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    Scam Andhra
    Scam Andhra
    Scam Andhra
    Ebook51 pages1 hour

    Scam Andhra

    By John Elliott

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    Once seen by Jawaharlal Nehru as a microcosm of Indian culture - and in the 2000s by both US President Bill Clinton and Bill Gates of Microsoft as a focal point of India's booming IT industry -  the southern city of Hyderabad is now a symbol of India's worst crony capitalism. This is the capital of Andhra Pradesh that will elect a new state assembly at the same time as the general election. John Elliott tells a story of dynastic political ambitions, personal greed, and the lauding of companies that grew fat on fraudulent land and other deals with a new form of corruption, especially during the past ten years of Congress rule. He traces the history from the time of the British and uncovers the origins of a new entrepreneurial community as significant as old business clans such as the Marwaris.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarper XXI
    Release dateAug 4, 2015
    ISBN9789351367093
    Scam Andhra
    Author

    John Elliott

    John Elliott is a former Financial Times journalist based in New Delhi. He writes a blog on Indian current affairs, http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/. He also writes for Asia Sentinel in Hong Kong and his blog appears on The Independent newspaper website in the UK. In Asia since 1983, he has also contributed to The Economist, Fortune magazine and the New Statesman.

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      Book preview

      Scam Andhra - John Elliott

      Scam Andhra

      John Elliott

      Table of Contents

      Scam Andhra

      About the Author

      Copyright

      Scam Andhra

      Jawaharlal Nehru once described Hyderabad as a microcosm of Indian culture. He was praising it for its blending of culture and religion. Today it can still be seen as a microcosm of the country’s culture – for the negative reason that the good India’s first prime minister saw at the time of independence has been squandered by the corruption and illicit links between companies and government that are now part of India’s political and business landscape.

      A decade or so ago, Hyderabad – and the state of Andhra Pradesh whose capital it is – was a focal point in southern India of a booming information technology industry. It had become an international symbol of a country that saw itself growing into a world superpower alongside China. Bill Clinton visited it in 2000 when he was US President, marking Hyderabad’s emergence as India’s second high-technology centre after Bengaluru. Bill Gates of Microsoft, which set up its main India research facility in a new software zone along with Google, was not far behind, plus many others.

      Now the city has become a symbol of what is wrong with India. It embraces dynastic political ambitions based on personal greed and the lauding of companies that have grown fat on fraudulent land and other deals, literally plundering the state’s wealth. The trend first became widely noticed in 2009, when the Hyderabad-based Satyam, India’s fourth largest software company, collapsed in a fraud scandal involving local politicians and a prominent business family¹. The Indian government rallied round with top businessmen to rescue Satyam (it is now part of the Mumbai-based Mahindra Group) so as to prevent it harming the country’s then buoyant image, but they could not save Hyderabad’s deteriorating reputation.

      Indian and international investors had until then paid little attention to the political-business linkages and scams. That was no longer possible from 2009 because it soon became clear that Satyam and its allied infrastructure company, Maytas (Satyam spelt in reverse), were just the tip of a vast iceberg that gradually became exposed after the state’s Congress chief minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR), was killed in a helicopter crash in September 2009.² YSR’s death, just a few months after being re-elected for a second term, triggered a series of events that led to widespread police inquiries, court cases, and the jailing of businessmen and politicians.

      A frantic campaign was launched within hours of the crash for Jagan (YSJ or Jagan as he was known to differentiate him from his father, YSR) to succeed him as chief minister.³ This was despite the fact that Y.S. Jagan had virtually no political experience – he had become a member of parliament just five months earlier. Jagan’s supporters were not, however, trying to ensure that Andhra had a strong and reputable leader in charge: in fact, rather the opposite. They wanted the dynastic succession to continue so that they and their business contacts could continue with the contracts, deals and favours that YSR and Jagan had set up during the father’s five years in office. So avaricious was their greed that they openly campaigned and shouted slogans

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