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Its only words..On May 1st 2014, it was raining heavily in Vizag. Several thousand people (including me) ignored the rain and thronged the Indira Priyadarshini Municipal Stadium to see and hear Modi ji, CBN garu, and Pawan Kalyan garu.A helicopter landed in that heavy storm, and they did a short meeting full of promises and a lot of passion. Translation by Venkaiah Naidu garu was crisp and added some more punch into an already terrific speech. They left quickly and it took us an hour just to get out of that stadium in ankle-high water. We got home drenched but happy!For the first time ever, we went out onto the streets to campaign for a candidate we never even knew — Hari Babu garu — just because his opponent was Smt Y S Vijayamma, and we were ideologically against her party winning. We were ordinary folk for whom politics was not a priority — even as a topic of discussion, till then. But the election of 2014 changed that for a lot of us. The idea of a common man winning against the establishment and the dynasty, galvanised us into action and we did what we could. Millions of us did. Whether on social media (which was one major tool added into the hands of people compared to the previous elections), or out on the streets; a lot of people I know did their bit. They drove people to polling stations, educated youngsters to go out and vote, followed up with lazy friends till evening, and they did it with no other expectation except to get Congress out of power.For us in Andhra, it was a whole different level of emotion. In an unprecedented blacked-out hour in that temple of democracy, a state of 8 crore people was split without having arrived at a consensus, just for political points because elections were around the corner. We became a truncated Andhra Pradesh, left without a capital, and without a clear direction — that too, with an outgoing government. So in our opinion, it was doubly important for the state to elect a government that had a capable leader and was experienced in administration. NDA coalition sailed through on the back of promises made by both BJP and TDP, and all was well. There were a truckload of promises made. Special Status was one of them. And not for 5 years as Congress (which split the state) promised, but for 10.So NDA won with a thumping majority. What was specially heartening for us in Andhra Pradesh was that we elected a government which, for us, was the best option at the time. The romantic notion of a common man becoming the Prime Minister came true, and Andhra gave Congress 0 seats. 0 MLAs and 0 MPs. That, from a state which was a bastion just one term ago when the then-CM — YS Rajasekhara Reddy garu promised and delivered a sweeping majority to Sonia Gandhi ji to form UPA-II. Unless you’ve experienced it first hand, the joy of showing the middle finger to a party which played politics with 5 crore people of the remnant state, cannot be described. 0 seat.A lot of promises were made. Not just fulfilling, Modi ji himself came and said ‘Nibhayenge Bhi aur Badhayenge Bhi’ —From the first year itself, there were mumblings of dissatisfaction between the coalition partners. From the second year onwards, they got louder. During the bhoomi puja of our capital — Amaravati, Modi ji came bearing some soil and water, and reiterated his stand.Modi ji has always been a charismatic speaker. He has a knack of saying the right things at the right time. It is one reason why he has such an incredible following. Here too, he said the right things. Except that they remained as words.There are tomes of research on the different aspects of the state bifurcation act, and whether each party has remained true to its promise. What should have been a simple cut and dry issue has escalated into a storm and yesterday TDP walked out of the NDA Government and its ministers resigned their posts. It is easy to bring in videos of Arun Jaitley ji, Venkaiah Naidu garu, Nitin Gadkari ji, Ram Madhav ji, our state president and my MP — Hari Babu garu, and others, on the same promises. But truth is we did not vote based on their promises. Modi ji came to us and spoke to us directly. He made a list for us.After the second year, when the center spoke of practical challenges to using the term ‘Special Status’ and came up with a ‘Special Package’ instead, Chandrababu garu agreed to it in spite of tremendous backlash from the opposition here for his having done it. He was called a traitor, the opposition scored brownie points off him, and yet he agreed. When nothing happened in the third year also, the issue got out of hand. What should have been resolved immediately after the state agreed to the changed terms, got delayed, miscommunicated, and today the term ‘Special Status’ has come back into play. Promises which could have been easily fulfilled got waylaid. Polavaram alone could have kept the coalition in good stead. The project will impact millions of acres and crores of people across the entire region. What could be more important? If there were irregularities, they should have been addressed on a war footing. This should have been used as an example to show the entire nation that the government can execute projects at lightning speed. Andhra tops the list measuring speed of project execution in the nation. If they couldn’t do it here, where will they do it?Railway Zone should have been announced immediately, with a timeframe of 3 years or whatever, for practical issues to be resolved. Even 2 days ago, the floor leader of BJP reiterated the same in AP state assembly.