Media sources say the GoM, in it’s 8 PM meeting on Wednesday in New Delhi, could at best propose Rayala-Telangana as an ‘option’ for cabinet to consider and not ‘recommend’ it. Media sources in Delhi quote Union Ministers as saying that the ongoing GoM meetings and procedures were mandated by Cabinet clearance for Telangana on October 3, 2013. As that approval was for only Telangana, the GoM can not exceed the brief it has been given and so cannot recommend Rayala-Telangana to be included in the AP Reorganization bill.  So the GoM is expected to look at this as an option before finalizing the draft bill and the Cabinet when it meets next is expected to look at the proposal ...

Verdant beauty of Adilabad, like Kuntala falls, is making film crews flock for movie and TV serials shootings. Here is one such special coverage the district is attracting in mainstream media.

As GoM is considering the Rayala-Telangana proposal it is important to look back and see what the SriKrishna Committee said about this proposal and why it didn’t recommend it. Here are the excerpts from the SriKrishna committee’s report. The Committee report said (Pg 444 – 446 of the report): (a) This suggestion was put to the Committee as the second preference by some sections of the people of Rayalaseema region. Their first preference was for a united Andhra. AIMIM also, while strongly advocating the cause of united Andhra Pradesh as being in the best interest of economic growth and welfare of the minority Muslim community, stated that in the event of division of the state it would be in the community?s ...

Most of the national newspapers joined Telangana activists’ rejection of Rayala-Telangana idea by calling it opportunistic. Here is THE HINDU’s editorial. Dangerous opportunism – THE HINDU’s Editorial on Rayala-Telangana Telangana is now close to statehood on the strength of an untiring, intense mass struggle that had its basis in the assertion of historical political identities. To allow electoral calculations to decide the contours of the new state is to undermine the legitimacy of the aspirations that fuelled the original demand for statehood. Nothing but sheer political opportunism explains the new proposal to enlarge the proposed state by adding two districts of the Rayalaseema region, Kurnool and Anantapur, to create what in popular parlance has come to be known as Rayala-Telangana. ...

Union Ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad, Jairam Ramesh and Veerappa Moily deliberated upon seven important points before proposing the creation of Rayal-Telangana. Sources say that the three Congress leaders managed to convince both Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi stating both political and administrative reasons. Seven reasons were given to convince the leadership, which may go ahead with the proposal of Rayal-Telangana. The main contention was to curb the growth of YSR Congress leader Jagan Mohan Reddy, who is strong in the Rayalaseema region. By adding Kurnool and Ananthpur from Rayalaseema into Telangana could split his voters. Even the small vote share that Chandrababu Naidu (Telugu Desam Party) enjoys in this region could be negated with this ...