Palash Speaks - April 2008

George Bush and Ronald Reagan have been the Most Successful Cheerleaders. And the success rate never trailed behind War Game Politics of US Weapon Industry Imperialist Manusmriti Apartheid Post Modern Galaxy Order Success! Cheerleaders successful team heritage is traced from Darling Madonna, Hellie Berry, Mariel Streep to Washington Red Sklin of IPL, the money spinning neo revolution of Indian Brahminical Ruling Class.

Cheerleaders may also be traced amongst all our Comrador Politicians of different colors who are also involved with XXX Cricket Carnival with a solid Agenda of Brain Washing to destroy the Disadvantaged Indigenous in this divided bleeding sub continent.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday met the Left leaders to discuss the price rise crisis and said that the government was taking all necessary steps to deal with the problem and that there was no need for political parties to indulge in scare-mongering.

Asking the political parties to avoid the temptation of politicising the misery of the people, Singh warned them against creating an environment of scarcity that would encourage speculators and hoarders.

Left as well as the Right belong to the Ruling Hegemony. Though UPA runs the government of India which controls the basic tool of mass destruction, the State Power. GOI is responsible to the Parliament, elected by Majoritorian Electoral system depriving the indigenous untouchable and tribal, rural and agrarian people the much wanted Political representation! Human and civil Rights nullified. nationalities massacred. Indigenous production system destroyed. The flow of Refugee Influx from Inside as well as Outside never stops as it helps the ruling Hegemony to consolidate the favourable vote bank with clubbing minorities and demographic readjustment. They call it power sharing. In fact the Parliamentary Political Power in this so called democracy is shared by ruling and resistant powergroups and Common Men have no participation in the affairs of Nation.Neo Liberal economic policy has made this divided Subcontinent a cluster of Colonies managed by MNCs. Nation withers away and so called Civil society with full fledged purchasing power takes over.

All this nonsense goes on the name of Public Interest, Development, Infrastructure, Growth Rate, Welfare State and Revolution , too. Every time ultimate victims have to be the Indigenous People consisting of Eighty Five percent Untouchables, Tribals, OBC and minorities specially Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Anglo Indians plus converted christians!

This is the story of Sensex Shining India governed by the three percent caste Hindus politically, socially, culturally, economically and finally, administratively. Any resistance whatsoever is crushed mercilessly. This is the story of all development projects and shemes, foreign relations and collabrations, strategic regrouping, joint venture, SEZ drive, dual citizensship, Chemical Hubs, Nuclear power Plants, modified genetic Seeds, vaccination, privatization, disinvestment, CRS, VRS, Retail chain and so on. The stories climax in Telengana, Dhimri Block, Shrikakulam, NaxalBari, Nandigram, Kaling Nagar, marichjhanpi or anywhere else with the same result and it is Massacre! Genocide Infinite.

It is always reciprocal. Centre is run by UPA. States are governed by NDA or Left as well as UPA and UNPA. They defend the interstes of the Ruling Caste Hindu Hegemony collectively and the system of Enslavement continues.

They promote technology and English to disarm the disadvantaged unskilled indigenous agarrian communities and reserve all opportunities for the ruling Class. Constitutional resrvatin is a farce as Privatisation and neolibral policies have closed all doors of Employment. since the Indigenous production system is killed and also they killed the Constitution and Democracy as well, Indigenous People have no way of sustenance. Now the family Planning happens to be irrelevant as so many people die starving daily. Medical care and all types of social services are thus privatised and you need reasonable purchasing power to sustain yourself!

They never promote knowledge, mother language, indigenous culture, higher education , science and research. Trading is the only way to generate resources. Sales happne to be the only aveneue open for job besides outsourcing! Basic necessities are neglected. Coomodities as food and clothing, medicines and housing are so dearly that ordinary people may not survive. What about the displaced and ejected people from their roots, land, livelihood and life?

Information Technology is the topmost priority as it is the best tool for Mind Control system. Total Brain Washing. Total annihilation. IT happens to be the best Weapon of Mass Detruction. The campaign is led by the Toilet Media, run by MNCs and fed by FDI. Information Explosion transormed into total brain washing.

Cricket Carnival happens to be the most entertaing part of the Mind control Game subverting all issues relating to the suffering Indigenous disadvantaged eighty five percnt people of this subcontinent.

So, the political parties happen to the best Knight riders of Modern Times accompanied by Cheerleaders! Politicians are never behind this XXX Reality Show Live.

What Nautanke is this?

A sharp rise in food prices has developed into a global crisis, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday .

Ban said the U.N and all members of the international community are very concerned, and immediate action is needed.

He spoke to reporters at U.N. offices in Austria, where he was meeting with the nation's top leaders for talks on how the United Nations and European Union can forge closer ties.

"This steeply rising price of food — it has developed into a real global crisis," Ban said, adding that the World Food Program has made an urgent appeal for additional $755 million.

"The United Nations is very much concerned, as all other members of the international community," Ban said. "We must take immediate action in a concerted way all throughout the international community."

Ban urged leaders of the international community to sit down together on an "urgent basis" to discuss how to improve economic distribution systems and the production of agricultural products.

For an alliance that lost to the Congress because of its hype on ‘India shining’, the unprecedented price rise has come as godsent to expose the government’s claim of being pro-aam admi and keep the issue alive for electoral gains in coming polls, starting with Karnataka.

As a show of unity on the issue, the MPs of the BJP-led NDA formed a human chain around in Parliament complex as Leader of Opposition LK Advani said, “The family budgets of not only the poor but even the middle classes have been badly eroded by the steep rise in the prices of cereals, pulses, vegetables, edible oil, sugar, milk, fruits and meat.”

He said, “If you can’t stop price rise then you should quit and the country should go to polls. The government’s failure is worse compounded by its apathy, insensitivity and lack of accountability.”

Calling the inflation a ‘silent tsunami’, Advani joined other NDA members, including leaders like Rajnath Singh, George Fernandes and Manohar Joshi, in forming the chain.

“I relate that situation to the current one where the common man is being denied the right to food due to price rise. The NDA will continue its agitation against inflation throughout the country in different forms,” Advani said. The NDA has already called for a general nationwide strike against inflation on May 2.

The issue figured in both Houses where the agitated Opposition raised slogans seeking to expose the UPA’s “aam aadmi” plank. Later both the Houses were adjourned for two hours as proceedings were disrupted.

In the Lok Sabha, the NDA MPs trooped into the well of the House shouting slogans denouncing the government — as the Question Hour was drawing to close.

Left leaders on Friday sharply reacted to the Prime Minister's Office statement asking parties not to politicise the price rise issue and said the government should not be "callous" towards people's miseries.

"This equally applies to the PMO because, by saying this, they are themselves politicising the issue. Government must eschew the irresponsibility of being callous towards the hardships of the people," said CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury here.

The CPI(M) leader, who along with other Left leaders met the Prime Minister on the price rise issue, was reacting to the PMO statement asking political parties to eschew the temptation of politicising the misery of the people and not to indulge in "scare mongering".

It also warned against creating an environment of scarcity that would only help speculators and hoarders.

In the same vein, CPI leader D Raja said price rise was not a result of "politicisation but a harsh reality facing the people. The government should take steps to mitigate the people's problems."

Describing the PMO statement as "very unfortunate", Yechury asserted that it was the duty of political parties to raise people's issues.

"If it means not to raise people's issues, we cannot take such an irresponsible step being a political party", he said.

Yechury's party colleague Basudeb Acharia was also critical of the government's approach on the price situation, saying it was "dithering and was reluctant to take any action on the issue also."

Acharia said the PMO statement "proves that the government is not serious enough on the matter. Rather, it is not at all serious with regard to the plight of the people."

