When US President Bill Clinton came to Hyderabad to meet Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu in year 2000

By SANKARSHAN THAKUR AND G.S. RADHAKRISHNA Source: The Telegraph   March 2000 It is a bit like what the Manhattan skyline must have done to the Statue of Liberty in New York. The quadrangular Charminar, for long Hyderabad’s proud logo, is being given the shove; the circular Cyber Towers is taking over as mascot. When President Bill Clinton flies into town tomorrow, the statuesque old symbol of Hyderabad in the city’s heart will stand a little forlorn and utterly bypassed; Clinton isn’t even casting a glance in the Charminar’s direction. The hub will be the hilly outskirts of the city where stands the spanking new Cyber Towers, axis of chief minister Chandrababu Naidu’s hi-tech drive and the new emblem of new Hyderabad. The shift of focus from the medieval majesty of the Charminar to the futuristic spiral called Cyber Towers is perhaps symbolic of the man who runs the place: Chandrababu Naidu is no sentimental digger of past glory, he is a no-nonsense mechanic of the future. He is not bringing President Clinton here for a lazy tour of Hyderabad’s rich history, he is bringing him here for a hectic session on putting its future on the fast track. So while the old city around the Charminar remains mired in smoke and humdrum mess and bustle, the route to Cyber Towers is being rubbed, washed and polished. As platoons of security people watched, platoons of workmen and women laboured along the 20 kilometre road all day today, sweeping, whitewashing, mending, painting. “We must give the US President the message that this is a different place from what he might have seen in the rest of the country, it has fixed intentions for the future,” one of Naidu’s officials remarked at the Cyber Towers, “We are showcasing the future for him.” The subtext of Naidu’s welcome line to Clinton, plastered all over the Hi-tec City, sprawling west of Hyderabad, is itself blunt and businesslike, if also a little cheeky, “Chandrababu Naidu welcomes President Bill Clinton. Welcome to the future, from one visionary to another.” President Clinton is spending only five hours in Hyderabad and half that time will be strictly business at the Hi-tec City — first, listening to a presentation from Chandrababu Naidu on investment prospects and information technology initiatives in Andhra Pradesh and then, opening his own mind on what he proposes to do to propel Naidu’s great leap forward. The rest of the time will mostly be taken up motoring from the airport to the Hi-tec City and then back, in all about 50 kilometres which the President’s cavalcade will do at cruising speeds; Clinton will visit tuberculosis patients at the Mahavir Hospital in downtown Hyderabad but that is more a healing-touch, photo-op stop en route to Cyber Towers. Patients at the hospital will be pleased — they have clean sheets and extra care a day ahead.