them :-)