Accusing the government of not taking any effective steps to control the prices, he demanded immediate restoration of foodgrains to Kerala where the PDS allocation had been slashed by as much as 86 per cent.

The CPI(M) leader also lashed out at the BJP on grounds that most members of the prime opposition party were absent from Parliament when a discussion was being held on price rise.

"Even the Leader of the Opposition (L K Advani) was not present. He has no time to attend the House", he said.

Referring to the PMO statement which said agriculture sector was "neglected" since 1996, he said the sector had been neglected since the economic reforms began in 1991.

"In the past four years of the UPA government, they have not taken enough steps to increase production and capital formation", the CPI(M) leader said.

"Now the Prime Minister is only hoping that a good monsoon will increase production and the agrarian crisis will be overcome. So, without taking any action, this is the expectation of the government", he said.

Asked to comment on government announcement that it would take a sense of the House on the Indo-US nuclear deal, he said, "they have already witnessed the sense of the House. Majority of the members in both Houses are against the deal".

He said there is no need for taking the House into confidence once again on the matter as the sense of the House is absolutely clear.

With the largest indigenous population in the world, India has often done little to protect the rights of these groups that have worked and lived off of communally shared forest lands for thousands of years. The Supreme Court of India has touted Public Interest Litigation -- PIL, also sometimes called Social Action Litigation -- as an effective tool for protecting the rights of the disadvantaged, especially indigenous groups. While this litigation is the judicial equivalent of class action suits in the United States, there are important differences. The Indian Court specifically has focused on the fundamental rights to life and equality. Fundamental rights guaranteed to all Indian citizens include life and equality. The Supreme Court has interpreted these two rights to include the right to work and live with dignity and liberty. Procedurally, the Court’s practice of PIL has relaxed the rules of ‘standing.’ It has effectively allowed persons or groups not personally involved in cases to bring suit on behalf of others, which makes for greater openness of the system.

Heere you are! a glimpse of Disadvantaged Indigenous India!

Three million indigenous rat-catching tribals in India suffer from poverty through use of an inefficient and hazardous traditional rat-catching method. New technology/plan is safer and more profitable!

There are about 300 million indigenous men, women and children worldwide. They are extremely diverse - more than 5,000 different groups of indigenous peoples live in more than 70 countries. They make up one third of the world's 900 million extremely poor rural people. In many countries, indigenous peoples are the most severely disadvantaged. They are often forced to live on the least productive terrain, denied rights to land, forests and other natural resources that they have managed sustainably for millennia, and marginalized by modern society.

Today, there is a growing consensus that accountability is crucial to poverty reduction, human development and human security. The human rights approach to poverty reduction emphasizes the obligations of governments and all partners in the development process and requires that they be held to account for their conduct in relation to international human rights. This has led to greater emphasis on the obligations of governments and UN agencies towards indigenous peoples.

And this?

Political parties must not politicise the misery of the people, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Friday after Left leaders met him to voice concern over rising food prices as inflation climbed from last week's 7.14 percent to 7.33 percent.

Manmohan Singh asked the delegation of Left leaders led by Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) general secretary Prakash Karat not to create panic about food scarcity.

"Political parties must not politicise the misery of the people and indulge in scare mongering about food scarcity," said a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

"The government will take all steps to curb inflation. We expect normal monsoon to increase food output. Procurement of food grains is expected to go up," it added.

"Agriculture production was rising. It had gone down after 1996. The UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government had taken several measures to step up production."

The Congress-led UPA has been hemmed in by criticism from all sides - its own allies as well as the opposition - for not being able to rein in rising food prices.

"We reiterated before the Prime Minister our demands to ban futures trading, slash duties on petroleum products, strengthen the public distribution system and punish hoarders," said Abani Roy, leader of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP).

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had on Thursday formed a human chain outside Parliament and accused the government of failing to bring down prices.

The Left parties last week addressed a public meeting with the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) here on rising prices.

Randeep Ramesh in Delhi reports for Guardian:

In boots and spangled shorts, the cheerleaders for India's premier cricket league have caused a furious debate over money and morality in a country where cricket is a religion and prudence a virtue.

Brought in to heighten the appeal of the new Twenty20 matches, the gyrating young cheerleaders have angered politicians, who say they are an affront to Indian culture, and some conservative players, who wonder why they are needed.

The cheerleaders have complained that lewd comments and ogling from spectators are proving at best a tiring distraction and at worst sexual harassment. "It's been horrendous," Tabitha, a cheerleader from Uzbekistan, told the Hindustan Times. "Wherever we go we do expect people to pass lewd, snide remarks but I'm shocked by the nature and magnitude of the comments people pass here."

There is little doubt of the stir that the cheerleaders have caused in the country where a Muslim female tennis star, Sania Mirza, was criticised for playing in short skirts and where actor Richard Gere caused a storm of protest by publicly kissing Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty.

Politicians in Mumbai have threatened to ban the cheerleaders from games, while teams have beefed up security.

"I think in the Indian context [cheerleaders] are seen as slightly sleazy which is not a reflection on the women but the perception [from Indian men]. So lewd comments, I am sorry to say, do not surprise me at all," said Mukul Kesavan, a cricket writer.

The Indian cricket league's success signals the country's new dominance, with top players earning £100,000 a week during the tournament.

Photos of dancing cheerleaders have made the front pages of Indian newspapers. Charu Sharma, chief executive of Bangalore Royal Challengers, defended importing American-style razzmatazz. "Let us not play this high-handed moral belief game. It is only small maverick groups that are making a noise," Sharma told Reuters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/apr/25/cricket.india

Cheerleaders will not be banned during IPL cricket matches in Mumbai but they may have to shed their skimpy outfits with the police on Friday warning of action against the organisers if their shows are found to be vulgar.

As the police cleared the air on whether the scantily-clad cheergirls will be allowed to perform in a Navi Mumbai stadium on April 27 by imposing some conditions, the 'ban cheerleaders' chant grew loud with West Bengal joining Maharashtra in targeting the dancing beauties.

Senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu also joined the chorus of protests saying the dance was a "distraction and nonsense" as a debate raged over whether US-style cheerleaders had a role during cricket matches in the country.

"The girls are merely artistes who perform as per the instructions of organisers," Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Ramrao Wagh said, adding that a performance license has been granted to the organisers of the match between Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers to be held at Nerul's D Y Patil stadium.

In the event of the cheerleaders indulging in obscenity, Wagh said, the "license holders" (the organisers) will be prosecuted under various provisions of the Bombay Police Act for indecency in a public place and breach of license terms.

Wagh said the show should not be vulgar or obscene nor offend the dignity of women. He however said there have been no instructions from the government.

West Bengal Sports Minister Subash Chakravarty said the cheerleaders had no role and were out of context during sporting encounters and there was no need to import Western culture. Chakravarty, who was supported by PWD Minister Kshiti Goswami(RSP and Water Investigation Minister Nandgopal Bhttacharya(CPI), said he will take up the issue with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.

In the midst of controversy over the presence of cheerleaders at IPL matches, police on Friday said they could perform at the stadium in Navi Mumbai on April 27 but action will be taken against organisers if their act is found to be "vulgar" or "indecent".

Wagh, however said they had not received any directions from the state government on the issue yet.

Maharashtra's Minister of State for Home, Siddhram Mhetre had on Thursday told reporters that the government will not allow the cheerleaders to perform as their acts are "absolutely obscene" and wondered why the organisers required "semi nude" women at cricket matches.

The minister had said strict action will be taken if the cheerleaders violated the norms of decency in their attire.

However, he had not specified if action will be taken against the artistes or the organisers.

Redskins cheerleaders train local girls

Friday, 25 April , 2008, 12:29
Last Updated: Friday, 25 April , 2008, 17:19

Bangalore: The svelte Washington Redskins Cheerleaders, who have created more than a stir with their presence in the Indian Premier League (IPL), will leave behind a bunch of girls trained by them to set up a permanent presence here.

