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Naidu, Krishna vye to have Clinton drop in

George Iype in Hyderabad

Eager to ensure that US President Bill Clinton visits Hyderabad during his India itinerary next month, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu is taking unprecedented steps to showcase the city as southern India's business and infotech nerve-centre.

As a top White House team accompanied by US embassy officials is expected to meet Naidu early next week to finalise Clinton's trip to the city, the CEO of Andhra Pradesh says he is not in for "any cheap competition" with his equally high-tech Karnataka counterpart S M Krishna.

Both Naidu and Krishna are vying with each other to ensure that the US President visits their respective state capitals. Krishna is packaging Bangalore as India's Silicon Valley while Naidu says Hyderabad is the hub of all economic reforms and the infotech revolution that is sweeping across the country.

While all the visiting foreign dignitaries in the recent past have also flown down to Hyderabad and Bangalore to see the dramatic transformation that the infotech-savvy chief ministers are ushering in, Clinton's visit is one which both do not want to miss.

"I have put Hyderabad on the world map. Therefore, it is quite natural that I want to bring the US President to see what is happening in my state," Naidu told rediff.com in an exclusive interview.

He said there are many reasons why the US President should visit Hyderabad. For one, the city is the transit hub between Europe and China. Second, Andhra Pradesh wants to integrate its economy with the global economy. Thirdly, the chief minister said he wants to show President Clinton how a digital government works in a developing country like India.

For the last six months, it was in fact Naidu's -- more than even Vajpayee's -- administration which has been working hard to ensure that the US President comes to India. He wrote a letter to Clinton urging him to visit Hyderabad, and followed it up by personally meeting the US ambassador to India Richard Celeste a number of times with the request.

Naidu has also been quietly liaising with the most famous Telugu in the US, Professor Raj Reddy -- who is a member of Clinton's IT advisory panel -- to ensure that the outgoing president makes a stopover in Hyderabad.

The AP chief minister used all his charm and clout during his recent trip to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum to further put pressure on the US delegation there to clinch the Clinton visit.

So zealous is Naidu about the prospect that he says he is ready to shoot off another letter to the US President to ensure his presence in the city. "President Clinton responded positively to my first letter. If there is a necessity, I am ready to write a second letter to him," Naidu disclosed.

But whether the White House team visits Hyderabad or not, Naidu is setting the momentum in his own way.

At the crack of dawn on Saturday, Naidu sat down with top state government officials to prepare a blueprint of Hyderabad in particular and AP in general which he will submit to the US team next week.

Naidu's Hyderabad package for Clinton will include materials showcasing Andhra Pradesh's achievements in the last five years in the fields of foreign investment, information technology, healthcare, agriculture and economic reforms and, of course, his Vision 2020 programme.

Officials in charge of the preparations for Clinton's visit said the activities taken up by the Naidu government are enough "to immensely impress the US President." "Bangalore might boast of being the Silicon Valley of India. But our list is also equally impressive. We are setting up the biggest World Trade Centre here, we have created a world-standard HITEC City, the Indian Institute of Information Technology and a business school. In fact, Hyderabad is the only city which has 18 corporate hospitals," a senior official told rediff.com.

He said since Hyderabad also hosts operations from many US firms like Microsoft, Bell, DuPont and Alsthon, it is quite natural that Clinton visits "this mini- US city in India."

But while Naidu is chalking out big plans, Opposition parties allege the state derives no benefit from Naidu's foreign jaunts or the visits of various foreign delegation to Hyderabad.

"Naidu is hungry for publicity and gets only praise and no money for the development of Andhra Pradesh. Naidu boasted to secure 10 million crore of foreign investment, but managed only Rs 1,000 crore in the last five years," state Congress president Y S Rajasekhara Reddy told rediff.com.

Referring to the the recent visit of Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Reddy said, "The Singapore PM smiled at Naidu and showered praise on him. But he went to Bangalore and signed a trade agreement with Karnataka," Reddy said, adding, "The Clinton visit will not be much different."

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