Palash Speaks

RIGHT ON NATURAL RESOURCES & IT'S RELEVANCE TO THE ISSUE OF STARVATION.
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com

RIGHT ON NATURAL RESOURCES & IT'S RELEVANCE TO THE ISSUE OF STARVATION.
http://www.pvchr.org/foodsecurity.htm#rights
Starvation is the direct consequence of the Absence of Food Security,
which in turn is directly related to Food Availability, Food
Accessibility and Food Utilization. Of these the most important obviously, is Food Accessibility which is related to land Ownership and purchasing power of the individual or Community.
The National Sample Survey Organization found that in 17of India's
most populous states, between the years 1972 and 1994 there was a marked decline in average caloric intake. This decline is greatest in rural areas. Where total calories per head had fallen from 2211calories in 1983 to 2149 Calories in the year 2000 - a decline of 72 Calories per head, which is much lower than Brazil, China, Kenya and Tanzania.
Three Fourth of the Scheduled Castes live in rural areas where land
is the prime asset determining an individual's standard of living and
social standing. Today 86% of Dalit households (160 million or 19% of
SCs) are landless or near landless. Those who do own land either own too little or lack adequate capital for purchasing resources for cultivation like Seeds, Fertilizers and or hiring farm implements. Lack of access or inadequate access to agricultural land and capital leaves them no option but to resort to manual wage labor. With 60% of rural SCs working as manual wage laborers and one third of the urban SCs working as casual laborers. Landless agricultural laborers work for a few kilograms of rice or Rs.15 to Rs.35 per day much below the states' prescribed minimum wage rate. Many laborers owe debts to their employers or other moneylenders. Nationwide the vast majority of bonded laborers are Dalits and almost all bonded children are Dalits.
Since more than 60% of the SC workers in rural areas and more than one
third in urban areas depend on wage employment the unemployment and
underemployment rates is highest among the SCs in comparison to other
castes. The level of employment and wage rates further determines their
earning. It is obvious that the SCs would suffer from low income and
consumption and resultant greater level of poverty. In 1993 - 94 half of SC families in both rural and urban areas and nearly two - third of the urban casual labor force of SCs were below the poverty line. Thus in 1987 more than 98% of the rural population of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar did not purchase any grain from the Public Distribution System.

Right to Resources.

Right on natural resources i.e. Land, Water and Jungle for the
cultivation of food and source of income is therefore highly relevant to the issue of starvation. Possession of economically viable agricultural land for the cultivation of food crops to feed the family, accessibility of drinking water and water for irrigation, access to grassland for grazing of animals and access to forest products as a source of income will give the marginalized access to food and purchasing power.
Laws and Regulations prohibiting alienation of Dalit lands, ceiling on
single owner's land holding and allocation of surplus government land
to SCs and STs have been ignored or manipulated by upper castes and
local district administration.

Globalization.

Now the state under the garb of implementing reform in trade and
investment is slowly but steadily withdrawing leaving the marginalized
non-farming and farming community to the mercy of the market. The state is becoming a part of the processes that are responsible for transferring resources from the community to the corporate, pushing-encouraging -and misleading small farmers into growing cash crops rather than food crops which actually ensures his/hers household food security. Thus subsistence farmers who could previously depend on their own produce for a meal suddenly found they no longer had that security when their cash crops failed or market prices for them crashed due to over supply. This is the same for the state of subsidies, which the Government is slowly withdrawing while in the US it is being doubled. We give the following case studies which highlight the consequence to the marginalized of lack of control over common property resources.

1) Nakdu Musahar & Family
Nakdu is boy child belonging to the Musahar caste, which belongs to the
Dalit community. He along with his parents and other children of his
family were working as bonded laborers in a Brick Kiln Factory. Like
other families of their community they have been working as bonded laborers for more than 20 years. The small amount paid to them as wages is just enough for one wholesome meal for one day which is without nutritious.
Their children suffer from malnutrition. The huts they live in hardly
protects them from heavy rain or the severe winter. The older generation and younger generation are bonded and so will be the future generation.

1) Poonam
A dalit girl child of 2 years old from the urban slum of Baghawanala
was suffering from Tuberculosis, Chronic & Acute Malnutrition and
retardation of growth.
Her parents were too poor to meet her medical expenses. Although both
work their earning from daily manual labor is not enough to feed them.
Besides it is not regular.

2) Village Kubradhi in Navgarh Block
Newspapers highlighted starvation deaths here, which were investigated
by a group of Journalist and NGO team. It was found that non of the
families had the Red Ration Card meant for BPL families. Even those who
had them never got the due ration . Those who did get , got only 1/3 of
their rightful amount and that too at higher cost while they were made
to place their thumb print against the full ration.
These people belonging to the Kol community lived on the collection of
Tendu leaves. But their back wages amounting to some 16 lacs were
pending with the contractors who enjoyed close patronage with the local
officials. Their peaceful petitioning of the local government was never
heeded. When they resort to strikes and demonstration , the police inflict on them collective violence.
In these background when 2 people died of Starvation deaths , the
Pradhan of the village petitioned the government .Instead of arranging
relief measures the government filed an FIR for financial irregularities against him although the Secretary was also co- signatory in all financial documents.
3) Katthara Village of Kunda block in Pratapgarh.
In this village a dalit widow named Kaulasha Devi died of Starvation .
She had no ration card and widow pension although she belonged to the
BPL status.
4) Munna of Shivpur of Varanasi,U.P
Munna was a sixteen year old boy Rickshaw puller . His father had died
of starvation death forcing the young child to pull Rickshaw for his
living and to maintain his younger brother and sister. After a few
months He got tuberculosis and died abandoning his brother and sister to their fate.
All these cases belong to marginalized caste families who cannot use
the common property resources of their village and community and of those who are being denied access to the natural resources related to
livelihood which they have been using for generation. Now these are in the hands of Mafia gang, Contractors and feudals . Now the resources are going into the hands of Corporates.Giving them control of common property resources will enable them to generate their own income and grow their food requirements. Without these all government schemes are useless.
Government decision to eliminate subsidies from agriculture and PDS system will add further to the suffering of the marginalized.
______________________________________________________________
Pleading justice to weaver Vishambhar S/o Ramnandan, resident of village Sankarpur, Post- Chiraigoan,District- Varanasi,UP.
The battle for one's legal rights is the poetry of character.-Rudolph Von Jhering

Vishambhar, a weaver, Stays along with his four children (One of them barely 2 months old,who died recently due to malnutrition on 21 May05) in a thatched hut. He is living in a pathetic condition. He
and his family are facing starvation. He has been rendered jobless, as there was recession in the market demand for the past 3-4 Years. His misery and suffering has been further coupled by the untimely death of his wife Jigna on 16th April, 05 and his daughter Soni aged 16 Yrs on 21st April, 05 due to starvation and disease of hunger. They had not received proper food for the last 4-5 month before their death.
The administration/Govt. has failed to discharge its duty of providing even minimum assistance to weavers like Vishambhar. Instead of providing red card in AAY,Vishambhar has been provided with a white card. He does not own even a piece of land, which can be used as a source of sustenance. Faced with such scarcity of food, hunger and starvation Vishambhar and his four children are about to disappear in the abyss of death.
After the media reports, the administration did wake up. Only to sleep again. The authorities provided vishambhar, a meager ration of 50 Kgs wheat and 20 Kgs of rice which would last for a few months. He was
fared to give a false testimony.
The case of vishambhar is not an isolated one. There are many more cases of starvation deaths, which either go unreported, or the facts are suppressed by the administration.
Vishambhar has submitted affidavit to the District Magistrate, Varanasi to plead his cause.
Plea:
1. Relevant orders to the concerned authorities to make Vishambhar a beneficiary of red card, food for work and Indira Awash Yojana Schemes.
2. Absolve him from the liability to repay the loan amount.
3. To take approprite action against the ICDS department for death his newborn son and panchayat secrtary alonwith Pradhan for no action for saving the life of people in village.