‘Under any circumstances’! Its been 4 years. Railway Zone is just one example. There are several such points in the bifurcation act, which could have been easily addressed. Everything is not about number of seats and vote share. There are 5 crore people who have heard these promises live. Today, it is an issue of ideological difference. To defend the center’s position, fanboys come up with explanations about how some of those demands are not practically feasible. Did they not know about that when they made these promises? Since yesterday, there have been thousands of posts on social media about all the different things done by the center to the state, and thousands of rejoinders about how they didn’t. That is a secondary issue. In his whirlwind tour of the state in 2014, the Prime Ministerial candidate himself made these promises. In case memory fails, there are hours of videos to prove it. How can words be taken so lightly? That too of the most powerful man in the country? His translator Venkaiah Naidu garu enjoyed literally hundreds of felicitations after BJP won on the basis of these very promises. The largest hoardings in every city he visited were dedicated to singing his praises. He gave hundreds of interviews during the first couple of years of this government. They are all there for everyone to see.Do people at that level also speak without thinking? Not once, not twice, dozens of times! In that ‘temple of democracy’ — our Parliament too? Don’t words hold any value? Even if they said ‘Special Package’ is the same as a ‘Special Status’, and that it was purely a technicality, in 4 years, why were the promises they made not acted upon? Why do we blame Arun Jaitley ji today when it was Modi ji we voted for? How are promises made to 5 crore people taken for granted?In addition to Chandrababu garu and Modi ji, there was a third person on stage in May 2014. Pawan Kalyan garu just made his political debut, and being an idealist, he agreed to support who he thought was the best at that time. After a couple of years, he got disillusioned and openly criticised TDP. A couple of months ago, he and another idealist — Lok Satta Jayaprakash Narayan garu — came together and decided to form an independent committee to fact find this entire issue. They brought in independent legal experts, a retired chief justice, experienced bureaucrats, and did a thorough study. This week, they came up with their findings.This is a third-party report. Not something that either BJP or TDP came up with to further their argument. After 4 years of snail-paced delivery, there still are promises worth over 74500 crores pending. And this does not include Polavaram — which has to be built 100% by the central government as per their promise and Gadkari ji’s recent reiteration.But for the good people of my state, the issue is not about the crores given or not given. It is about a promise made directly to us in person, not being honoured. A word is a bond. A sacred trust. How can it be taken so lightly? When something was promised, it should be delivered. Finding excuses is the mark of a loser. We have whiled away 4 years already. How difficult is it to resolve the issue if we set our heart to it? One week in a conference room, day and night, with all the resources at their disposal, is quite sufficient. Why isn’t that being done? Immediately after TDP quit the government, several well-connected BJP supporters came out with how this was an opportunity for BJP to increase their vote share in Andhra Pradesh. How can we stoop so low? We talk of one word and one arrow. Are they just teachings? We use that to garner votes and do whatever we want to later; and will drown out any dissent by calling them anti-national and guilt tripping them by comparing other states which need central aid, and of soldiers on the border needing better equipment? Modi ji made these promises. Not the people of Andhra Pradesh. We did not want the state to the split. We did dharnas for months together because we did not want it to be done. We never asked for Special Status and to build us a new capital. We wanted our state to be left alone. Since you couldn’t do that, you came bearing gifts as a compromise. We did not ask you for it. We had Hyderabad. It was a good capital. You came and said you’ll build us a better capital than even Delhi. We clapped at whatever you said. And today we are being told they were just words? Don’t show us that our numbers are way ahead of the national average. Because we have capable leadership and industrious people, the state will do very well irrespective of whether these promises are fulfilled ‘in word and in spirit’ or not. But trust once gone cannot be regained. I will never vote Congress again in my lifetime for what they did to my state. The same will hold true for all parties.Here is the actual way this should be done IMO. The center should give us what they promised in spite of the problems they’re facing with liaising with the state government. Not to use it as an excuse. PDP in J&K is a ridiculous ally for BJP. Aren’t they working together ‘for the good of the people’? Nitish Kumar walked out of NDA before the last elections. Didn’t they form a government again together last year? Despite having a lesser number of MLAs than the opposition, BJP formed governments in Goa and Tripura. They truly pulled Rhinoceroses out of their hats there. Aren’t they working with multiple coalition partners in those states? In Andhra, you have a terrific coalition partner. Chandrababu garu probably is India’s most capable chief minister. Yes he has his flaws. But BJP is working with PDP!! PDP ‍♂️. If a fraction of that diplomacy were used here in Andhra, we would have resolved every single issue being fought about today. Again, not everything is politics. Modi ji gave us his word. Using phrases like blackmail today is rather foolish.We can talk about how such a move will solidify the NDA alliance and give BJP more seats in 2019 to make up for the seats it’ll lose in Rajasthan and MP. We can talk about how fulfilling their promise to AP and TG can make an ally of TRS and pour cold water on the ambitions of the third front. We can talk about how this will work against the idea of South India being ignored.But not everything is politics. Not everything is to be counted in terms of votes it’ll get us. We are romantics at heart. That is why we elected a common man and toppled the dynasty. Romantics believe that words once spoken are written in stone. You spoke these words to the people of Andhra Pradesh. You’ve delayed it enough, Modi ji. Make good on your promises. Don’t give us our due because of, but in spite of. Be the statesman we think you to be. Be big. Then come back here again in 2019 and we will again come and cheer for you at the venue.