The first ever Pro Cheerleader audition in India got started two days after their arrival here April 13 to create the first ever cheerleading squad in the country for Bangalore Royal Challengers, for their inaugural game April 18.

IPL: Full coverage

The Washington Redskins cheerleaders, known as the "First Ladies of Football" in the United States, have a squad of 12 Cheerleaders and two choreographers in India. They were scheduled to spend 18 days travelling across India with the Royal Challengers owned by Vijay Mallya.

Though the squad will leave India, Entertainment and Cheerleading Director Donald Wells and two-year veteran Sharica will be here for three more weeks, according to the Redskins website.

Are IPL cheerleaders a needless distraction?

Wells will then hand over the new squad to Stephanie Jojokian, Director and Choreographer of the Redskins cheerleaders, in mid-May. She will spend 10 days with the Bangalore cheerleaders. By the time this project is complete, the Redskins Cheerleading department will have spent over 10 weeks creating a new cheerleading world in India.

India warns cricket cheerleaders
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7366516.stm

Cheerleaders have been brought in from all over the world Pic: Sandipan Chatterjee/Indian Express

Indian police say the organisers of the new tournament transforming world cricket could be fined if cheerleaders are deemed to be dressed indecently.

The cheerleaders have been introduced into the Indian Premier League as part of moves to add glamour and entertainment to the game.

Some politicians say the cheerleaders are "vulgar and obscene".

Mumbai police say they will be checking that the cheerleaders' performances do not violate entertainment licences.

The cheerleading girls, wearing short skirts and low-cut tops, have been hired from around the world to perform during the matches which are also being heavily endorsed by leading Bollywood stars.

They include cheerleaders from the Washington Redskins.

'Lines of decency'

Ram Rao Vagh, the police commissioner for New Mumbai, a suburb of Mumbai, where the home team is hosting five matches starting on Sunday, told the BBC that they were not considering any action against the cheerleaders themselves.

What's wrong with cheerleaders? I am also a family person, I do not see anything negative in it

Shah Rukh Khan

"It is difficult to enforce moral policing, we cannot define vulgarity always. It is difficult to ascertain what is vulgar and obscene," Mr Vagh said.

But he said the organisers could be fined for violating the norms of the entertainment licence they had secured for allowing performances in the stadium.

Senior officers would decide whether the cheerleaders had crossed the "lines of decency".

A spokesman for the local team, the Mumbai Indians, said they were not worried.

"Our cheerleaders are properly dressed. They are within limits of what our culture permits. So we have no problems," Javed Akhtar told the BBC.

'Routine'

However, the junior interior minister of western Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, said the performances of cheerleading girls at the Indian Premier League matches were "absolutely obscene".

Cheerleaders have complained of sections of the crowd jeering at them Pic: Sandipan Chatterjee/Indian Express

"We live in India where womanhood is worshipped. How can anything obscene like this be allowed?," Siddharam Mehetre told the Press Trust of India news agency.

"This thing is meant for foreigners and not for us. Mothers and daughters watch these matches on television. It does not look nice."

Many others find the indignation misplaced, coming from a city, which is home to a thriving industry of Bollywood films where dance sequences featuring women in skimpy dresses are routine.

Bollywood actor, Shah Rukh Khan, who also owns one of the teams in the competition, is one of them.

"What's wrong with cheerleaders? I am also a family person, I do not see anything negative in it," he said.

The head of India's National Commission for Women said there was nothing wrong with the cheerleaders if it "just for adding entertainment to the game".

"It has to be presented in the right manner keeping Indian values intact," said Girija Vyas.

A former Bollywood actor and a politician belonging to the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shatrughan Sinha said the cheerleaders were making a "mockery" of the game.

There have been reports in the Indian newspapers of cheerleaders complaining of sections of the crowd jeering at them and making lewd comments.

SEE ALSO
But is it really cricket?
22 Apr 08 | South Asia
Indian Premier League changes cricket
18 Apr 08 | Business
McCullum fireworks mark IPL's bow
18 Apr 08 | Cricket
How will the IPL change cricket?
17 Apr 08 | Cricket
Indian Premier League team guide
15 Apr 08 | Cricket
Will India's cricket league work?
27 Feb 08 | South Asia

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Indian Premier League
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

TOP SOUTH ASIA STORIES
Nepal torch security 'too harsh'

India warned over heart disease

S Lanka rebels 'abandon shrine'

Cheerleading
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.(December 2007)
Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.
The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page.

Youth Cheerleaders during a football halftime show. Youth Cheer - high school ages and younger - make up the vast majority of cheerleaders and cheer teams.
Cheerleading is a sport[1][2][3][4] that uses organized routines made from elements of some tumbling, dance, jumps and stunting to direct the event's spectators to cheer on sports teams at games and matches and/or compete at cheerleading competitions. The athlete involved is called a cheerleader. With an estimated 1.5 million participants in allstar cheerleading (not including the millions more in high school, college or little league participants) in the United States alone, cheerleading is, according to Newsweek's Arian Campo-Flores, "the most quintessential of American sports."[1] The growing presentation of the sport to a global audience has been led by the 1997 start of broadcasts of cheerleading competition by ESPN International and the worldwide release of the 2000 film Bring it On. Due in part to this recent exposure, there are now an estimated 100,000 participants scattered around the rest of the world in countries including Australia, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Japan,[5] the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. [1]

Contents
[hide]
1 History
2 Types of teams
2.1 School-sponsored
2.2 Youth league
2.3 All-Star cheerleading
3 Cheerleaders
3.1 Famous ex-cheerleaders
4 Cheerleading in popular culture
4.1 Movies and television
4.2 Video games
5 Sport debate
6 Dangers of cheerleading
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

History

Minnesota Gopher cheerleader Johnny Campbell
Cheerleading first appeared in the United States in the late 1880s with the crowd chanting as a way to encourage school spirit at athletic events. The first organized, recorded cheer was yelled "Ray, Ray, Ray! TIGER, TIGER, SIS, SIS, SIS! BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! Aaaaah! PRINCETON, PRINCETON, PRINCETON!" at Princeton University in 1884.[6] A few years later, Princeton graduate, Thomas Peebles introduced the idea of organized crowd cheering at football games to the University of Minnesota. However, it was not until 1898 that University of Minnesota student Johnny Campbell directed a crowd in cheering "Rah, Rah, Rah! Sku-u-mar, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity! Varsity! Varsity, Minn-e-So-Tah!”, making Campbell the very first cheerleader and November 2, 1898 the official birth date of organized cheerleading. Soon after, the University of Minnesota organized a "yell leader" squad of 6 male students, who still use Campbell's original cheer today[6] In 1903 the first cheerleading fraternity, Gamma Sigma was founded.[7] Cheerleading started out as an all-male activity, but females began participating in 1923, due to limited availability of female collegiate sports. At this time, gymnastics, tumbling, and megaphones were incorporated into popular cheers.[7] Today it is estimated that 97% of cheerleading participants are female, but males still makeup 50% of collegiate cheering squads. [8]

Cornell University cheerleader on a 1906 postcard
In 1948, Lawrence "Herkie" Herkimer, of Dallas, TX and a former cheerleader at Southern Methodist University formed the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) as a way to hold cheerleading clinics. In 1949, The NCA held its first clinic in Huntsville, TX with 52 girls in attendance.[8] "Herkie" contributed many "firsts" to the sport including the founding of Cheerleader & Danz Team uniform supply company, inventing the herkie, (where one leg is bent towards the ground and the other is out to the side as high as it will stretch in the toe touch position)[9] and creating the "Spirit Stick".[7] By the 1960s, college cheerleaders began hosting workshops across the nation, teaching fundamental cheer skills to eager high school age girls. In 1965, Fred Gastoff invented the vinyl pom-pon and it was introduced into competitions by the International Cheerleading Foundation (now the World Cheerleading Association or WCA). Organized cheerleading competitions began to pop up with the first ranking of the "Top Ten College Cheerleading Squads" and "Cheerleader All America" awards given out by the International Cheerleading Foundation in 1967. In 1978, America was introduced to competitive cheerleading by the first broadcast of Collegiate Cheerleading Championships on CBS[6][7]