SUGGESTED ACTION:
After visiting the village, the PVCHR representatives sent a petition to key persons in government and other agencies. Please support their petition, by also sending a letter to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on this case. A sample letter follows.
----------------
Dear Mr Yadav
Sub.: pleading justice to Vishambhar S/o Ramnandan,resident of village Sankarpur, Post- Chiraigoan,District- Varanasi,UP
I am deeply disturbed to hear of death of two children due to acute malnutrition and disease of hunger in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.
I would like to remind you that you have obligations under international and national law to all persons residing in the state of Uttar Pradesh to respect,protect and fulfil the right to food. Furthermore, I urge you to order a thorough investigation of the case, to establish the prevailing conditions in the children's village with a view to preventing further starvation among children and other residents there.
Finally, I urge you to order a separate investigation into the alleged negligence of the village authorities, and any other concerned state officers,with a view to holding them liable for their breach of these obligations to the two children concerned. In this regard, I would stress that the right to food can be made effective only through enforcement of the right by way of criminal action against persons or
agencies responsible for violations.
Yours sincerely
---
PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTERS TO:
Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh
Chief Minister's Secretariat
Lucknow
Uttar Pradesh
INDIA
Fax: + 91-522-2230002/2239234
Email: csup@up.nic.in
PLEASE SEND COPIES TO:
1. Justice A. S. Anand
National Human Rights Commission
Sardar Patel Bhaven, Sansad Marg,
New Delhi 110 001
INDIA
Tel: + 91 11 23346244
Fax: + 91 11 23366537
E-mail: ionhrc@hub.nic.in or chairnhrc@nic.in
2. Chief Justice of India
Supreme Court of India
New Delhi 110001
INDIA
Fax: +91-11-23383792/23381508
3. Justice A P Mishra
Chairperson
Uttar Pradesh Human Rights Commission
6-A Kalidass Marg
Lucknow
27 Park Road
Allahabad
Uttar Pradesh
INDIA
Tel: + 91 532-2726742
Fax: + 91 532-2726743
Email: uphrc@sancharnet.in
4. Mr. Jean Ziegler
UNCHR Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
c/o Mr. Carlos Villan Duran
Room 4-066
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights,
Palais Wilson,
Rue des Paquis 52, Geneva
Switzerland
Fax: 41 22 9179010
Email: sect.hchr@unog.ch
5. Mr Anthony Banbury
Regional Director
World Food Programme
Unit No. 2, 7th Floor
Wave Place Building
55 Wireless Road
Lumpini, Patumwan,
Bangkok 10330
THAILAND
Tel: +66-2-6554115
Fax: +66-2-6554413
Email: Anthony.banbury@wfp.org or Bkk.unescap@un.org
6. Mr Pedro Medrano Rojas
Country Director
World Food Programme
2 Poorvi Marg,
Vasant Vihar,
New Delhi 110057
INDIA
Tel: +91-11-26150000
Fax: +91-11-26150019
Email: wfp.newdelhi@wfp.org
7.Dr.N.C.Saxena and Mr.S.R.Sankaran, Commissioner
Mr. Harshmander-special commissioner
Supreme court of India
SAMYA,R-38A,2nd floor,South Extention-part2,New
Delhi-49,India
Email:commissioners@vsnl.net

Activists Spotlight Hunger Deaths of Indian Children
Kalyani
OneWorld South Asia
Fri., Nov. 7, 2003
NEW DELHI, Nov 7 (OneWorld) - The death of 18 children between July and September, allegedly due to lack of food, has sparked concerns about growing starvation in a landless indigenous community in a remote village in northern India. As the Indian government belatedly wakes up to the long festering issue, with a decision to distribute free food packets, human rights activists working in the Sonebhadra district of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, stress that the food aid is insufficient to keep starvation at bay. "The death of these 18 children highlights only the tip of the iceberg," says the People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), a rights body based in the Uttar Pradesh city of Varanasi. The activists fear that if the government does not give land for cultivation to the people - belonging to the Ghasia tribe - they will continue to starve. "The situation is still extremely bleak," says PVCHR convener Lenin Raghuvanshi. The children of the Ghasia tribe - all aged between three and seven - died between July and September this year in Naibasta hamlet in Sonebhadra district in eastern Uttar Pradesh. PVCHR says that though local newspapers reported the deaths, the district administration chose to ignore the issue. "They died of the disease of hunger, what else," Somaro, a village elder, told a PVCHR team that recently visited the area to probe the starvation deaths. "As soon as the team entered the village, all children, women and the old gathered to see who had come. We found that most of the children were mere skeletons, as if their body and flesh had been sapped away. It was obvious that they were being dragged into the cruel clutches of death," the team said in a report to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) - a New Delhi-based government-instituted body. On the basis of the complaint, the NHRC Tuesday asked the Uttar Pradesh administration to examine the allegations. The state authorities have to present their report to the NHRC within six weeks. "At a recent meeting, the full commission noted that if the allegations were true, the matter required urgent attention by the authorities, as precious human rights of the tribals were alleged to have been violated," NHRC says in a statement. The Ghasia tribe has been living in a settlement declared a forest area by the government. Decades ago, the tribe made the forest their home, after fleeing their ancestral villages to escape the tyranny of the region's feudal landlords. PVCHR says they cleared a part of the forest and cultivated coarse grains for food. Dependent on forest produce, they supported themselves by making and selling brooms out of grass, combs and clay drums. But forest officials drove them out of the woods, and the villagers were forced to settle in an area just near a district town. Here, officials of the government-run Forest Department reportedly did not allow them to forage for food in the forests. According to Lenin, as a consequence, the families are surviving on poisonous grass and wild mushrooms for the last four years. "The adults somehow managed to survive the ill effects of the poisonous intake, but the little children were unable to tolerate the poison and succumbed to death," PVCHR says. After the NHRC's intervention, food was distributed to the affected families on Wednesday. Lenin stresses though, that the Ghasia people need land for survival. Only land distribution and agrarian reform can stave off deaths, he says. Lenin states that 40 nongovernmental organizations in eastern Uttar Pradesh have launched a movement to press the demand for land for the Ghasia people. The organizations plan to hold demonstrations and launch a signature campaign for this.

"The death of 18 children due to the disease
of Hunger"

" They died of the disease of hunger and what
else

Ethnophobia in Guwahati: Reflections on Twentyfourth November

Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Ethnophobia in Guwahati: Reflections on Twentyfourth November
By Prasenjit Biswas
A new metro dotted with a swanky skyline shows a potent underbelly for
the crimes of passion on the street! An Adivasi women, Mandini, being
outraged on its street in the presence of a cheering crew of camera
wielding mob gives a mix of virile pleasure with an aesthetic of
crime. On this obstreperous note, one sees the extent of criminal
retaliation on emaciated menfolk of the Adivasis by the urban bred mob
of post graduates, restaurant waiters and even young men from
respectable middle class homes.
Adivasis came for justice and recognition on this ominous day of
twentyfourth of November to this new metro. Being bruised, tortured
and killed, they all were kept holding their ears by the police as a
symbolic admission of their guilt. They are the marginalized and
bone-turned-white arkati labourers who currently are the pluckers of
leaf in the gardens of flamboyantly proud estate owners of Assam. It
is a pride built on the shame of the dehumanized Adivasis, now
re-enacted in the assaults on their men and women. Official statements
indeed say it as `retaliation after the Adivasis went berserk'! The
wounded and the dead tell it all- who bore the reckless beating by
these retaliators. The emaciated, malnourished and bucolic menfolk of
the Adivasi protestors were surrounded, stoned, kicked and thrown into
gutters by these retaliators. The Adivasi women rallyists were
subjects of lewd comments from this set of tormentors. Still they are
held guilty of their shame and harassment. The culpable homicide of
Samson Naguri and the pronominal `she' called Mandini instantiate a
systematic collusion between the State and the retaliators. After the
shrill mayhem, the State now atones by a series of commissioned
inquiries, transfers and `sack' of some bureaucrats and police officers.
In the domain of the civil society a there is an orchestrated attempt
to portray the lack of shame on twentyfourth November as a legitimate
expression of `animosity' against the transgressors on the street, the
Adivasis. One is appalled to hear a neo-Nietzschean vein of
ressentiment from among the silent majority of Assam's intellectuals,
elites and politicians about a historic sense of being the target of
Adivasi anger. The projection of Adivasis being a mob of angry drunken
lot is a schematic inversion of ethnic rage on any claim of
recognition by anyone whom they consider `other' within the layered
and nuanced contours of Assam's language and culture.
The rage went in disciplining the Adivasi protestors as they could not
take the abuses hurled at their womenfolk on their march to the State
headquarters. What the great existentialist thinker Sartre called
`crime of passion', that is, a crime of lust, consternation and
contempt that arises from a deeper sense of alienation found its
expression. Politically speaking, constant harping on the theme of
identity crisis among the ethnic elites of Assam from their non-ethnic
others such as tribals, minorities-religious and linguistic, Adivasis
and immigrants has already become a paranoia. The influence of
ethno-nationalism cuts deep into the democratic sensibilities of
self-righteous sections of Assam's civil society, who are yet to raise
its voice against street hoodlums conducting mayhem on Adivasi
rallyists. The result is that a vicious cycle of violence now touches
Adivasi hamlets and they now too become revengeful on their
counterpart. The human right groups, the conscience keeping
intellectuals and the culture personalities suddenly fell silent when
the instigators and the organizers of such dastardly outrage and
killing are trying to speak in the name of Adivasi rage on the
Assamese elites. Those who inquisitioned the Indian State for
Kakopatahar, secret killings and monopoly of violence are now numbed
by a passionate ethnophobia, the phobia of the other, even if the
other is weak. Acts of retaliation, to say the least, is now condoned
by these self-respecting individuals and groups. In effect, this
pragmatically silent crew of opinion makers of Assam is now recovering
from the shock of being caught in a narrow ethnic chauvinism as
littérateurs are slowly penning down the `swirls in the heart'
generated by Mandini's rape. In this catharsis of victors, the
Adivasis as transgressors within the civic space of Guwahati ( they
were not given permission to hold the rally) are continued to be paid
back in a punishing coin. Home minister Shivraj Patil declared in the
Lok Sabha that the Adivasis of Assam have lost their tribal
characteristics and in effect, they are neither included in the list
of tribes nor they become a part of the Assam's ethnic mosaic. They
are just there in Assam as an exterior of both the State and the civil
society. Guwahati, if described as the cosmopolis of the proud tea
producers of Assam, cleans up the wound that it inflicted on the
Adivasis by boasting its eligibility to host the first India
international tea convention.
Mr Biswas is Reader,
Dept. of Philosophy
North Eastern Hill University
Shillong-793022
Meghalaya,India.
He is is also a part of
Barak Human Rights Protection Committee,
Sadarghat Road, Silchar-1, Assam, India
holding the position of
Director, Research and Publication.