Wow. Interesting question.The path to being me has been…circuitous.Oh, some bits have been fixtures, to be sure. I’ve always been nerdy. I’ve always been a computer geek—I started coding in 1977. I’ve always, at least for so long as I’ve been interested in sex and romance, been non-monogamous.But the rest? Damn, it’s been a weird path.I grew up in a town in Nebraska with 242 people in it. My first year of high school, my family moved to Florida, and I went to school with something like 2,000 students…hello, culture shock!I went to college for computer engineering. Got caught hacking the school’s DECsystem-20 and invited to leave. Spent five more years in college but never got a degree, due in no small part to changing majors 5 times. Started in computer engineering, ended up in neurobiology, with stops along the way in linguistics and cognitive science.Got heavily into the indie ‘zine scene from about 1988 to about 1996 or so. Helped publish a whole string of small-press underground magazines, including Mythagoras, The Caffeine Quarterly, and Xero. (The URL of my web site xeromag.com comes from those days; it started out as the home page of Xero magazine.)I worked for several years in fast food, which was amazing. I met a lot of cool people who significantly impacted my life during that time.In the early 90s, I started writing about my experiences with polyamory online. I’d been online since the late 70s, when I used a 300-baud telephone modem and a TRS-80 computer to connect to old-school BBS systems: CBBS Chicago, Magnetic Fantasies, Black Ice, Pirate-80, The Wyvern’s Den, and so on.I ran a BBS called aLTER rEALITY for…I dont know, 6 or 8 years. It was running in a TRS-80 with a ton of custom hardware I’d designed and built, and the system lived on a whole bunch of 3.5” floppies that I got by dumpster diving behind a PC store. (Early IBM PS/2 systems had a design defect where the 3.5” floppy drives would drift out of alignment over time. Service places would pull the drives, toss ‘em, and replace ‘em. I’d take a he drives out of the dumpster, clean them up, align them—it was very easy to do—and connect them to my TRS-80 via a simple floppy disk interface I designed.)aLTER rEALITY attracted a bunch of writers, primarily fantasy and SF writers, and had a really popular role-playing storyboard. I started getting interested in writing then (in fact, one of my college roommates and long-term friends insisted I’d eventually become a writer, though I didn’t believe him at the time. Mr. Martin, you were right, I was wrong.)I started working in prepress about the time these newfangled programs called PageMaker and Photoshop came out. I’ve been using Photoshop since version 1.0.3 and PageMaker since version 1.0, in fact.I got to be really good at it, and for a while I worked in a large prepress shop in Tampa doing work, primarily things like image editing and film output, for a bunch of really big clients: Royal Caribbean, RJR Nabisco, companies like that.I quit working prepress and started my own computer consulting company. Made a ton of money, built a big house in the suburbs, and decided I hated it.Walked away from that and became a minority partner in a tiny electronics company called Spectrum Electronics, a company that made industrial and military safety equipment. Did that for a few years. That was interesting: I did everything from designing advertising materials and product manuals to going in the assembly room and reworking circuit boards by hand.Spectrum went bust for reasons I could easily write a book about. I moved to Oregon with a partner I met on OK Cupid. Made my living from a sex game I’d written in the late 90s called Onyx and from doing freelance Web back-end programming, for porn sites, among other clients. I also wrote erotica, which paid really really well until Amazon changed their search algorithms to bury self-published porn.While all this was going on, the stuff I wrote online about polyamory and BDSM went a bit bonkers. The polyamory stuff is still the most popular poly site on the Web, in fact.A bunch of people started asking me when I was going to write a book about polyamory, so I was like “Cool! I should do that!” I did everything they say you’re supposed to do to publish a nonfiction book: I put together a query letter and some sample chapters, shopped it around to a ton of agents and publishers……and got a ton of rejection letters that all said the same thing: “A book on polyamory won’t sell. But if you want to publish a memoir, we’d definitely love to do that.”I didn’t want to publish a memoir, so I dropped the project.Met my partner Eve at a science lecture. We started dating shortly after. She also wanted to do a book on poly, so we were all like “hey, let’s do it together!”She had worked for a