The Hindu Business Line : `Reforms have left farm sector in crisis'

The Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh , Maharashtra and Karnataka, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde and Mr Dharam Singh, at the centenary celebrations of Ramananda Tirtha in Hyderabad on Sunday. - P.V. Sivakumar

Hyderabad , Oct. 3

THE Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, has said that a decade of reforms has left the agricultural sector in crisis. "We need to help the sector which has been ridden to crisis," he said.

Dr Reddy made this observation at the centenary celebrations of Swamy Ramananda Tirth here on Sunday where the former Prime Minister, Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao, the harbinger of economic reforms in the country was present.

The Chief Minister, however, lauded the former Prime Minister for initiating land reforms in the State that helped the downtrodden to stand on their own.

Mr Narasimha Rao said that past was not an indicator of the future at all.

"The world is changing so fast and it is increasingly becoming difficult to understand and absorb things. The values and understanding of this generation is completely different," he said.

He said widespread disparities would give rise to associations like Naxalites who held arms.

At the centenary fete of Tirth, who had led a historic struggle against the Nizam to free the Hyderabad State, Mr Rao was conferred on the title `Snithapragna' by his comrade-in-arms during the struggle.

Mr Dharam Singh, the Karnataka Chief Minister, said the struggle against the Nizam was not a Hindu-Muslim struggle. "It was a freedom struggle," he said.

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