Bush's Hyderabad visit: a sop for Telugu diaspora

HYDERABAD: If successive US Presidents are making a beeline for Hyderabad, the sizeable and increasingly influential Telugu diaspora has something to do with it just as the city's consistent development story, observers point out.

Like his predecessor Bill Clinton, who made it a point to visit the city in 2000, US President George W Bush will put in an appearance in Hyderabad on Friday to spend a few hours at the N G Ranga Agricultural University and the Indian School of Business (ISB), for a chat with young entrepreneurs.

"Former President Clinton may have come here because of Naidu's image, but the fact remains that the US emphasis on Hyderabad is also because AP has the highest number of legit workers in America," says P Radhakishore, director of the US Commercial Service, an arm of the US Department of Commerce.

Add to this the 10,000 students and up to 8,000 tech workers who travel to the US from Andhra every year and you have a sizeable number of Telugus in the US, he says. And that is also the reason why President Bush will announce opening of a consulate in Hyderabad on Friday.

At last count there were 1.7 million Indians in the US of which nearly 40 per cent were estimated to be Telugus.

A more important reason than sheer numbers is that the Telugu diaspora in the US is perhaps the most affluent and influential so far as political lobbying is concerned, says T L S Bhaskar, a researcher from Hyderabad University.

As per the US official figures, Indians had a mean family income of $59,777, the highest of any Asian group in America in 2000, and with an average per capita income that is more than 25 per cent higher than the national average and second only to Japanese Americans among all ethnic groups.

"Hyderabad is emerging as a manufacturing hub for hi-tech," says J A Chowdhary, managing director, Portal Player India.

Courtesy: DnaIndia

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