India to confer honorary General rank on Nepalese army Chief
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Nepalese army chief seeks resumption of supply of arms
New Delhi (PTI): Nepalese army Chief Gen Rookmangud Katawal on Wednesday met senior Indian politcal leaders and is understood to have sought resumption of arms shipments from India to his country.
On a two-day official visit here, Katawal met External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukurjhee, Defence Minister A K Antony and held extensive discussions with his Indian counterpart Gen Deepak Kapoor.
India had suspended arms supplies to Nepal earlier this year on the request of the new government which included the Maoist party, following the popular upsurge against the monarchy.
India has supplied the Nepalese army with helicopters, light artillery guns, night vision devices and light arms and Kathmandu now wants the arms supplies and spares to be resumed with the situation in the country having stablised, army sources said.
Katawal and Kapoor, they said, discussed

India will confer the rank of honrary general of the Indian army on the visiting Nepalese army Chief General Rookmangual Katawal at a investiture in Rashtrapathi Bhavan on Wednesday in the midst of uncertaintiy over the future constitutional set up in the Himalayan nation .
Katawal would be conferred the rank of the general by President Pratibha Patil in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan singh and top military and civil brass. Zeenews reports.
Though the Nepalese army chief is coming specially for the investiture ceremony, his two-day visit here is packed with meeetings with several senior Indian leaders including External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukurjhee, Defence Minister A K Antony and National Security Adviser MK Narayanan.
He will also hold meetings with all the three servcice chiefs Gen Deepak Kapoor, Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta and Air Force Chief Fali Homi Major, besides meeting Defence Secretary Vijay singh.
India has been major military arsenal supplier to Nepal, giving its army helicopters, medium artillery guns, special anti insurgency weapons and assault rifles. But ever since the return of popular rule in the Kingdom with the election of the Nepalese Congress and Maoist coalition, weapon supplies have been stopped on Nepalese government's request.

Globalisation, agrarian crisis and farmers’ suicides
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Dear Members,

We are committed for the welfare of our country. And therefore it is our responsibility to have a handle on our all developmental models and find out the solution by contemplation. The following article shows many new innovative ideas which need to think for implementation. One of them is to use of coarse cereals for the extensive mid-day meal programme as it was done in the case of Mandua (finger millet) for Uttarakhand. It will create the demand of coarse cereals as well as solve the problem of over utilization of water and soil degradation. It will also lessen the burden of the particular state which is being laden on other states at present. The solution of the indebtedness and suicides also lies on the cooperative models. Many good points are reviewed in the following article which is high-quality inputs for our policy makers and government implementing agency.

Dr.Y.C.Zala,
Economist

Globalisation, agrarian crisis and farmers’ suicides

Sanjeev Chopra, 11 December 2007, Tuesday

Rather than blaming the WTO and other external agencies, let’s do an honest stocktaking, and we will find that the answers are all within. Reason is lack of political will and the commitment among the political parties so the power base remains undisturbed

I HAVE with me a paper with the above title, which was discussed by the Centre for Rural Studies at LBSNAA (Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration) last week. The paper by Dr KG Iyer, formerly professor of sociology at the Punjab University, Chandigarh, makes a scathing attack on globalisation and suggests that all the problems confronting the farm sector today can be linked to WTO and globalisation. While I am no avid supporter of everything that WTO stands for – one must point out that a more nuanced approach is in order – for many problems that confront agriculture in India can be traced to constraints in the operational aspects of India’s agricultural policy and bottlenecks in our own infrastructure.

Let us examine each of the issues that has been pointed out, and I leave it to the readers to decide whether we should lay all the blame on the WTO, or should we, as a mature nation, learn to bear responsibility for our own actions. The first relates to overuse of ground water in Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. The overuse of water is not a post-WTO phenomenon. It can be traced to the Green Revolution technologies, which the country followed in the seventies and the eighties when the national objective of self-sufficiency in foodgrains was the overriding theme of public policy in the country. When Punjab and Haryana started growing coarser varieties of rice to meet the requirements of the deficit states, instead of Basmati and other traditional crops (which were more suited to the agro climatic conditions), water table came down. The fact that the crisis peaked at the time when India joined the WTO does not make ‘globalisation’ responsible for this. The strategy of crop diversification was thought of by the Punjab Agricultural University around the same time, and it has met with partial success: and the reason why it has not done so well is more on account of our failure to make the agri-business sector more vibrant, rather than the lack of it.

The second point that the paper seeks to make out is the non-availability of seeds on account of the entry of private seed producers in the country. As mentioned earlier in these columns, the state seed corporations and the state farms corporation of India are not in a position to meet the seed requirements and if the private producers supplement these, where is the problem? In fact, competition in every sector is good – and the agriculture sector is no exception. If there is a nexus between the moneylenders and the seed suppliers, the reason is that our cooperatives and regional rural banks have not been up to the mark. If after sixty years of Independence we are not in a position to give a Kisan Credit Card to every farmer, if the nationalised insurance companies are not in a position to make viable crop insurance packages, should we hold any external agency responsible, or should we strengthen our own monitoring mechanisms?

In the next paragraph, concerns are raised about mono cropping culture, and the decline of production of course cereals. What prevents us from using coarse cereals for the extensive mid-day meal programme as was done in the case of Mandua (finger millet) for Uttarakhand? The only difference was that here in this state, chief secretary, Dr RS Tolia was working consciously towards finding a ‘sustainable market’ for organic mandua, and found it right here. Creative interventions such as these can be made all over the country. Let each rain-fed agriculture district decide that it will utilise its own coarse cereals for the mid-day meal programme, and one will see markets grow and evolve. The problem then is with the governments of Andhra, Maharashtra and Karnataka than with the WTO.

Yes, there is an ecological crisis on Indian farms because we have failed to establish soil-testing labs, our command area corporations do not work, our irrigation potential is criminally under-utilised, and there is lack of professional advice on fertiliser application. The solutions are again local – they lie in integrated pest management, vermicomposting, organic fertilisers and better appreciation of the integrated farm management system, rather than on crop specific strategies.

As regards the indebtedness of Indian farmer, one only has to search through classics like Malcolm Darling’s “The Punjab Peasantry in Prosperity and Debt” and the later work by MS Gill on the same subject. The question to ask is: is the farmer more indebted to non-institutional sources today than he was in the seventies and the eighties? Let some empirical studies be done before we come out with assertions that reinforce pre-conceived notions of what globalisation has done to agriculture. Again, let us understand that the higher transaction costs in agriculture are the consequence of our failure to make the revenue department ‘service-oriented’, rather than rent–seeking, agriculture and horticultural department more ‘knowledge than subsidy driven’ and the ARD (Agri-rural Development) and dairy department more farmer-oriented than ‘employee centric’. Other than in the milk sheds of Anand (Gujarat), the farmer has to take the cattle for insemination, rather than the veterinary field assistant coming to the farmer with his insemination kit.