big publisher before she started her own science communication company, and had a good background in publishing, so we founded a publishing company to do our own book.We wrote and published More Than Two, which has gone a bit bonkers—sold over 50,000 copies in the first four years and shows no sign of slowing down. Since then, we’ve become an established indie publisher with a formidable stable of very talented writers. We’ve published some awesome books: Kitty Stryker’s Ask: Building Consent Culture, Kevin Patterson’s amazing Love’s Not Color Blind (which is going to sell out its first printing very soon), Elisabeth Sheff’s Inside the Polycule.I’ve written that memoir the big publishers wanted…which, ironically, didn’t sell nearly as well as the polyamory book the big publishers insisted wouldn’t sell.Since the release of More Than Two, Eve and I have spent a huge amount of time traveling the world to support the book. We’ve spoken all over Europe and North America. We speak at conferences around the world—right now, I’m typing this Quora answer in an airport in Toronto. I just spoke at a conference here, and now I’m waiting to board a flight to London.Eve and I just finished our first novel, Black Iron, which will be in stores this fall. (And no, it has nothing to do with polyamory.) We’re currently working on three more novels: Gold Gold Gold! and Frozen Smoke, set in the same world as Black Iron, and an as-yet-unnamed novel that’s part murder mystery, part contemporary lesbian noir, and part WWII historical fiction, that alternates between present-day New York and end-of-the-war Berlin. We’re also just starting to plan out a near-future neo-cyberpunk novel set in a Vancouver flooded by global warming.We’ve also founded a tech startup and obtained a patent on technology for interfacing sensors on a prosthetic with the nervous system of the wearer. That company is struggling: we’ve had a couple small rounds of angel investment that have let us secure our intellectual property and build functional prototypes, and right now we’re looking for the capital to take it to the next step. We need to hire an industrial designer and an RF analog electronics engineer, which we don’t currently have the money to do.I love my life.

With insufficient numbers in Rajya Sabha to start with and lack of 2/3rd majority in Lok Sabha on its own the BJP had to follow the other option. Start Top Down to test the waters first where it was weak. Here’s how it happened.Legislative ProvisionsSubject to the provisions of the Constitution, a Bill may originate in either House of Parliament. All Bills introduced in the House have to pass through various stages and these stages are common to all types of Bills except with few variations or special aspects in regard to certain categories of Bills.Article 368 of the Constitution confers power on Parliament to amend the Constitution and provides the procedure for it. A Bill seeking to amend the Constitution can be introduced in either House of Parliament by a Minister or a private member. Motion for leave to introduce the Bill can be adopted by a simple majority of members present and voting. The Constitution provides for the following three types of constitutional amendments.(1) Amendment by simple majority Bills regarding formation of new States or alteration of areas of existing States, or creation or abolition of Legislative Councils in the States, etc. are treated as ordinary Bills and passed by a simple majority of the House. They are not regarded as Constitution (Amendment) Bills although they have the effect of amending some provisions of the Constitution.[1]These amendments contemplated in Articles 4, 169 and 239-A and paras 7 and 21 of the Fifth and Sixth schedules, respectively, fall within this class. They are specifically excluded from the purview of Article 368.[2]Judicial Provisions2016 Judgment by a two-judge apex court Bench of (Retired) Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, had held that the provision had over the years acquired permanent space in the Constitution and could not be abrogated now.In the judgment, the two-judge Bench had said though it can be noticed in the marginal note states that Article 370 is a temporary provision with respect to Jammu and Kashmir, unlike Article 369, which is also a temporary provision limited in point of time to five years from the commencement of this Constitution, no such limit is to be found in Article 370.“Having regard to all these factors, this Court clearly held that though the marginal note refers to Article 370 as only a temporary provision, it is in fact in current usage and will continue to be in force until the specified event in sub-clause (3) of the said Article takes place,” the two-Judge Bench had then held.