In the 1960's National Football League (NFL) teams began to organize professional cheerleading teams. The Baltimore Colts (now the Indianapolis Colts) was the first NFL team to have an organized cheerleading squad.[10] It was the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders who gained the spotlight with their revealing outfits and sophisticated dance moves, which debuted in the 1972-1973 season, but were first seen widely in Super Bowl X (1976). This caused the image of cheerleaders to permanently change, with many other NFL teams emulating them. Most of the professional teams' cheerleading squads would more accurately be described as dance teams by today's standards; as they rarely, if ever, actively encourage crowd noise or perform modern cheerleading moves.

Cheerleaders warming up for competition
The 1980s saw the onset of modern cheerleading with more difficult stunt sequences and gymnastics being incorporated into routines. ESPN first broadcasted the National High School Cheerleading Competition nationwide in 1983. Cheerleading organizations such as the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors (AACCA) started applying universal safety standards to decrease the number of injuries and prevent dangerous stunts, pyramids and tumbling passes from being included in routines. [11] In 2003, the National Council for Spirit Safety and Education (NCSSE) was formed to offer safety training for youth, school, all star and college coaches. The NCAA requires college cheer coaches to successfully complete a nationally recognized safety-training program. The NCSSE or AACCA certification programs are both recognized by the NCAA.

Today, cheerleading is most closely associated with American football and basketball. Sports such as soccer, ice hockey, volleyball, baseball, and wrestling sometimes sponsor cheerleading squads. The ICC Twenty20 Cricket World Cup in South Africa in 2007 was the first international cricket event to have cheerleaders. The Florida Marlins were the first Major League Baseball team to have cheerleaders. Debuting in 2003, the "Marlin Mermaids" gained national exposure and have influenced other MLB teams to develop their own cheer/dance squads

Political parties and the Government, both sides of the Ruling Hegemony are playing for the gallery and it won`t change the situation! We have to feel the heat of Inflation. Only we!

by palashbiswas @ 2008-04-11 - 19:20:06

Political parties and the Government, both sides of the Ruling Hegemony are playing for the gallery and it won`t change the situation! We have to feel the heat of Inflation. Only we!

You should remeber the media hype on Electioneering Budgets!
What happened?
Are the common consumers relieved a little bit?
What happns to be the affairs of Indian economy?
The only scale entitled for shining India, the Sensex is falling apart.

No Family planning needed as starvation rates are so high! Medical care is privatised and no one without purchasing capacity may afford treatment nowadays. So happens to be the condition of education and employment. No way for sustaining onself these days. The ruling class is concerned for only previleged classes as security forces and government employees! Cremy layer is entertained at every level as political reservation continues with an infinite brokerproduction. SEZ drive launced Enblock Genocide of Indigenous people.

Palash Biswas

Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com

Inflation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Inflation is a rise in the general level of prices over time. It may also refer to a rise in the prices of a specific set of goods or services. In either case, it is measured as the percentage rate of change of a price index.[1]

Mainstream economists believe that high rates of inflation are caused by high rates of growth of the money supply.[2] Views on the factors that determine moderate rates of inflation are more varied: changes in inflation are sometimes attributed to fluctuations in real demand for goods and services or in available supplies (i.e. changes in scarcity), and sometimes to changes in the supply or demand for money. In the mid-twentieth century, two camps disagreed strongly on the main causes of inflation at moderate rates: the "monetarists" argued that money supply dominated all other factors in determining inflation, while "Keynesians" argued that real demand was often more important than changes in the money supply.

There are many measures of inflation. For example, different price indices can be used to measure changes in prices that affect different people. Two widely known indices for which inflation rates are reported in many countries are the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures consumer prices, and the GDP deflator, which measures price variations associated with domestic production of goods and services.

According to official figures, inflation has touched a 40-month high of 7.41 per cent for the week ended March 29.
The Left parties today lashed out at the UPA government for its "failure" to check rising prices saying it stood helpless before the "monster of market forces" which was responsible for this situation.

I landed in Kolkata just after the demise of USSR. having been involved in nationality movements in Uttarakhand , jharkhand and chhattishgargh I became aware of the dangers ahead as the Indian nation never addressed the nationality question despite AFSPA reigning in Jammu and kashmir with entire North East including Assam. Moreover, continuous refugee influx accross the border and continuous minority persecution in East Bengal endangered the very existence of my community, the dalit Bengali Partition Victim refugees from erstwhile east Bengal and resettled countrywide deprived of citizenship, human rights and civil rights. I wanted to go back to roots. I opted for west Bengal leaving behind my North india base.

I have been dealing with the same people all these years for my Ration and essential commodities. I have detailed price lists since 1991. I don`t want to go to details. I am just asking all those persons who have monthly accounts with general stores and Kirana store or Mudikhana. Please analyse the price hyke syastematically with your personal and family experiencs. The game began with Neoliberal Open Market taking over traditional Market and Production system. The things changed dramatically. Welfare state vanished like a wild dream. public distribution ended. No market control. No Consumer safety. No quality or Price control. All these years, the Budget became quite irrelevant to the objective situation faced by Common man. Common Men deprived of purchasing power, displaced and uprooted from livelihood and native places were brutally ousted of the Sovereign market. sovereign Market took over the State power. MNCs are ruling.

I visted the local vegetable market today. To my awe, I saw every commodity price multiplied! Please see your shopping list and compare the rates with what you paid last week.

So it is a Budget looking on Vote Bank!

Political parties and the Government, both sides of the Ruling Hegemony are playing for the gallery and it won`t change the situation! We have to feel the heat of Inflation. Only we!

"The government stands helpless before the monster of market forces," CPI National Secretary D Raja said here. He was joined by CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury who said the Left would go to the people if the government did not take "relevant steps" to control inflation.

Reacting to Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal's statement terming the inflation as a global phenomenon, Raja said "this is a very callous attitude. The government should have anticipated the situation and taken adequate long and short term measures suggested by the Left parties much earlier".

Sibal had said that the government did not have a "magic wand" to bring down inflation, which was a global phenomenon.

Yechury said that the Left parties had sent detailed notes to the government on controlling prices. "Of course we shared our concerns (with government) ...The point is to make the government take the relevant steps and that is what we wanted them to do and that is what we conveyed to them." "If they are not heeding, then we will go to the people," he said.

Terming soaring inflation rate as a global phenomenon, the government today said that it has no "magic wand" to bring it down immediately though it is taking and will take all possible steps to contain price rise.

"Government has no magic wand to bring down inflation which is now a global phenomenon. Due to rise in prices worldwide, it has become rather an import inflation," Minister of Earth, Science and Technology Kapil Sibal told reporters while briefing the mediapersons after the Cabinet meeting.

Referring to World Bank figures, Sibal said that prices of agricultural commodities have gone up by 73 per cent in the international market during the period between August 2007 to March 2008 period.

It included 88 per cent rise in prices of food products, followed by 74 per cent rise in wheat prices, 72 per cent in rice prices, 71 per cent in fat and oil prices and 35 per cent increase in sugar prices, he said.

"Inflation is at a very high level in all emerging markets such as China (8.7 per cent), Russia (11.9 per cent), Argentina (7.3 per cent) and Turkey (8.1 per cent)," he said, adding the government was taking all necessary steps to contain inflation.

