Re: Administrivia...

Dear Chandu and others,

I am currently travelling around India (villages in Andhra and Rajastan
etc..). I travelled to Jaipur from Delhi by car. The driver took me to
his house near Haryana/Rajastan border just to show his house. It was
around 7 pm. This village seemed very similar to our villages but with
an exception, i.e., the entire village was dark. He said that nobody has
electric connections. The only connections were the ones done illegally.
On the other hand, the haryana side seemed to be brightly lit and very
developed due to huge amount of industrial developments.

I went to villages in Andhra as well. Well, the villages in Andhra seem
to be by far the most developed in terms of roads, electricity, TV. As
far as water supplies is concerned, every village has a different story
- Some villages near sea coast seem to have gotten salty underground
water until last year due to drought before. The rains during this year
seem to have made the underground water fresh. Other villages in other
parts were running out of underground water supplies. The rains again
seem to help. This seems to be the most important concern, i.e., clean
water for drinking purposes seem to be long term infrastructural concern
throughout Andhra irrespective of the region. Now, the major cities seem
to be able to deal with this problem but the villages seem to suffer.

What we should be really thinking is the following:

What infrastructural developments should we be thinking about? For
example, think about the following:

1. Roads, electricity, communications (these seem to be OK for time
being except that we still need to improve the roads infrastructure,
communications through cell phone and TV seem to be by far the best
development).

2. Drinking water (this seems to vary most from a region to a region).
Needs a better solution.

3. Water for irrigation (This needs planning at Center, i.e., linking
rivers and providing some sort of uniform policy across the regions).
Needs better solutions..The corporate farmers seem to be doing well
irrespective of the region. The small farmers cannot afford to live off
the farming irrespective of the incentives. The prices of things like
vegetables, cooking oil and other items seem to be so high that it is
just too difficult to manage.

4. Handling garbage, waster water treatment and watershed planning (to
avoid floods with rains) - There seem to be a lot of improvement in
cities like Hyd, Vizag but not existent in municipalities and
panchayats.

5. First responder facilities - This is almost non-existent except for
major cities.

etc.. etc..

I also had an interesting conversation with a guy that takes care of
USAID program in India. This program helps setup agri related policies
and businesses in India and he seemed to have a total negative feeling
towards current administration in AP regarding the infrastructural
vision for the state..

I felt bad about the towns like Gudivada after looking at Vijayawada.
So, it is almost impossible to shrug off the regional imbalances until
we do systematic infrastructural improvements throughout corporations,
muncipalities and panchayats with one set of blue prints and that too
quickly. We all should be searching for solutions rather than bickering
over regions.

If anybody has a solution or a suggestion on the infrastructural
improvement plans for any one of them then let us brainstorm and resolve
it and suggest it to the appropriate section of the government. I can
reach both YSR and CBN if needed.

Mahendra.

Mahendra K. Sunkara, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering
http://www.cvd.louisville.edu
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY 40292 (use 40208 for fedex)
(502) 852-1558(ph)
(502) 852-6355(fax)
502-457-4178(cell)
>>> srchandu@gmail.com 12/12/05 9:46 AM >>>

Folks,

This weekend has seen some unfortunate and personally focussed
messages.
They are unfortunate as we wasted our intellectual bandwidth by
focussing on individuals and what they did or did not do.

When anyone, more specifically one of our members, did some good, no
matter how big or small that deed is, we should commend him/her. I
think what Satish did during Tsunami disaster was commendable. The
spririt of helping others deserves our appreciation. There may be some
confusion about who should get the qudos. My thinking on this is,
should it matter?

Even if there is some sense that there may be some exaggeration, does
it matter? Of all, this group is the least equipped to be the police.
Still, I have no problem expressing my appreciation to such
individuals, companies, groups or whoever. I hope the group sees the
merit of this stand. I strongly believe in the philosophy of appreciate
publicly and correct the mistakes in private, if any.

The suggestions for corrections are best served if taken off line and
in a one on one fashion, especially when we know the individuals.

I request all members to be judicious in their langauge and how they
put forward their arguments. We should either learn, teach or discuss
the merits for overall good. Other intentions should be kept private.

As the moderator, I do have the right to employ my judgement and at
times I am likely to be off guard. I bank on your judgement equally.

There are many issues of import that affect all us and our people. I
thank all of our members who spend their time thinking about them,
writing about them and reading them to put up spirited and constructive
arguments. These discussions have taught me a great deal and I hope you
did find some useful too.

Thanks for hanging in there! Keep the discussions going!!

Regards,
Chandu