A long pending post here. Better late than never, here it is. I have been publishing my opinion on the Srikrishna committee’s report in various posts on this blog. In addition to these, I had the opportunity to converse, collaborate and collate opinions of various experts in different fields. As part of this exercise, I along with Sujai, Dileep and Madhav authored the book ‘Justice Srikrishna’s Injustice’. The book has been conceived and published by Telangana Development Forum (TDF). TDF India’s president Sri DP Reddy’s untiring efforts, TDF-USA’s sponsorship of the project along with time and efforts from many friends have bought the book into reality.
Initially, the book was planned to be released in Delhi but the parliament session then went into chaos due to the 2G scandal and unsettled the schedules of guests – serving MPs. That upset the book release schedule. We subsequently had a low-key book release on March 20, 2011 in Hyderabad. Eminent economist Ch. Hanumantha Rao was the chief guest. MLAs from Congress, TDP, TRS attended the book release. Telangana Political JAC chairman Prof Kodandaram, Zahed Ali Khan (Editor of Siasat), Dr. Gautam Pingle (Director,Centre for Public Policy, Governance & Performance, Administrative Staff College of India), Dr. Madabhushi Sridhar (Professor, NALSAR Univ.), R Vidyasagar Rao (Chief. Engineer (Retd), CWC) were some of the guests who graced the occasion. M. Narayana Reddy (Ex-MP) and the petitioner in the High Court on Chapter 8 made a stirring speech on the occasion. 4 Days after this book release, the High Court gave the landmark judgement to make chapter 8 public. It was a pleasure the octogenarian ex-MP talking and walking the talk with his petitions. The Hindu covered the release here.The book has mainly 3 chapters. Chapter 1 focuses on why India should reject the committee’s report which challenges the basic tenets of our constitution. Chapter 2 is devoted to the irrationality, prejudice and bias in the arguments espoused by the report. Chapter 3 is about pointing out factual errors about facts and figures. Chapter 2 and 3 are efforts to collate and put in one place all arguments found in different articles produced by experts like Gautam Pingle and Madabhushi Sridhar. Their articles along with some others’ have been published as appendices in their full form. We could cover as much ground in the book as we wanted due to lack of time and our inability to work from one place due to the team members’ locations. All coordination has been done over phones and the internet. At last we were glad we did the release, thanks to diligent efforts from Sri DP Reddy. In the light of the Chapter 8 judgement, the book’s arguments get all the more significant as they reveal what a shame this report was. The high court too observed the same and we could not help but feel vindicated.
A month after the book release, it is now available for download on the internet here at Mission Telangana. Many thanks to Dileep for bringing this online for enthusiastic readers. Happy reading to you all folks. Enjoi.
My posts on Telangana:
TELANGANA XVII: Demerge Waltair from ECoR but not Telangana from AP!?