Elaborating on the measures taken by the government to contain inflation, Sibal said state governments have been asked to put limits on stocks of foodgrain.

Ruling out an increase subsidies, he said efforts were being made to contain prices through duty cuts and other measures. The poor people were supported through public distribution system, he added.
The Government today admitted that rising food prices would make the task of containing inflation a more difficult exercise and may hurt economic growth and reforms process, but ruled out any "blind controls" to rein in the increasing rates.

"Efforts to promote reforms and more open economies would be derailed in the face of persistent food shortages and rising food prices...A steep rise in food prices will make inflation control more difficult and can thereby hurt the cause of macro economic stability," the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said at Global Agro Industries Forum here.

"The constituency for economic reforms, so necessary for growth, would also diminish. Pressures would mount for restrictive trade practices," he added.

Wholesale prices-based inflation has already touched over a three-year high of seven per cent and various think- tanks-- IMF, ADB and Prime Minister's Advisory Council-- have projected a moderation in economic growth for this fiscal.

However, Singh said the situation cannot be resolved by returning to an era of "blind controls" and by depressing agriculture's terms of trade as it would hurt farmers' welfare as well as the long-term growth of economy.

"We in India too are deeply concerned about rising global commodity and food prices. Sharply rising food prices can slow down poverty alleviation, impede economic growth and retard employment generation," he said.

While this will harm global economy in general, developing world will be "seriously hurt", Singh said, after receiving the Agricola Award by FAO for his contribution to the farm and social sector.

He said increasing global shift to bio-fuels in the face of galloping oil prices is making the situation of food shortages more complex.

The Prime Minister also said the rising food prices can slow down poverty alleviation and retard employment generation. "We in the developing world will be seriously hurt by it. Efforts to promote reforms and more open economies would be derailed in the face of persistent food shortages and food prices," Singh said He said the world as whole is facing a situation where rising demand for food is not being matched with a similar supply side response.

He said growing demand for bio-fuels due to galloping oil prices is making the situation of food shortages more complex.

The Prime Minister also emphasised on better targeting of subsidies for rural households.

"Farmers and workers seek income, not subsidies. While some subsidies are useful and helpful, especially when targeted to those in distress, what our rural households seek is higher investment in land development, in water management, in seed technologies, in output storage and marketing," Singh said.

The Prime Minister said the problem of rising demand for food not being met by the supply side is not confined to India alone and the entire world is also facing such a situation. Referring to the growing demand for bio-fuels, he said: "The situation is becoming more complex due to the alternative uses being developed for food crops." It is particularly worrisome that the new economics of biofuels is encouraging a shift of land away from food crops, he said and added that for the first time there is a direct linkage between oil prices and food prices.

"Food markets have got interlinked to oil markets, making food policy-making complex and uncertain," Singh noted.

The Prime Minister termed the prospect of food shortages and rising food prices as "most important challenges" and urged the world community to tackle this problem head-on.

"We need a second green revolution. We need new technologies, new organisational structures, new institutional responses and above all a new compact between farmers, technologists, scientists, administrators, businesses, bankers and consumers," he said.

The Prime Minister said that welfare of farming community and livelihood of agricultural workers would be better ensured through higher investment in rural infrastructure and farm development.

"Farmers and workers seek incomes, not subsidies. They seek markets and employment, not hand-outs," he said.

Singh expressed concern over the adverse impact of climate change and global warming on land productivity and water availability and called for concerted global action to deal with the problem.

"We need more equitable, efficient and rational systems and institutions for utilisation of scarce water resources," he said.

The Prime Minister pointed out that small and marginal farms have become an unviable proposition, which, he said, need to be made viable. He sought greater cooperation from donor agencies like International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to provide long-term solutions to the problems faced by small and marginal farmers and particularly for poverty alleviation, risk mitigation and access to finance.

"Collectivisation, corporatisation and land consolidation through land alienation are neither possible nor socially desirable," he noted.

Prime Minister said some of the solutions to the problems of Indian agriculture are to be found outside agriculture.

"In the long run, we have to reduce the pressure of population dependent on agriculture," he said, adding labour- intensive industrialisation was needed to absorb the surplus workforce from rural areas.

He said the Indian food processing sector should target generating new employment besides increasing farmers' income.

"In many developed countries, the strategy of food processing and agro-industries was focused essentially on increasing farmers' incomes without a focus on generating rural employment," Singh noted.

Launching an attack on the BJP, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad today said the increase in prices was the "handiwork" of traders sponsored by the saffron party.

Prasad said there has been a sudden increase in prices after the submission of the report of the 6th Pay Commission and this should be investigated.

"Why have prices gone up all of a sudden after the report of the pay commission came out? There is no shortage of commodities and yet the consumers have to pay more. This is the handiwork of BJP-sponsored traders," he told reporters here.

"This is being done so that we do not do well in elections," Prasad said.

Further criticising the BJP, he said while the saffron party has been attacking the Government over price rise, the states that are under its rule have failed to take steps to control the prices of essential commodities.

"The Centre had empowered the states to take steps to control prices of essential commodities. Only five states have done it so far. And none of the BJP-ruled states have done it," Prasad said.

India inflation nears 4 year high
By Sunil Raman
BBC News

The government has said it will focus on capping price growth
Inflation in India climbed to its highest level in March for almost four years driven by rising metal, food and oil prices, official figures show.

The annual rate of consumer price growth was 7.4% last month, the highest rate since November 2004.

Concerned by rising food prices, India last week announced a ban on exports of non-basmati rice and removed duties on imports of crude edible oils.

On Friday, it banned cement exports and withdrew concessions for steel.

Trade Minister Kamal Nath said inflation control was a priority and more measures would follow.

Poverty measures

Unlike many countries India calculates inflation on factory gate prices or wholesale prices.

Prices paid by consumers in retail shops are higher and the issue of price growth and inflation has become a become sticky political problem with six Indian states going to polls in coming months.

The inflation figures came a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said sharply rising food prices could "slow down poverty alleviation, impede economic growth and retard employment generation".

Officials in the Farm Ministry told the BBC that they expect inflation to come under control by the end of April when the wheat harvest picks up.

A harvest of about 75 million tonnes of wheat has been estimated.

Reports of a good harvest in Australia will further dampen world prices, which have been under pressure after extreme weather conditions damaged crops.

The Farm Ministry said that the government had ample rice stocks, and any increase in prices was a result of rice exporting nations announcing a ban.

There were no plans to provide rice at a lower cost to Sri Lanka or African nations.

Ministry officials said that in an election year the government's popularity could be hit by high prices or the perception that prices had risen.

Growing steadily

Communist parties that support the federal government in parliament have again demanded a ban on futures trading in commodities in an effort to keep a limit on price increases.

Sitaram Yechury of the Communist Party of India said that last year the government had banned futures trading in rice, wheat and pulses because of pressure from their parliamentary group.

That move, he said, had helped to check prices then.

But fears of a major economic slowdown have been belied by new industrial production figures out on Friday. Industrial production grew at 8.6% in February 2008 compared with 11% in February 2007.

The government has also revised the January industrial production figure to 5.8%. For the first 11 months of the last fiscal year, industrial growth was 8.7% compared with 11.2% the previous year.

Manufacturing has shown some growth and there has been a slight decline in consumer goods sector in January.

