Anand Krishna’s musings

Right from the time Mr S M Krishna and Mr Chandrababu Naidu were respectively chief ministers of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the two states have been openly competing with each other to attract investment into their jurisdictions, improve infrastructure (at least in Bangalore and Hyderabad), and project the two cities as the more pre-eminent “IT Capital” of India. Both states have seen some success, and although there is no incontrovertible evidence of either state/city being unquestionably ahead, my own view is that Hyderabad has stolen a march on Bangalore at least in terms of infrastructure development. The Hyderabad airport, which was approved a couple of months after the BIAL airport, became operational a good two months before the Bangalore airport (which, for the record, is still not operational).

Both TDP and Congress lost power- ostensibly because Naidu and Krishna were obsessed with their state capitals, and ignored the rest of the states. Drought caused by poor monsoons in 2004 may also have had a hand to play.

This rivalry now seems to have extended to the IPL arena. But sadly, both Bangalore’s Royal Challengers and Hyderabad’s Deccan Chargers seem to be trying to beat each other in the race to the bottom. On paper, both teams have some solid cricketers. But neither team has been able to combine as a unit and consistently bat, bowl and field better than their opponents. Consequently, these two are currently ranked 7 and 8. Bangalore perhaps is worse off because off their lower net run rate, which suffered hugely at the hands of Brendan McCullum in the tournament opener. In the next few weeks it will be clear who is reallyat the bottom of the table.