As regards the question of land reforms, and pauperisation of peasantry, and the failure to do anything substantial about it, the reason is lack of political will, and the commitment among mainstream political parties who do not wish to disturb the power base in the rural areas. That is why the very heavy injection of funds towards the rural employment programmes so that a major turmoil is avoided.

Last, but not the least the paper talks about lack of regulatory regime for agri inputs. Let us do something about it. We are a sovereign nation, and if we can have a telecom regulator and a banking ombudsman, we can create similar institutions for the agri sector.

As a nation, we must learn to own up our failures, and take steps to rectify them, rather than look to excuses for non-performance. There will always be a valid explanation for why things are not happening; the challenge is to overcome these difficulties. If there is no rapport between the district agricultural officer and the district agri marketing officer, if the APMC (Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee) reforms are not being legislated – who is to blame? If CACP (Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices) feels that the farmer should be satisfied with a 15 to 20 per cent return on his effort, it is our problem. If fertiliser is not available to the farmer at MRP and he has to pay a premium even on fertiliser distributed by the cooperatives, it is our failure.

If soil tests are not being done, and there is an over application of fertiliser, it is again our problem. If the extension officers of agriculture are expected to do electoral roll revision, adult literacy programmes, mobilise people for pulse polio and every campaign that the district administration wants them to – it is our failure.

If the principal agriculture officers are not in a position to access information on the net, it is again our problem. Rather than blame the WTO and other external agencies, lets do an honest stocktaking, and we will find that the answers are all within. As Confucius had once said, “ the best fertiliser for a field is the farmer’s footsteps.” Lets talk to the farmer, understand him, find out what he wants, and deliver him his requirements, rather than any pious homilies.

About fake FIR against Human Rights Defender and Death Threat
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Thanks for the mail. I am based in Kolkata. I came to know the information thanks to friends. You may get adequate feedback from Varanasi itself.
However, I am sending you the copy of the latest mail from Dr Lenin. You may contact him personally. It will be great if you care to be in touch with me. In Indian Express, Deepa will be there in Lucknow. You may know about me from her.
Please let me know the latest update.
"DR. Lenin" to guergana
show details Dec 11 (1 day ago)
10 December 2007
Subject: About fake FIR against Human Rights Defender and Death Threat.
I Dr. Lenin, son of Mr. Surendra Nath, resident of SA 4/2A, Daulatpur, within the jurisdiction of Cantonment Police Station, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh wish to inform you the following. I am a Human Rights Defender and also a member of District Vigilance Committee on Bonded Labour. I am also the convener of the People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights, working on human rights issues in Uttar Pradesh. I work on issues of Hunger / Starvation and deaths due to hunger. Due to this, the state government has ordered an investigation, raising false accusations against me and my organisation; and antisocial elements are issuing death threat to me.
The village-head of Belwa of Badagaon administrative block, filed First Information Report [FIR] against me at Phoolpur Police Station under the section

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY OBSERVED IN AHMEDBAD
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
HUMAN RIGHTS DAY OBSERVED IN AHMEDBAD

A meeting was held to observe the Human Rights Day on 10th. December. The meeting was held in Mehandi Nawab Jung Hall, Himavan, Paldi, Ahmedabad at 3 P.M.The meeting was presided over by the Convenor of Movement for Secular Democracy(MSD) Sri Prakash N. Shah, the veteran journalist and the activist.

The meeting was organised by Movement for Secular Democracy. AWAG, P.U.C.L ,Sanchetana, Janpath,Prasant and others

For last 10 years the programme was held in open space But this year the hall meeting was held because the police did not give permission on the pleas of election code of conduct.

As the area of the Hall of the meeting place comes under the Ellisbridge Constituency, the six candidates contesting from this constituency were invited to express their point of view before the audience and face the questions of the audience. Only two candidates came forward to deliver their point of view . They were Sri Upendra Acharya, (Independent) , Bhavik Raja(SUCI)

The programme with the songs presented by Nitin Prajapati and his group followed by Bhadrabehn Savai.

There after the meeting was addressed by one after one concerned citizens expressing their concern on the over all decline of Human Rights in Gujarat, more so under the regime of Narendra Modi in the name of development, which is illusive. All said that the women, Dalits, minority, workers, children rights are violated nakedly.

The speakers in the meeting were Sri Dilip Chandulal, Sri Dwarika Nath Rath, Ms. Ilaben Pathak, Sri Indukumar Jani,Prof. Ghanshyam Shah, Damayanti behn Parikh, Rajani Dave, Prof. R.D.Dave, Suvarnabehn, , Sri Hiren Gandhi, SriGautam bhai Thaker and others

A resolution was moved and passed unanimously by Sri Prakash bhai condemning the justification of Narendra Modi in encounter death of Shohrauddhin which is violation of human rights. The resolution demanded a public apology from Modi.