SEE ALSO
Asian states feel rice pinch
03 Apr 08 | South Asia
India introduces rice export ban
01 Apr 08 | South Asia
Food prices spur Indian inflation
22 Feb 08 | Business
Indian motorists face dearer fuel
14 Feb 08 | Business
Indian economy set to decelerate
07 Feb 08 | Business
Indian interest rates unchanged
29 Jan 08 | Business

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
India Commerce and Industry Department
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

TOP BUSINESS STORIES
BA postpones long-haul move to T5

US consumer mood at 26-year low

New warning over mortgage lending

Rising fuel prices will add to India's woes
11 Apr 2008, 0249 hrs IST,Nitin Sethi,TNN

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Rising_fuel_prices_will_add_to_Indias_woes/articleshow/2942844.cms

NEW DELHI: With UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation warning that there is no early solution in sight to the global dip in food supply, India could find its attempt to isolate domestic prices from the international market more difficult in times to come.

FAO's data showed that the global food item prices of February and March had increased faster than in the months before. The prices had risen on the FAO price index from a value of below 150 in May 2007 to close to 225, in a rise showing no downturn at any point in the past two years.

While the world has got used to hearing about the wheat scarcity with the Australian crop failure, FAO's data also painted a grim scenario for the other staple: rice. The rice price index of the UN body showed a jump from 129 in January 2007 to 188 in January 2008 pointing to a total supply crash in the food market.

With FAO also predicting that global production of almost all cereals and food commodities might see a stagnation over the next few years, India, facing a low grain offtake from the farmers and again becoming favourable to imports, could find the global market a tough nut to crack.

The World Bank too has warned that the reduced supply was not a short-term phenomenon as has been recorded earlier but a long term drift that would take some years to recover from.

Adding pressure to the global food scenario is bound to be plans by US to double its bio-fuel production from corn and maize by 2015. The US maize crop, which constitutes more than 10% of the global production, was diverted to biofuels in 2007. With US exports making up more than 60% of the global trade in the foodgrain, an increased diversion is bound to squeeze the markets further.

The fear of food crops being diverted to biofuels leading to inflation within India was on Thursday also voiced by the PM, who warned: "It is worrisome that the new economics of biofuels is encouraging a shift of land away from food crops. What this has done is that for the first time, there is a direct linkage between oil prices and food prices."

With the correlation between oil prices and fuel prices getting stronger, the worst hit would be countries like India. With the competition for feedstock soaring prices, there is bound to be a ratcheting up of food prices even in the long term. On the political front, the government would face disquiet from the powerful farmer lobby, if it doesn’t increase the inflation-feeding minimum support price for the crops.

04/11/2008 14:56
INDIA
Indians face record inflation as a result of runaway food prices

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=11995&size=A
The Indian government tries to keep a lid on prices without harming economic growth. Import taxes on food are scrapped and rice and pulses exports are banned, but the problem is world-wide.

New Delhi (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Inflation has reached record levels in India as a result of rising food prices. Wholesale prices rose 7.41 per cent in the week ending 29 March over a year before, the highest rise in more than three years, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in New Delhi today, but the jump was even greater for food.

The situation has put the Indian government in a quandary because it has to contain inflation to protect consumers’ purchasing power whilst at the same time favour the development of the service sector and industry.

Experts do not expect the central bank to raise the cash reserve ratio, which has already been done five times since December 2006, for fear of its impact on development. Instead the government might control prices of steel and cement, essential for further growth.

The central bank plans to sell 230 billion rupees (US$ 5.8 billion) of bonds and bills this week, including 90 billion rupees of securities to drain excess money from the banking system.

Fears of inflations have prompted the government to scrap import tax on edible oils and maize as well and ban exports of (non-basmati) rice (basic staple for 65 per cent of the population) and pulses.

But any action seems more and more difficult because the problem is increasingly world-wide. Whatever is done experts expect the price of rice and cereals to rise, partly because Asian government have favoured industrial and service sector development at the expense of agriculture.

The impact is visible to all. In New Delhi for instance the cost of rice jumped 33 per cent (from 12 rupees or 29 US cents a kilo to 16 rupees or 39 cents) in the last two months.

“A steep rise in food prices will make inflation control more difficult,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said yesterday. “In most developing countries, food prices are the kingpin of the price structure.” (P

Rapid inflation threatens India's boom times
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article3729349.ece

Rhys Blakely, Bombay
Inflation in India has soared to its fastest pace in more than three years, raising the prospect of a tighter monetary policy that would jeopardise the country's fading economic renaissance.

The figures, which are deeply embarrassing to the Indian government and were pounced on by opposition politicians today, come as soaring prices of foodstuffs and industrial raw materials remain at historical highs, fanning inflation across Asia.

Indian wholesale prices rose at a 7.4 per cent annual pace in the week to March 29, up from 7 per cent in the previous week and wrong-footing economists' predictions for a flat reading. As recently as the first week of February the gauge stood at just 4 per cent, well below the central bank's 5 per cent comfort threshold.

In China, Indonesia and Pakistan inflation rates are above 8 per cent. Consumer prices in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, have risen about 24 per cent in the past year, according to Bloomberg, the financial data provider.

Related Links
Fear of rice riots as Far East demand surges
Food prices rise beyond means of the poorest
India takes on China over Africa’s riches
Oil touched a record $112.21 (£56.9) a barrel this week in New York. Wheat prices have more than doubled in Chicago over the past year, and touched a record high of $13.495 a bushel in late February.

Rice, a staple food across South Asia, has increased in price by more than 40 per cent in some markets since January – one of the factors that prompted the World Bank to warn this week that more than 30 countries face the prospect of food riots.

The Indian government, which must call a general election before next May, is hugely sensitive to the rising costs of basic goods. Even small rises in food hit India's army of poor voters hard.

In an effort to temper price rises it has already cut import duties on edible oils and banned the export of pulses and most types of rice - fiscal measures that are providing a fillip for global market prices.

The government has also leaned heavily on steel manufacturers, pressing them into making "voluntary" press cuts or risk mandatory price caps. Today, it withdrew export incentives for goods including cement.

Economists now expect a further hike in the cash reserve ratio - the proportion of deposits commercial lenders need to place with the central bank - before the end of April.

Tighter monetary policy has already contributed to a deceleration in India's economic growth to an 8.4 per cent annual pace in the three months to December, down from an 18-year high of 9.6 per cent in the year to March 31, 2007.

April 11, 2008
Inflation in India is running at a three year high.
Permalink: Inflation in India is running at a three year high. by Peter Charalambous
http://www.investmentmarkets.co.uk/20080411-1883.html

India’s inflation has accelerated which has raised the cause for concern that the central bank may increase interest rates as government bonds fell.

Wholesale food prices have surged by 7.41 percent from last year and it is the rise in commodities and food costs that has forced the Asian governments to find ways to freeze the price hikes.

The Indian government is having to scrap import tax on oils and maize as well as banning all exports of rice and pulses due to the increase in food prices.

Oil is trading at the astronomical price of $112.21, whilst wheat is trading at $13.495 a bushel which is almost double the price from last year.

As a result the central bank may order lenders to make more money available, and the government cannot rule out an increase in the cash reserve ratio.

The focus on monetary policy will most likely be on liquidity management so as to stop this influencing inflation.

During the week India has conducted the biggest sale of debt since this January so as to reduce the supply of money.

The Indian central bank is subsequently planning to sell 230 billion rupees of bonds this week, as well as 90 billion rupees of securities in order to further reduce the money supply in the banking system.

So far key policy rates have been lifted nine times in order to curb inflationary pressures.

Inflation in India

Shooting the messenger
Apr 10th 2008 | DELHI
From The Economist print edition

The Indian government's knee-jerk response to inflation is as worrying as the rising prices

IN COLONIAL times, the Coronation Building in old Delhi was one of the city's most prestigious hotels. Today, it is home to a commodity-futures market. But you would not know it. The Rajdhani Oil and Oilseeds Exchange is hidden among a cluster of small shops and peopled by men in kurta pyjamas, their hair dyed with henna, reclining in the afternoon heat under rusted fans. Over an ageing intercom, they take orders to buy and sell mustard seed and jaggery for delivery one or two months hence. The day's opening and closing prices are chalked on a blackboard.

