No T-word, Centre sets up panel

The Centre on Wednesday constituted a five-member expert committee to hold consultations on the “situation in Andhra Pradesh” arising out the demand for the creation of a separate Telangana state.

The five-member committee will be headed by former Supreme Court judge B.N. Srikrishna, while the former home secretary Mr Vinod K. Duggal will be its member-secretary.

The Union home secretary, Mr G.K. Pillai, said the committee will hold wide-ranging consultations with all sections of people and different political parties and groups on “the situation in Andhra Pradesh”.

A home ministry spokesperson said the terms of reference were still being drafted and will be finalised in consultation with the committee chairman and announced shortly.

The official statement on the committee’s formation makes no mention of the word Telangana.

Justice Srikrishna is expected to meet the home minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, soon and the terms of references are expected by the end of the week.

Following the announcement, the Union law minister, Mr M. Veerappa Moily, AICC in-charge for the state, appealed for “peace and calm” in Andhra Pradesh, while the BJP said the committee’s formation was a “delaying tactic”.

The Telugu Desam too called the five-man committee’s formation a “conspiracy” by the Congress to divide AP

The committee’s other members are Prof (Dr) Ranbir Singh, vice-chancellor of National Law University, New Delhi; Dr Abusaleh Shariff, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, New Delhi; and Dr (Ms) Ravinder Kaur, professor in the department of humanities and social sciences at IIT Delhi.

Justice Srikrishna is a former judge of Supreme Court. He won laurels for hard-hitting report on Mumbai riots as Bombay High Court judge. He recently headed the probe on the police-lawyers clash at Madras High Court.

Prof Ranbir Singh is a founder-VC of Nalsar Hyderabad and a well known administrator. He had worked on the AP bill on child labour.

Abusaleh Shariff was on Prime Minister’s high-level panel to study condition of Muslims. He has also worked on the Human Development Index report.

Prof Ravinder Kaur is a member of the Planning Commission panel to monitor the implementation of schemes in the social sector.

Vinod Duggal, former home secretary who will be member secretary of the Srikrishna panel, is a former secretary of the water resources ministry.