It was decided to hold a public meeting ob 24th December,( after the declaration of the election )result to decide the plans and programmes for restoration and preservation of Human Rights in the state.
Edgy Indian state election going down to the wireBy Rupam Jain Nair
Dec 12, 2007
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3987012
AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - Elections in India's booming but communally divided state of Gujarat are going down to the wire, with TV exit polls after a first round of voting showing a small swing away from the ruling Hindu nationalists.
The vote is being closely watched as a barometer of the fortunes of the country's two main parties ahead of national elections due by mid-2009
Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) remain favorites to win the vote in the western state, but there was still a lot to play for when the second round takes place on Sunday, analysts said.
"It is a neck-and-neck fight in Gujarat. A little swing in voting pattern and Modi could be in a tough situation," analyst and pollster Yogendra Yadav told the CNN-IBN channel.
Congress, which runs the national coalition government, is hoping to wrest control of one of India's richest states away from the BJP.
Exit polls, often unreliable in the past, showed the BJP winning between 40 and 48 seats in the first round held on Tuesday, down from 54 in the last election in 2002, against between 37 and 43 for Congress, up from 30.
A controversial figure, Modi has been accused of encouraging Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002 in which between 1,200 and 2,500 people were killed, most of them Muslims.
He swept back to power with 127 seats in the 182-seat assembly in elections later that year, on an overtly pro-Hindu and anti-Muslim platform.
This time around, he had begun his campaign with a much more moderate message, boasting of good governance, industrialization and rural development.
But in the last week, he has returned to the familiar ground of Hindutva, the BJP's Hindu revivalist philosophy, accusing the Congress-led central government of being soft on Muslim terrorists.
HINDU MAGIC
Ajay Umat, editor of the Gujarati-language newspaper Divya Bhaskar, predicted more of the same as Modi tried to swing Hindus behind him in a close race.
Modi gets contempt notice amid Gujarat polls
New Delhi: Four days before Gujarat's second and final phase of polling, Chief Minister Narendra Modi was slapped by the Supreme Court Wednesday with a contempt notice for allegedly justifying the police killing of a Muslim man.
A bench of Justices Tarun Chatterjee and Dalveer Bhandari, however, exempted him form personally appearing before it. It issued the notice after five hours of arguments by counsels for various parties, including former additional solicitor general (ASG) and Modi's lawyer Mukul Rohtagi, ASG Gopal Subramanian who is assisting the court as amicus curiae, as well as lawyers for the petitioners - Dushyant Dave for victim Sohrabuddin Sheikh's brother Rubabuddin and Prashant Bhushan for Javed Akhtar, Bollywood lyricist and social activist.
The pleas for launching contempt proceedings against Modi and a probe into his role in the killing were filed after he allegedly justified Sohrabuddin's death in a staged police shootout in Ahmedabad in November 2005.
Addressing an election rally at Mangrol in south Gujarat on Dec 4, he said Sohrabuddin had hoarded weapons and was planning terror attacks in Gujarat. He asked the crowd what should be done to an "anti-national and terrorist" like him and his supporters shouted back: "kill him".
Modi then said: "Should my police go to seek (Congress chief) Sonia Gandhi's permission for that?" The remarks created a controversy as the killing is under probe following the Supreme Court's directive. The Gujarat government has, in fact, told the apex court in an affidavit that its anti-terror squad personnel had erred in killing Sohrabuddin and has arrested three senior police officials.
During the arguments, Rohtagi told the court that Sohrabuddin had been convicted under the now defunct Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and his appeal against conviction was still pending before the apex court.
The bench, however, issued the notice discarding Rohtagi's argument to adjourn the matter till the assembly election process in the state was completed. While the first phase of polling in Gujarat took place Tuesday, the remaining areas will vote Sunday, with the vote count Dec 23.
Arguing that Modi made the remarks only in response to Gandhi's speech a day before allegedly dubbing him as among "merchants of death", Rohtagi said: "If the notice is issued, one side will take advantage and if the petition is dismissed, the other side would exploit it.
"In both cases, the court runs the risk of unwittingly getting drawn into the vortex of politics," he told the bench, which at one point appeared set to adjourn the matter till January. Rohtagi argued that the Election Commission was already seized of the matter involving the controversial speeches by the two leaders and any decision by the court would also influence the poll panel.
"If Modi is found guilty of contempt, he would be convicted. This court is much higher and powerful than any chief minister. But I am afraid of rival parties misusing the court's decision either way," said Rohtagi.
He also argued that Modi's speech prima facie showed no contempt of the court.
The bench, however, issued the notice after Rubabuddin's counsel pointed out that it was not an election petition, seeking disqualification of a candidate for violation of electoral laws.
"It is a petition for launching contempt of court proceedings and the matter at this juncture was purely between the court and the petitioner, who has to satisfy the court that the judicial process has been interfered with," said Dushyant Dave, contending that Modi's counsel did not even have a right to be heard at this juncture.
Opposing Rohtagi's request to adjourn the matter till the state elections were over, he said, "The Gujarat government has taken this court along a garden path. Every time the court has taken up the matter related to Sohrabuddin's extra-judicial killing, the Gujarat government has only sought adjournment on count or another." "This court is powerful enough to foil the efforts by politicians to politicise its decisions," he said.
Narmada registered record polling
Ahmedabad: In the first phase of assembly polls in Gujarat, 59.61 per cent exercised their franchise 14 districts to select candidates to 87 seats, official sources said today.
Out of the 1.78 crore voters in the 87 constituencies, 1.06 crore exercised their right to vote yesterday of which 57.19 per cent were women and 61.84 per cent male, sources at Gujarat's Chief Electoral Office said.
Narmada district in South Gujarat recorded the highest voting percentage of 69.63 while Saurashtra region's Jamnagar district recorded the lowest at 55.73 per cent.
Kutch had recorded 58.48 per cent voting. The polling percentages in other districts in Saurashtra region were Surendranagar (59.84), Rajkot (58), Junagadh (62.07), Amreli (59.39), Porbandar (56.96) and Bhavnagar (57.77).
The polling percentage in other districts in South Gujarat were Bharuch (64.36), Surat (58.54), Valsad (61.84), Dangs (58.87) and Navsari (64.65).
Voting in the first phase had passed off peacefully barring minor incidents of violence and complaints of irregularities.
The second phase of elections in 97 constituencies will take place on December 16. The counting of votes will be done on December 23.
Erosion of Democratic Norms: A case of Modi
Ram Puniyani
Current Gujarat elections, irrespective of their results, will remain etched in the memory of the nation for wrong reasons. Gujarat witnessed the burning of Sabarmati express at Godhra in Feb 2002. The carnage which followed this train accident claimed the lives of thousands of innocents and simultaneously polarized Gujarat along religious lines. The process of ghettotisation of Muslims and the fear of minorities constructed in the minds of majority community are staring in our face. At the same time the threads of democratic nationalism, national integration are breaking rapidly. While various citizens? inquiry reports did point out the pre planned nature of the pogrom and the role of RSS combine led by Modi in the carnage, we could all see the same for ourselves thanks to the Tehelka. The consequent polarization led to the victory of the leader of the carnage back to power in the elections which took place a bit later. In the elections of 2002, the main opposition party, Congress did not gather strength to take on Modi with full vigor. One of the reasons was that Modi deflected the criticism directed again him and against RSS combine as the insult to 5 crore Gujartis, and his assertion was well received in a section of society.
The Tehelka sting showed some of the perpetrators boasting about their crimes in front of the camera, and this made most of the people realize once again the gravity of the crime. Now most of the society got a direct feel of what had happened, who did it. Society also registered that the reports of citizens groups were on the dot in pinpointing the malaise of Gujarat society. It was in this background that Sonia Gandhi in her election campaign called the Modi led BJP as the merchants of death. Modi realized that the truth is being said after all, and tried to raise the communal and criminal sentiments by justifying the extra judicial killing of Sorabuddin, who was killed in a fake encounter by the police.
The ploy was that since a section of society has been communized enough, the illegal act of killing someone will get him sympathy votes. He took ?credit? for this ?bravery? of killing of Soharabuddin and his wife. Human rights workers raised the issue of Modi communalizing and criminalizing the people?s mindset. And as is his wont, he presented the criticism against him as the insult of people of Gujarat, of Gujarat itself!
Usual damage control exercises unrolled, he has been quoted out of context, he does not justify the extra judicial killings etc. But the damage was done and election commission took a serous note of it. The frail nature of legal mechanism, as to how a democratically elected chief minister, takes oath in the name of constitution, than openly incites the public and tries to bask in the ?glory? of this illegal act done by state machinery, is there for all to see.
The larger issue of democratic norms, morality and polity are put at the backburner, with the leaders doing their electoral arithmetic of what will help them more in getting the power. Now the issue can be discussed at the level of legalities and also at the level of electoral arithmetic. All these do have their importance but one also needs to be concerned about the deeper and broader issues related to our constitution, as to what is happening to the values of democracy enshrined in our constitution?
In Gujarat the legal norms have been put aside in matters of rehabilitation and in the post violence justice. In ?regular? life patterns, now a section of Muslims are willing to bend on their knees to survive, willing to ?forgive? unilaterally, while no body is caring to ask for their forgiveness. The ?charisma? of Modi is on the rise. He was keeping the communal card, under wraps till the word Merchants of death was hurled upon him. And then he unraveled his communal face with full force just before the polling. All this sounds so unusual but we are becoming used to the prevalence of these things. Does it ring familiar to something which happened in history? While there are lot of differences from what happened in Germany some similarities are too glaring.
The targeting of minorities, the total abolition of democratic space, the social common sense directed against the minorities and secularists, and consensus built around the fascist state are very similar. ?Kill them, kill them? is what Modi could easily extract from the section of crowd for Soharabuddin. What distinguishes Gujarat from the Germany?s state of affairs in 30s and 40s of last century is that here the process is taking place at a slower pace and the same process is on with different intensities in different states of the country. So can we use the term Chronic Fascism in Gujarat in contrast to acute fascism of Germany. Whole of Germany was totally gripped by this politics, while in India Gujarat is worst but all the same in other states also this fascism is strangulating democratic space, though with different degrees of intensity. The biggest similarity is the ?successes? of a fascist party, which in Germany took the pretext of race and here it is wearing the garb of religion. Interestingly earlier and even now the fascist parties are using the democratic space to come to power, to precisely abolish the same in due course.
During last two and a half decades the rise of right wing politics has taken place on the pretext of Hinduism, while it has nothing to do with the humane streams of Hinduism. It claims to be for Hindus, while majority of Hindus have become victim of this intimidating politics. It reflects the state of erosion of our democratic norms and gradual strengthening of the forces which do talk about democracy but are deeply wedded to the RSS, the organization which is opposed to democracy and wants to bring Hindu nation. That the concept of Hindu nation is for Hindus, is just a pretext. It essentially aims to abolish the values of liberty equality and fraternity and strengthens the hold of section of Hindus, the elite, males, on the whole society. The trick is the agenda of a small dominant section of society has been propagated as being for all Hindus.
Coming to Gujarat, one can clearly make out that there is a slow but dangerous march towards a fascist state. The classical fascism which one witnessed in Germany and Italy in the early decades of last century was marked by the targeting of minorities, of social rights groups/parties and at the same time doing away with all democratic norms. It created a terrorizing atmosphere, where the handful ruled the roost with the charisma of leader like Hitler, who swayed the people, worked and he got the anti democratic things accepted by people in the initial part of the rule, till Germany itself collapsed under the weight of the fascist boots. Such politics does discover and project a single charismatic leader, in Germany it was Hitler, in Gujarat it is Modi. Incidentally RSS nationalism also took lot of inspiration from Hitler?s Nationalism, ?German national pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of Semitic races-The Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how neigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.? (We or Our nationhood Defined,1938)
The politics of RSS combine has cleverly adopted itself to the Indian situation and has gone on to create a fear of the miniscule minority. It is quite similar to Hitler creating a phobia against Jews, holding them responsible for the plight of Germany, and using that as the center of his policies terrorizing the whole nation into submission to the agenda of fascism, abolition of the concept of rights, something which is the life and breath of democracy, something which is a shield for the average people to survive. While a large section of Gujarat, Minorities, dalits, adivasis and women are suffering the middle and affluent classes are able to get their way through the agenda of vibrant Gujarat!
The analogy does not end here. The terrorizing atmosphere created in Gujarat does remind us of the status of minorities. Now the large sections of minorities feel that they have been relegated to the second class citizenship status. Their insecurity is the index of our democratic ethos. It is correctly pointed out that if you want to see the state of health of democracy, have a look at the status of its minorities!
--
Issues in Secular Politics
December 2007 II
For Circulation/ Publication
--
ram.puniyani@ gmail.com
www.pluralindia. com