[3]Exploitation of Both Provisions“Under Article 370 there is a provision that the President may by public notification declare that this article shall cease to be operative… from such date as he may specify… Because there is President’s rule, all decisions of the assembly will be taken by the House and we can pass the order with majority," Union home minister Amit Shah said in the Upper House.[4]Floor Management ExerciseWhen Satish Chandra Mishra, the member of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the Rajya Sabha, got up to declare his party's support to the government on the abrogation of Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, even the subtext of the day seemed to be writing its own history. The BSP's unequivocal support to the government on such a contentious issue was a major surprise.More political rivals, who were at the BJP's throat not too long ago in the Lok Sabha election earlier this summer, came out in support of the bill soon thereafter. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) — who have been staunchly anti-BJP in the past — quickly followed suit. The YSRCP, TRS, BJD and AIADMK too declared support.The BJP-led NDA government’s success in getting these important bills passed in the Rajya Sabha lies in the BJP’s effective floor management and its astute strategy to counter the Opposition. It simultaneously indicates the Opposition’s failure to act as a bloc.[5]The floor management for the RTI Bill laid the foundation firmly for the government. Not only was the Opposition stunned by the government’s numbers, but was also left questioning who it could trust even within. Parties such as the BJD and TRS, who signed notes to be in the Opposition fold, joined hands with the BJP overnight.Floor managers who went beyond the parliamentary affairs team were on the job. Shah’s trusted colleagues, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and the recent addition from TDP, CM Ramesh, worked the phone lines. Calls made to BJD chief Naveen Patnaik, YSR chief Jagan Mohan Reddy and TRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao made the move a possible success.Not only did the floor managers work overnight, but Shah made personal calls to NDA partners. The government also reached out to BSP chief Mayawati through Satish Chandra Mishra. In fact, the contribution of a key leader from the Northeast, who worked quietly behind the scenes, proved quite effective.[6]Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal were drafted to manage things in the House. A whip was issued. Shah’s trusted aide from Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, also a minister in the state government, was assigned the specific task of mustering support for the move. Some BJP leaders point to the decision of the chief whip of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha, Bubhaneswar Kalita, to quit on Monday as a sign of Sarma’s success.On Monday, Social Justice Minister Thawarchand Gehlot, who is also the leader of the house in the Rajya Sabha, was asked to remain present in the house throughout. His office was used as a war room where Shah and his team of ministers, Sarma and Mehta remained present throughout the day to tackle any crisis that may emerge.[7]Hard Work for Surprise Motion“Shah remained in his Parliament office well past midnight on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to work out the details of the move and make it fool-proof so as to withstand any legal scrutiny in the possible scenario if it being challenged before a court of law,” one of these people said. A phone line remained open between the Home Minister and Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta, throughout.For weeks ahead of that, the only two people in government who knew of this were Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah; word went out to other stakeholders only on Friday evening, another person who was involved in the exercise said. A decision to extend the session of parliament till August 7 was taken with the aim to get these bills passed, the second person added.[8]Footnotes[1] https://rajyasabha.nic.in/rsnew/practice_procedure/legislative_procedure.pdf[2] As Govt Moves to Repeal Article 370, A Look at What the Constitution Says on J&K Special Status[3] Judgment day: Next fight over Article 370 could move to Supreme Court[4] Rajya Sabha passes J&K Reorganisation Bill, scraps Articles 370, 35A[5] In passing bill to repeal Article 370, Narendra Modi govt demonstrated ability to carry other parties along to pass legislation - Firstpost[6] Man-to-Man Marking, Busy Phone Lines: How Amit Shah Executed Mission Kashmir[7] The ‘secret’ operation behind government’s move to scrap Article 370[8] The ‘secret’ operation behind government’s move to scrap Article 370