SEDS-Earth

I believe that everyone has heard about the twin blasts in Hyderabad. Before, we go any further I would like to send our condolences to the family and friends of the bereaved. Some of you may have doubts about the current situation and scenario in Hyderabad, a wonderful city in the Indian peninsula. We receieved an email from Sri Raghunandan Kumar of Planetary Society, India telling us about why Hyderabad is a safe place to be for the International Astronautical Congress.

Dear members of SEDS,

I like to address all the members of SEDS  through this mail.

Here i further like to welcome all of you to hyderabad.

Talking about me  I am born and bought up in Hyderabad. I am permanent resident since birth of place called Asif Nagar in Hyderabad which is 45 minutes max. walk or  5 mins on bike from my residence.

Friends i have received many mails in relation to Security concerns in the wake of Bomb Blasts in the city. Further to tell you all i live 6 km (approx).away from 1st place of blast and 8 km from second place of blast and 2 km from SGC venue around 15km from IAC venue.

In brief to tell you hyderabad is more safest place. In past few years along with cities like bangalore, chennai it registered phenomenal growth becoming one of the fastest growing economy in india. With presence of  IT majors like microsoft, Google , Wipro, Infosys... even the American consulate  to be operational (fully) from next year.. Hence hyderabad is facing this testing time and being targeted by terrorist groups who want to spike the indian economy, peace and order.

Inaction led to incident: However, there has been leniency on part of present authorities to curtail such incidents. In spite of having  information of such incident alerted by Central government intelligence dept (this talks about strength of security mechanism) 3 days before the incident, the local authorities didn't respond effectively to prevent it.

This much owes to political reasons - appeasement of certain sections of society with -  go easy policy - non application of stringent laws etc.. . Being a lawman i saw one of the Member Parliament trying to save "a anti social element" ( who was held for terrorist acts) in the court of law.

So friends, to sum up what i can say is, at least now government has woken up. EVen people after seeing deaths of people in the news on TV have become more vigilant. It is a fact that since past few years we were blindfolded by developments in city.

With "World Military games" to be held in October and IAC in September we can hope stringent action in coming days in view of such incidents.

Location of Venue: The IAC 2007 is being held at "Hitech City" one of the fast developing areas of the city where major IT companies are also situated. It takes 45 mins to 1 hour for me to reach this place from home. Hence government will definitely initiate great vigil.

Ganesh Chaturthi Hindu Festival - Holy Month of Ramadan - September:  every year government takes special care for 2 months keeping in mind these two festivals. Additional security forces in state and from central government are deployed including para military forces.

Hence above venue located at very cardinal part of the city put greater responsibility on government.

All in all i want to assure you all Hyderabad is a safe place for all of you to visit. Except the 1. hoax calls which can be a pain in the neck. There is no effective system (on the lines of U.S.  Security authorities) for handling hoax calls. 2. Rain fall (with monsoon reaching its ending phase)   which we may need to worry and plan about.

Our action: Further very shortly our society is going to represent to government for more measures in view of iac in hyderabad and request for a special statement from cheif minister addressing the visiting delegates.

"Hyderabad is mini india" former Prime Minister of India Pt.Jawahar Lal Nehru.

My request :  please don't entertain any rumours - past incidents to effect your decision to visit hyderabad.

Hoping to see you all making SEDSIC 07 and IAC a success.