School Shootings Exported to India?
Shooter School Boys 'Feel They Have Done Nothing Wrong'

Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
'Yes, I killed Abhishek'
Times of India - 59 minutes ago
GURGAON: Still simmering with resentment, the Class VIII student who allegedly fired four shots at his colleague seems unrepentant about the killing.
School Shootings Exported to India? ABC News
Killer schoolboy was remorseless, says it was revenge Hindustan Times
School Shootings Exported to India?
Shooter School Boys 'Feel They Have Done Nothing Wrong'
By NICHOLAS SCHIFRIN
NEW DELHI, Dec. 12, 2007
Two boys who said they were sick of being bullied opened fire in a school, killing a classmate, the object of their hatred, police say. They used one of their father's guns. And they are remorseless.
For the first time, the template of a U.S. campus shooting has been exported to the Indian capital.

Police say two boys, both 14 and in the eighth grade, took turns in broad daylight shooting their victim, 14-year-old Abishek Tyagi, sending five bullets through his head, chest, and shoulder.
But there are two major differences between this shooting and the more than 20 campus shootings that have occurred in the United States in the last 10 years: The boys didn't kill themselves, and they were allowed to speak to the media.
"We were completely disgusted with the behavior of Abishek," one of them told the Times of India. "He used to bully us frequently and had also threatened to kill us. So, before he could do that I thought of finishing him. My father had kept his licensed revolver in a TV trolley and it was locked. I took it out and hid it. On Tuesday morning, I smuggled it to school by hiding it in my socks."
Police say he hid it in a bathroom until the end of the day, when he and a friend confronted Tyagi outside a school bus.
"I don't feel we have done anything wrong. He used to behave as a don in the class. We wished to end his 'dadagiri,'" he told the Times, using the Hindi word for bullying.
This afternoon police say they are looking for Azad Yadav, the father of one of the boys and the owner of the gun, to arrest him for alleged reckless handling of his weapon. But he has disappeared.
Gun violence is very rare here, especially in a private school surrounded by upscale communities. The Euro International School, where the shooting occurred, is filled with well-to-do families, and the fathers of both shooters were successful real estate managers.
Gurgaon is a booming satellite town home located just on the outskirts of Delhi. It is marked by high-rises, filled with high-end stores and workers who answer phones for Western companies that have outsourced customer service operations to India
World off track on goal of school for all children
By Nick Tattersall
Dec 12, 2007
DAKAR (Reuters) - Close to one billion people will never receive a formal education because governments around the world are not living up to pledges to provide free primary schooling for all by 2015, aid groups said on Wednesday.
At a meeting in Senegal's capital Dakar in 2000, governments from 164 countries agreed on goals including the provision of good quality, free primary education for all and a 50 percent improvement in adult literacy by the middle of next decade.
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Half way to that deadline, the world's richest nations are failing to live up to pledges to help the poorest and the goals remain elusive, according to the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), a grouping of thousands of teachers' unions and civil society groups including Save the Children and Oxfam.
"At current performance rates, close to a billion people won't receive education in their lifetime, let alone in the next seven years as promised," said Nelida Cespedes, a GCE board member from Peru.
Universal primary education by 2015 is also one of the eight U.N. Millennium Development Goals agreed by world governments.
The campaign group said in a report that 72 million children were still not attending primary school and that 774 million adults -- or one in five -- were illiterate. Although many of them were in Africa, the study said several African governments had made marked improvements in providing schooling.
The report coincided with a meeting in Dakar of ministers and educational specialists from around the world, hosted by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade and the director general of U.N. cultural and education agency UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura.
"More than 18 million new teachers will be needed by 2015, nearly four million in sub-Saharan Africa alone," Matsuura told the summit, attended by hundreds of school children.
RICH NATIONS MUST DO MORE
UNESCO said in a report last month that good progress was being made, with primary school enrolment rising by 36 percent in sub-Saharan Africa and by 22 percent in South and West Asia between 1999 and 2005.