The blackboard shows that prices of the two commodities have fallen in recent weeks. This will come as a relief to India's policymakers, who are frantically seeking to suppress a nasty bout of commodity-price inflation. On April 4th the Ministry of Commerce and Industry revealed that wholesale-price inflation, the measure most closely watched by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the central bank, rose to 7% in the 12 months to March 22nd, its highest rate since December 2004. This price pressure is worrying. But the government's panicked response to it is even more so.

Behind the jump in inflation were higher prices for fuel, food (including edible oils) and metals. The price of iron ore leapt by 46%. This has spooked the government, which faces elections in several big states as well as a national poll before next spring. In response, it has cut import duties on edible oils and banned the export of pulses and rice (except for basmati rice). It even briefly banned the export of edible oils, such as coconut oil, much to the chagrin of Keralite emigrants to the Gulf, who swear by the stuff to keep their hair black and their joints flexible.

Steelmakers in particular have felt the sharp edge of the government's resolve. The Steel Authority of India (SAIL), a state-owned steelmaker, boasts that “there's a little bit of SAIL in everybody's life”, a slogan that runs above pictures of metal bridges, pipes, jugs and even dog-food bowls. After prices rose by more than 20% in the first three months of the year, everybody's life became a bit dearer. Carmakers and scooter-makers protested to the government. Dog-owners no doubt joined them in spirit.

The government threatened to add steel to its list of 15 “essential commodities”, which would allow it to dictate the production and distribution of the alloy. In response, steelmakers “voluntarily” agreed to cut the prices of steel bars used in construction and the corrugated sheets that poor households use for roofing. But steelmakers complain that they are merely passing on the rising costs of coke and iron ore. They fear being caught between “the two prongs of a pincer”, according to the Indian Steel Alliance, an industry group.

Commodity traders, such as the ones reclining in the Coronation Building, fear they may be next in line. Last year the government banned futures trading in two types of bean, rice and wheat, arguing that speculators were driving up prices, beyond what the fundamentals would dictate. Some in the leftist parties, on whose support the government relies, now argue it should extend the ban to other commodities, such as edible oils and perhaps even iron and steel.

This would be like “shooting the messenger”, argues B.C. Khatua, chairman of the Forward Markets Commission, which regulates futures exchanges. Before they were shut down, he points out, the futures markets conveyed the message that prices of wheat and rice would continue to rise. Sure enough, that is what happened.

Banning futures trading would do little to curb prices, especially for commodities like edible oils that are heavily imported. But it would arrest the development of India's financial system, which is finally growing more sophisticated. Since 2003, the government has allowed trading in future contracts for many commodities. One of the two main exchanges, the Multi Commodity Exchange, averages volumes of over $3 billion a day. The Rajdhani exchange turns over about $20m a month.

Great hopes for such markets were expressed this week in a report by a 12-man committee on financial-sector reform, appointed by the planning commission, and led by Raghuram Rajan, now of the Chicago Graduate School of Business, and formerly chief economist of the IMF. It laments “the knee-jerk reaction to ban [markets] or intervene in them whenever they send unpleasant messages.”

The futures market provides farmers with a sneak preview of the prices they will face in the months ahead, which should allow them to make an informed decision about what to sow. In principle, futures contracts should also allow farmers to lock in a price for their crops, insulating them from the vagaries of the spot market. At the moment, farmers are too small to participate in the market directly. But Mr Rajan's report suggests that small banks could aggregate the demands of farmers up to a practical size.

“Just as it is counter-intuitive to steer in the direction of the skid”, Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University once wrote, “it is difficult to persuade the layman” that the best solution to scarcity is a market price, which encourages supply and discourages demand. As Bajrang Lal Goyal, a trader who joined the Rajdhani exchange 40 years ago, points out, India's winter crop is just days away from hitting the market. If the politicians who bash the futures market could be bothered to look at the message it is conveying, they would see that the prices of several sensitive commodities are already on their way down. Just in time, that is, for the elections.
Global inflation and India

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/04/08/stories/2008040850360900.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most analyses of accelerating inflation in India emphasise the role of “imported inflation” in driving Indian prices upwards. In this edition of Macroscan, C. P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh examine the trends in global markets that influence domestic price movements and their implications.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With the annual rate of inflation in India having touched 7 per cent on a point-to-point basis during the week-ending March 22, 2008, the search for policies to combat the price rise has begun. One factor seen as making that search difficult is the ostensible role of “imported inflation” in driving the rise in domestic prices.

There is an obvious reason why such an argument arises. Among the products primarily responsible for the current inflation are food products of different kinds, including cereals, intermediates like metals and the universal intermediate, oil.

Of these, the difficulties that high and rising levels of oil prices pose have been known for some time now. Price movements for the two varieties of crude that enter India’s import basket (Chart 1) show that since May 2003 international prices have, despite fluctuations, been on a continuous rise. In the event the prices per barrel of these varieties have moved from less than $25 in May 2003 to close to or well above $100 today.

Real price of oil

This has changed one feature of the oil price scenario that held during much of the last two decades. During those years, despite high nominal prices, the real price of oil (adjusted for increases in the general price level) was far lower than that which prevailed during the 1970s. As Chart 2 shows, when measured by the price-deflated refiner acquisition cost of imported oil in the US, in the years since 1974 the real price of oil was higher than that in 2006 only during a brief period between 1980 and 1982. Since 2006, nominal oil prices having risen further at rates much higher than the average level of prices.

As a result, oil producers are regaining the real price benefits they garnered during the 1979-81 shock. According to one estimate, in terms of current prices, the late 1970s-early 1980s peak in oil prices works out to $100-110 a barrel. That is a figure that we are fast approaching.

Underlying the buoyancy in prices is the closing gap between global petroleum demand and supply at a time when the spare capacity is more or less fully utilised. Much of the increase in demand is coming from China, but that is affecting stockpiles everywhere. This trend, combined with the uncertainty in West Asia resulting from the occupation of Iraq and the standoff in Iran, has created a situation where any destabilising influence — such as political uncertainty and attacks on the oil supply chain in Nigeria — triggers a sharp rise in prices.

What needs noting, however, is that prices are where they are because speculators have exploited these fundamentals. It is known that energy markets have attracted substantial financial investor interest since 2004, but especially after the recent decline in stock markets and in the value of the dollar. Investors in search of new investment targets have moved into speculative investments in commodities in general and oil in particular. The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which is normally held responsible for all oil price increases, has repeatedly asserted that oil has crossed the $100-a-barrel mark not because of a shortage of supply but because of financial speculation.

Views similar to those from OPEC have been expressed by more disinterested sources as well. As far back as April 29, 2006, The New York Times had reported that: “In the latest round of furious buying, hedge funds and other investors have helped propel crude oil prices from around $50 a barrel at the end of 2005 to a record of $75.17 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.”

According to that report, oil contracts held mostly by hedge funds had risen to twice the amount held five years ago. Such transactions are clearly speculative in nature.

While the disruption caused by the US occupation of Iraq, other geopolitical factors and the speculation that followed have played a role in the case of oil, what explains the recent increase in other global commodity prices, especially food articles and metals? Chart 3 (based on IMF data) shows that, except for agricultural raw materials whose prices have increased very little, all the other commodity groups have shown sharp rises in price.

The rise in price levels for metals was the earliest in the recent surge, with the weighted average of metals prices increasing sharply from the last quarter of 2005, and almost doubling in the two-year period to February 2008. Coal prices more than doubled last year, thereby showing a faster rise than even the oil price. Food prices, like agricultural raw materials, had shown only a modest increase until early 2007. But since then they have zoomed, such that the IMF data show more than 40 per cent increase in world food prices over 2007.

