‘Tis the season of post-election analysis. Over lunch at the Green Park in Hyderabad, the city bureau chief of a respected newspaper drew a compelling distinction between the politics of the victorious Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy of the Congress, and the vanquished Telugu Desam Party chief, Chandrababu Naidu.
Naidu’s policies as Chief Minister emphasized IT industry-led urban development compelling the young in the villages to pursue jobs in the cities leaving their parents unattended in their golden years. Reddy’s pro-agriculture and socialist policies allow free medical care for the old (arogyasri) besides incentivizing the young to build livelihoods in the villages.
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[...] Andhra as a lab for policy experiments This blog is a die-hard fan (see here, here, and here) of the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy: he delivered both development and electoral success for the [...]