India to be regular wheat importer, says CWB
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
India to be regular wheat importer, says CWB
By Mayank Bhardwaj
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will be a regular wheat importer in the future despite being the world's second-biggest producer as demand from a growing population races ahead, a Canadian Wheat Board official said on Wednesday.
India imported 5.5 million tonnes of wheat in 2006, its first overseas buys in six years, and has tied up contracts for 1.8 million tonnes this year.
"I would suggest that India is going to be importing on a more regular basis," Dave Burrows, a wheat board director, told Reuters in an interview in New Delhi.
"Perhaps not every year, but on a more regular basis than they have in the past."
Burrows is in India as part of a delegation which aims to help the South Asian giant set up food processing units.
Analysts say India needs around 73 million tonnes of wheat annually to feed its more than one billion population. Domestic production has been stagnating, forcing the government to order expensive imports to build reserves.
"We are sensitive to the fact that India's population by all accounts is growing by about 20 million people a year and your crop size is around 70-74 million tonnes," Burrows said.
The Canadian Wheat Board, one of the world's biggest sellers, supplied one million tonnes of wheat to India last year and has sold 350,000 tonnes this year.
India still top for IT offshoring, but others catching up
BANGALORE, India (AFP) - India remains the top destination for companies moving information-technology services to lower-cost economies, but China, Russia and Brazil are catching up, said a report released Tuesday.
Research firm Gartner also said offshore spending will grow 60 percent in Europe and 40 percent in the US next year in a boost to countries such as India that are dependent on Western economies for IT revenues.
"The analysis showed that India remains the undisputed leader in offshore services, but increasingly countries such as China, Russia and Brazil are providing credible alternatives," Gartner said in the report.
India, led by software firms such as Tata Consultancy, Infosys and Wipro, has leveraged on a vast engineering talent pool and labour costs that are a fifth of those in the West to build itself into the world's back-office.
Gartner used 10 criteria to rate potential locations for IT services, including language, government support, labour pool, infrastructure, educational system, cost and political and economic environment.
Cultural compatibility, global and legal maturity, and data and intellectual property security and privacy were also factored in.
"The aim of the study was not to rank each country, but rather help sourcing managers determine which locations are right for their organisations," Ian Marriott, research vice-president at Gartner, said in a statement here.
Thirty countries around the world made the cut as suitable IT offshoring locations.
Although seen as India's greatest challenger in terms of its potential scale, China fared poorly for language skills, Gartner said.
China, India and Singapore all had strong government support for the promotion of their country as an offshore services location.
The political and economic environment remains a concern for many companies when moving work to offshore locations and so Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam rated poorly, Gartner said
India index futures premium jumps on long build-up
MUMBAI, Dec 12 (Reuters) - India's stock index futures saw
a build-up of long positions on Wednesday, boosting premium to
the spot to nearly 30 points with banking, metal and real
estate stocks garnering the buying interest, traders and
analysts said. The Nifty December futures (NIFc1: Quote, Profile, Research) ended 1.3 percent higher
at 6,189.05 points, while the benchmark Nifty index (.NSEI: Quote, Profile, Research)
ended 1 percent higher at 6,159.30. The premium jumped to
nearly 30 points from 10 points the previous day. Sentiment turned firmly positive after the U.S. Federal
Reserve announced a 25-basis-point rate cut, with analysts
saying there were not many short positions left uncovered in
the market. "In addition to build-up in open interest, the implied
volatility has come down to near-normal levels, which is a sign
of a steady bullish trend," Savio Shetty, derivatives analyst
at Prabhudas Lilladher, said. Implied volatility, which is a measure of the perceived
volatilty or uncertainty in the market, was down to 28 points
from 32 the previous day. It had been hovering in the 32-35
range for some weeks, Shetty said. Overall segment turnover rose to 714 billion rupees, from
594 billion on Tuesday. Stocks which saw a build-up in long positions include
Reliance Natural Resources (RNRLnsc1: Quote, Profile, Research), Ansal Properties
(ANSPnsc1: Quote, Profile, Research), Corporation Bank (CRBKnsc1: Quote, Profile, Research), Hindustan Zinc
(HZNCnsc1: Quote, Profile, Research) and Tata Teleservices (TTMLnsc1: Quote, Profile, Research). "The bullish trend is likely to continue, but the trading
level is likely to hover in the 6,100 to 6,300 range," Ketan
Chaurasia, AVP, Derivatives at PINC Research, said. He expects
advance tax numbers on December 15 to be the next trigger for
the markets. Technical analysts expect the Nifty to find resistance at
the 6,250 level.
UPDATE 1-India's Reliance to pursue acquisitions
DUBAI, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries (RELI.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) will aggressively pursue acquisitions as part of a new strategy to grow the business of India's largest company by market value, Chairman Mukesh Ambani said on Wednesday.
Reliance, a refiner and petrochemical maker, is changing several of its strategies, Ambani, India's wealthiest man, said at a petrochemical conference in Dubai.
"The first is from an organic growth model to a mix of organic and aggressive acquisitions-led mode of growth," Ambani said.
Reliance wants to tap growing demand for chemicals in Asia, especially China and India, Ambani said. "The centre of economic growth is shifting to Asia," he said, boosting demand for goods and services.
Chemicals projects are getting larger as the cost of feedstock -- linked to oil prices -- rises, demanding economies of scale, Ambani said.
Chemical firms will have to develop "supersites" at a cost of between $4 billion and $5 billion that also integrate with oil refineries, he said. "Energy and feedstock costs for our industry will continue to move in an upwards direction," Ambani said. (Reporting by James Cordahi, editing by Will Waterman)
India PM says spectrum policy should be fair
NEW DELHI, Dec 12 (Reuters) - India's policy governing allocation of telecom spectrum to firms should be fair and transparent and all technology options should be explored to maximise spectrum usage, the prime minister said on Wednesday.
"The policy regime for making spectrum available should be fair, transparent, equitable and forward looking. It should not create entry barriers to newcomers or barriers to the continued growth of the sector," Manmohan Singh told an industry conference.
The rapid growth of the telecoms market in India, which adds nearly 8 million subscribers each month, has led to a paucity of spectrum, which is affecting expansion plans of firms and the quality of service. (Reporting by C. Jacob Kuncheria and Rajkumar Ray
India: where the credit crisis is but distant thunder
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_and_features/article3244729.ece
Indian business is in supremely self-confident mood. But is its optimism justified? Corruption remains a key restraint on progress. By Jeremy Warner in Delhi
Published: 12 December 2007
Now what credit crisis is that? There could scarcely be a better antidote to the gloom which grips Western markets than a visit to India, where the mood among business leaders in sharp contrast to the downbeat pessimism of the developed world is one of rampant self-confidence and can-do determination to succeed. If the world economy has indeed "decoupled", with the fast growing developing economies of Asia able to remain largely immune to the slowdown in the US, then India perhaps more so even than China is the living embodiment of the breakdown of these linkages.
To bankers and business people here, the credit crunch is but a scarcely noticed rumble of distant thunder of little, if any, significance to an economy whose annualised rate of growth is now kissing 10 per cent.
At last week's India Economic Summit, organised by the World Economic Forum in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry, the mood was one of unbridled optimism, despite the country's many economic and social challenges.
In a mark of this new found self-confidence, India's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, predicted that next year outward bound investment by Indian companies would for the first time exceed fast-growing inward investment by foreigners keen to tap into India's explosive growth story.
The two front-runners for Jaguar and Land Rover, which have been put up for sale by Ford with an expected price tag of $1.5bn to $2bn (£980m), are both Indian – Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra. One of these is likely to be named preferred bidder at some stage in the next month or two, with the effect that together with the steel maker Corus, bought earlier this year by Tata, a very substantial part of Britain's remaining manufacturing base will have passed into Indian ownership.
Nor could anyone have failed to notice the takeover by the flamboyant Vijay Mallya of the scotch whisky company Whyte & Mackay. Mobbed in the manner of a Bollywood film star as he struts the conference rooms of the India Economic Summit, he has become the living embodiment of the self-belief, verging on arrogance, of India's new business élite.
Less well-reported examples of Indian acquisitiveness overseas are the pharmaceuticals company Ranbaxy Laboratories, whose chief executive Malvinder Singh, points out that he has done 18 overseas acquisitions in the last two years, and India's world-class IT services industry, which has been similarly active overseas. Indians are these days more likely to be found rubbing shoulders with the élite of global business than their counterparts in China.
Yet the emergence of India as a serious player in global M&A, though undoubtedly indicative of the country's new-found influence on the world economy, is no substitute for economic development at home. With some 80 per cent of a population of 1.1bn living on 25 rupees a day or less (30p), there is plainly still a way to go before the geo-economic power shift from west to east that so many now talk of becomes a reality.
In most respects, the idea is still little more than fanciful. The "inclusive" growth that India aspires to is also at this stage just a pipe dream.
The development challenge for India is not the 250 million people officially defined as middle class – those with sufficient income for discretionary spending – but the much greater numbers which are still dependent on subsistence farming or eeking out a living in the slum dwellings of India's major cities.
The economic anomaly that India has to confront is that the more than half the population which is still rural accounts for just 20 per cent of the country's output, with the infrastructure of the cities already so stretched and broken by migration from the land that they cannot without risk of extreme social dislocation absorb any more.
Perhaps oddly, the effect so far of the Western credit crunch on India has been mildly positive. Some of the excess liquidity which otherwise would have flowed into complex western debt instruments has instead been diverted into emerging market equities, helping to feed the boom in the Indian stock market.
It's a funny old world that sees Indian equities as lower risk than previously triple-A-rated Western debt markets, but for the time being that's the way of it.
Yet whatever the protestations of its business leaders, it seems unlikely that India can altogether escape the adverse consequences of the Western credit crisis. India is more "coupled" to what's going on in Western economies than it would like to think. The credit crunch will for starters quite severelylimit India's new-found penchant for foreign acquisition making. India is just as affected by the closure of debt markets to leveraged finance as privateequity.
Ranbaxy has already had to pull one major transaction because of prohibitive financing costs. Speculation in the Indian press that Tata might counter BHP Billiton in the bidding for Rio Tinto, thus shoring up the country's need for iron ore supplies to feed its fast-growing steel mills, are frankly just delusional in today's markets.
Tata would have struggled to finance the acquisition of Corus had it been trying to do so today. The infinitely larger amounts necessary to acquire Rio are a non starter.
Meanwhile, Indian exports are likely to be hard hit by any generalised economic slowdown in the West. The booming IT sector will also find its growth crimped by more difficult trading conditions in the US.
Ambitious government plans to increase infrastructure spending by some $500bn over the next five years, much of it slated to be privately financed, is likely to be quite significantly affected by the freezing up of global credit markets.
The bigger constraints on Indian development are nonetheless of the more home-grown variety. India's notoriously poor infrastructure of power, water, sanitation, roads, rail and airports – together with the apparent inability of government to do anything about it – is just the half of it. Nor are the extreme challenges around education, training, health and nutrition the biggest bug-bear.
Rather, it is corrosive, debilitating corruption, which runs through all levels of society from the lowest to the highest, and creates a massive barrier to the deployment of foreign capital and the development of efficient markets. Yet it is an issue few Indian business and political leaders are prepared to even talk about let alone confront.
There was, for instance, no session amid all the self-congratulation of the India Economic Summit on corruption, though in fairness it was referred to in a breakout debate on the difficulties of introducing Western standards of supply chain management into India.
Low levels of public sector pay have helped make bribery a part of everyday life. Only very slowly has private sector development, which brings with it Western standards of pay and best practice, begun to make inroads into a pattern of behaviour still widely thought of as perfectly normal.
A common observation among Western business people with experience of working in both India and China is, yes, India with its fast-growing, youthful population and relatively high levels of consumption, is a terrific market opportunity, but – and here the aside is whispered behind the hand – "it is so much better in China" .
There is of course plenty of corruption in China, too, but the difference is that in China a real effort is made, from the top down, to engage with business and address its problems. If a road needs to be built to facilitate an investment, it gets built to order and on time.
Against China's forced march, India has more chaotic, private sector-driven approach to development. This may have the merit of being more consensual, but it also makes the system more open to abuse.
India is said to have more than 250,000 separate democratic institutions. Against China's rule of the gun, India is ruled by the ballot box. In such a paradise of representation, national priorities become eclipsed by regional concerns, interests and sovereignties. In any system where there is debate and room to object, progress is bound to be slower and more cumbersome. What should be a democratic dividend, making India a more obviously attractive destination for Western investment and know-how than the one-party state of China, instead frequently becomes a positive liability.
Yet it requires only the briefest of visits to India to understand that it is not democracy as such which is at the root of the problem. Rather it is powerful vested interest and corruption which through high levels of loyalty and deference down through the matrix of society that have become entrenched in the democratic process.
Says one leader of a multi-national company with extensive interests in India: "You know, India is a wonderful country, but it is a bugger of a place to do business in, a real bugger, worse than anywhere else I've had experience of, worse than the Middle East.
"The market is huge and fast growing, but every step of the way it is a struggle. It shouldn't be so difficult. It could be made so much better. But nothing is going to change in a hurry".
This may be an unduly pessimistic prognosis, but it contains large elements of truth. Corruption of the commercial and political process is present at all levels of society, from the free services and goods that street traders are obliged to give local police and officials to prevent crippling bureaucratic interference to the protections and barriers to entry that are enjoyed by some of India's leading business dynasties.
Rules and regulations are routinely changed or tampered with to favour one commercial interest over another, depriving the market of the level playing field it needs to develop internationally competitive industries. This may not be corruption as such, and all political systems however sophisticated, are to some extent prone to such manipulation. Yet it is more overt and wide-ranging in India than perhaps anywhere else.
One current example is the row over new mobile phone spectrums, which had been promised to existing GSM operators but which two of India's most powerful business dynasties, Anil Ambani's Reliance and the still family controlled Tata, are trying to muscle in on.
Mobile telephony has been one of the great Indian success stories of recent years, hugely innovative and adaptive as penetration spreads beyond India's urban middle class down into the lower income groups, where the cost of both handsets and call charges have to be kept to a bare minimum to gain traction.
Handsets can be bought for as little as $20 and pre-paid top ups are sold in 10 rupee chunks, enabling 5-7 minutes of airtime. The mass provision of connectivity is an essential element of the social and economic empowerment that India so desperately needs to lift its population out of poverty. The mobile phone companies are making extraordinary progress in helping bring this about, yet at every turn their progress is hampered by bureaucratic interference.
Unlike other forms of infrastructure, there is no problem of lack of investment in mobile telephony. Vodafone Essar, the second-biggest operator, is spending at the rate of $2bn a year, while the largest, Sunil Mittal's Airtel, will be spending even more.
Existing capacity is already stretched to breaking point. To keep growing as planned, the GSM operators need more. Yet here comes Messrs Ambani and Tata, both of whom have mobile companies licensed to use the alternative, and as it has turned out more expensive, CDMA operating standard, to argue that in order to create more competition in the market, the promised extra GSM spectrum should go to them instead.
Having essentially chosen a technological cul-de- sac as their way into mobile, their natural sense of entitlement makes them think the rules should be changed to give them access to the faster-growing GSM market, too. Never mind the billions of investment by the likes of Mr Mittal predicated on understandings that were meant to be set in concrete, or the fact that if scarce capacity is shared between multiple operators, it is much more likely to create an unsatisfactory oligopoly than more competition.
Mr Mittal has expressed outrage at what government-controlled regulators seem minded to do. Their decision will be a test case of public policy as it relates to business in India. Without certainty as to the public policy framework, business can't and won't invest.
In China, it is often said, business succeeds because of government; in India, it is in spite of government. The challenge of dealing with often corrupt bureaucracy in itself helps create a hugely entrepreneurial and inventive society. Yet it is also a profound barrier to change, which left unaddressed, will continue to cost India dear.
As one of the co-chairs of the India Economic Summit, Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of BT, says he feels more inspired about the need for corporate change by coming to India than ever he does sitting in his office back in London.
This is the future, he says, gesturing to the world outside – a fast-growing middle-class consumer market that will soon be bigger in terms of numbers than the European Union.
But to achieve its proper potential it must rise to the challenge of lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty so that they too can join the burgeoning ranks of Indians already bought into the global economy.
Connectivity, in his view, provides many of the answers to India's economic and social challenges, including perhaps, ultimately, corruption, too. There is nothing like communication to make people realise they are being disadvantaged.
India is at least 10 years behind China in terms of its development profile. The free market reforms that led directly to the explosive growth we are seeing today throughout much of the developing world came later in India than China. Yet India's market opportunity is potentially much bigger, with a faster-growing and more youthful population.
These characteristics have the potential to be as much of a curse as a blessing. Yet whatever the outcome, no business which still expects to be around in 20 years time can afford to ignore the challenges they represent.