Food price index

The FAO food price index, which includes national prices as well as those in cross-border trade, suggests that the average index for 2007 was nearly 25 per cent above the average for 2006. Apart from sugar, nearly every other food crop has shown very significant increases in price in world trade over 2007, and the latest evidence suggests that this trend has continued and even accelerated in the first few months of 2008. The net result is that globally the prices of many basic commodities have been rising faster than they ever did during the last three decades.

It has been argued that these developments are largely demand driven, being the result of several years of rapid global growth and the voracious demand from some fast-growing countries such as China. Certainly there is some element of truth in this. And to the extent that this is true, it implies that the world economy is heading back to the late-1960s and early-1970s scenario wherein rapid and prolonged growth came up against an inflationary barrier. Capitalism’s success over the last two decades was its ability to prevent such an outcome, political economy processes that restrained the wage and income demands of workers and primary producers. But clearly there are limits to such a process, and these limits are now being reached.

If this were the only cause of the recent commodity price inflation, it would not necessarily be of such concern to policymakers, because it could then be expected that a slowing down of overall growth would simultaneously reduce inflation. It would also reflect some recovery of the drastically reduced bargaining power of workers and primary producers. But there are other, more worrying tendencies in operation, that suggest that the current global inflationary process has other factors pushing it which will not be so easily controlled.

Forces behind the rise

To understand this, it is necessary to examine the forces behind the price rises for different commodities. In the case of food, there are more than just demand forces at work, although it is certainly true that rising incomes in Asia and other parts of the developing world have led to increased demand for food. Five major aspects affecting supply conditions have been crucial in changing global market conditions for food crops.

First, there is the impact of high oil prices, which affect agricultural costs directly because of the significance of energy as an input in the cultivation process itself (through fertiliser and irrigation costs) as well as in transporting food. Across the world, governments have reduced protection and subsidies on agriculture, which means that high costs of energy directly translate into higher costs of cultivation, and therefore higher prices of output.

Second, there is the impact of both oil prices and government policies in the US, Europe, Brazil and elsewhere that have promoted bio-fuels as an alternative to petroleum. This has led to significant shifts in acreage as well as use of certain grains. For example, in 2006 the US diverted more than 20 per cent of its maize production to the production of ethanol; Brazil used half of its sugarcane production to make bio-fuel, and the European Union used the greater part of its vegetable oil production as well as imported vegetable oils, to make bio-fuel. This has naturally reduced the available land for producing food.

Policy neglect

Third, the impact of policy neglect of agriculture over the past two decades is finally being felt. The prolonged agrarian crisis in many parts of the developing world; the shifts in acreage from food crops to cash crops relying on purchased inputs; the excessive use of groundwater and inadequate attention to preserving or regenerating land and soil quality; the lack of attention to relevant agricultural research and extension; the overuse of chemical inputs that have long-run implications for both safety and productivity; the ecological implications of both pollution and climate change, including desertification and loss of cultivable land: all these are issues that have been highlighted by analysts but largely ignored by policymakers in most countries.

Reversing these processes is possible but will take time and substantial public investment, so until then global supply conditions will remain problematic.

Fourth, there is the impact of changes in market structure, which allow for greater international speculation in commodities. It is often assumed that rising food prices automatically benefit farmers, but this is far from the case, especially as the global food trade has become more concentrated and vertically integrated.

A small number of agribusiness companies worldwide increasingly control all aspects of cultivation and distribution, from supplying inputs to farmers to buying crops and even in some cases to retail food distribution. This means that marketing margins are large and increasing, so that direct producers do not get the benefits of increases expect with a time lag and even then not to the full extent. This concentration also enables greater speculation in food, with more centralised storage.

Financial speculators

Finally, primary commodity markets are also attracting financial speculators. As the global financial system remains fragile with the continuing implosion of the US housing finance market, commodity speculation is increasingly emerging as an important alternative investment market. Such speculation by large banks and financial companies is in both agricultural and non-agricultural commodities, and explains at least partly why the very recent period has seen such sharp hikes in price.

Commodity speculation has also affected the minerals and metals sector. For these commodities, it is evident that recent price increases have been largely the result of increased demand, especially from China and other rapidly growing developing countries, but also from the US and European Union.

A positive fallout of the recent growth in demand and diversification of sources of demand is that it has allowed primary metals producing countries, especially in Africa, to benefit from competition to extract better prices and conditions for their mined products. But there is also the unfortunate reality that higher mineral prices have rarely if ever translated into better incomes and living conditions of the local people, even if they may benefit the aggregate economy of the country concerned.

At any rate, metal prices are high and likely to remain so because of the growing imbalance between world supply and demand. A reduction in global output growth rates would definitely have some dampening effect on prices from their current highs, but the basic imbalance is likely to continue for some time. This is also because there has been a neglect of investment in this sector as well, so that building up new capacity will take time given the long gestation period involved in investments for metal production.

Implications for India

So the medium-term outlook for global commodity prices, while uncertain, is that they are likely to remain high even if the world economy slows down in terms of output growth. What does this mean for India? Until the 1990s, both producers and consumers in India were relatively sheltered from the impact of such global tendencies because of a complex system of trade restrictions, public procurement and distribution and policy emphasis on at least food self-sufficiency.

The liberalising policies that began in the early 1990s have rendered all of that history, since one explicit aim of the reform strategy was to bring Indian prices closer in line to world prices. Countries like India seeking to manage this effect of global speculation on the prices of a universal intermediate like oil have to decide how important it is to insulate the domestic economy and the domestic consumer from its effect.

Given the huge revenues being derived from duties on oil products, one way this can be done is to forego duty while holding oil prices. This would require compensating for revenue losses with taxes in other areas which a growing economy can contemplate. But the Government appears unwilling to take this route, increasing pressure to hike oil prices further and aggravate an inflationary tendency that is already proving to be economically and politically damaging.

Ineffective strategy

This reticence till recently to proactively insulate the domestic economy has meant, that both producers and consumers are now more or less directly affected adversely by global trends.

The Government’s response to the domestic price rise, which is already creating panic in official corridors in an election year, has been to reduce or eliminate import duties on several food items such as edible oils, so as to allow imports to bring the price down.

But that is a short-sighted and probably ineffective strategy. It provides direct competition to Indian farmers producing oilseeds, even as they suffer rapidly rising costs. It sends confused signals not only to farmers for the next sowing season, but also to consumers, and leaves the field open for domestic speculators as well because the imports are not under public supervision but left to private traders.

Most of all, given the tendency of international commodity prices noted here, it will not solve the basic problem of rising inflation in such commodities. Instead, it will make the Indian economy even more prone to the volatility and inflationary pressure of world markets. In fact, the increases in prices in India have not been as sharp for some commodities largely because of the vestiges of the intervention era.

Thus, prices of some commodities, like rice for example, have gone up less than world prices only because exports have been prohibited. This does suggest that the Indian economy cannot hope to remain insulated from these global trends without much more proactive policies that rely substantially on government intervention in several areas.

In the case of food, this essentially requires a more determined effort to increase the viability of food cultivation, to improve the productivity of agriculture through public measures, and to expand and strengthen the public system of procurement and distribution.

For other commodities too, it is now evident that a laissez faire system is simply not good enough, and public intervention and regulation of markets is essential.

Subscribe by email

Last comments

Tags

Search

Calendar

About me

Archives

Syndicate this blog

Archives for: April 2008

Ruling Marxist hegemony in Bengal treats Gorkhaland as a foreign territory!

Cheerleaders Strike Indigenous India with Mind control Terror

Political parties and the Government, both sides of the Ruling Hegemony are playing for the gallery and it won`t change the situation! We have to feel the heat of Inflation. Only we!