The southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh formally split yesterday into with its northern part becoming Telangana as the new and 29th state of the country and K Chandrasekhar Rao, who spearheaded a 14-year-old agitation for separate statehood, sworn in as its first Chief Minister amidst joyous celebrations.
The birth of Telangana capped years of street protests and shutdowns by pro-Telangana activists led by Rao's Telangana Rashtriya Samiti, which were often marred by violence,   as residents of Telangana felt the region had long been neglected.
However, celebrations erupted across the Telangana region, consisting of ten districts of Andhra Pradesh and the capital city of Hyderabad, as the clock struck midnight last night. Telangana has a population of 35 million.
Hyderabad is home to India's major information technology and pharmaceutical industries and it would remain a shared capital by Telangana and residual Andhra Pradesh for the next decade before the latter creates a new capital city.   
India's parliament had approved a law  to carve out the new state in February this year, despite opposition from several lawmakers in the then ruling Congress Party. The then chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state, N Kiran Kumar Reddy, resigned after parliament approved the bill.
This is for the first time in southern India that two states have been created out of one state where people of both speak the same language: Telugu. Most of Indian states were created on the basis of language.
Andhra Pradesh state itself had been created out of the Telugu-speaking areas of the then Madras state in 1953.