fusion between corporate capitalism and feudalism — it's a deadly cocktail

Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Hunger Problem Challenges US
http://www.truthout .org/docs_ 2006/121107H. shtml
Patrik Jonsson, reporting for The Christian Science Monitor, writes,
"This week, Congress considers new food stamp rules that would allow
people to receive more aid."
World Trade Organization Director Pascal Lamy, one of globalization' s shrewdest observers, rehabilitates the Marxist criticism of capitalism.
Challenges: Does Marx, as a certain number of recent authors have written, remain the best thinker about contemporary capitalism?
Pascal Lamy: Not the best, because history has shown us that he was not the prophet some vaunted. But from the perspective of nonpredictive explanatory power nothing comparable exists. If one wants to analyze the globalized market capitalism of today, the essential tools reside in the intellectual toolkit Marx and some of those who inspired him created. Of course, everything is not perfect. There are stacks of criticisms to level against Marx, and he was probably a better philosopher and economic theoretician than he was a political thinker....
What do you retain from Marx?
Before everything else, the idea that market capitalism is a system based on a certain theory of value and the dynamic and the dysfunctions it may generate. A system where there are owners of capital who buy labor and holders of their own labor power who sell that. That relationship implies a theory of profit which ensues from alienation: the system has the tendency for the rich to become richer as they accumulate capital and for the poor to become poorer when they own nothing but their labor. All that remains largely true. No one since Marx has invented an analysis of the same significance. Even globalization is only a historical stage of market capitalism as Marx imagined it.
FULL INTERVIEW AT :-
http://www.truthout .org/docs_ 2006/120707G. shtml
ajohnstone , Edinburgh br
fusion between corporate capitalism and feudalism — it's a deadly cocktail
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main14.asp?filename=hub110505_In_India_CS.asp
'In India we are at the moment witnessing a sort of fusion between corporate capitalism and feudalism — it's a deadly cocktail'
Arundhati Roy in conversation with Amit Sengupta
I start with an old question: When Tehelka was being cornered you had said there should be a Noam Chomsky in India. Later you had once told me that 'I am not an activist'. What is this idea of Noam Chomsky in a context like India?
I think essentially that whether it is an issue like Tehelka being hounded or all the other issues that plague us, much of the critical response is an analysis of symptoms; it's not radical. Most of the time it does not really question how democracy dovetails into majoritarianism which edges towards fascism, or what the connections are between this kind of 'new democracy' and corporate globalisation, repression, militancy and war. What is the connection between corruption and power?
At one point when the Tehelka expose happened, I thought, thank God the BJP is corrupt, thank God someone's taken money, imagine if they had been incorruptible, only ideological, it would have been so much more frightening. To me, pristine ideological battles are really more frightening.
In India we are at the moment witnessing a sort of fusion between corporate capitalism and feudalism — it's a deadly cocktail. We see it unfolding before our eyes. Sometimes it looks as though the result of all this will be a twisted implementation of the rural employment guarantee act. Half the population will become Naxalites and the other half will join the security forces and what Bush said will come true. Everyone will have to choose whether they're with "us" or with the "terrorists". We will live in an elaborately administered tyranny.
But look at the reaction to the growing influence of the Maoists — even by political analysts it's being treated as a law and order problem, not a political problem — and like militancy in Kashmir and the Northeast, it will be dealt with by employing brutal repression by security forces or arming local people with weapons that will eventually lead to a sort of civil war. That seems to be perfectly acceptable to Indian 'civil society'.
Those who understand and disagree with the repressive machinery of the State are more or less divided between the Gandhians and the Maoists. Sometimes — quite often — the same people who are capable of a radical questioning of, say, economic neo-liberalism or the role of the state, are deeply conservative socially — about women, marriage, sexuality, our so-called 'family values' — sometimes they're so doctrinaire that you don't know where the establishment stops and the resistance begins. For example, how many Gandhian/Maoist/ Marxist Brahmins or upper caste Hindus would be happy if their children married Dalits or Muslims, or declared themselves to be gay? Quite often, the p