Geneva heaves a sigh of relief. With Kamal Nath moved out of the Commerce Ministry, the probability of concluding the contentious Doha Development Round of the WTO appears much brighter. Not that Kamal Nath was un-necessarily throwing spanners but his strong grip over the trade negotiations helped India to resist bullying and arm-twisting by the big boys of international trade.
WTO chief Pascal Lamy would remain eternally grateful to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for shifting Kamal Nath to a lesser important Ministry of Surface Transport. I am not sure whether Manmohan Singh exchanged the portfolio deliberately or under pressure but the facts remains that the WTO was keenly following the Indian elections, and their interest was more about the political future of Kamal Nath than anything else.
Kamal Nath managed to retain his seat, but was divested of this important portfolio.
Only a few months back when Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh went for assembly elections, Geneva was keeping a close watch on the outcome. You will say what interest has the WTO got in Madhya Pradesh assembly elections. Well, Pascal Lamy was expecting anti-incumbancy to drive out the BJP government, and in that case there was a likelihood of Kamal Nath taking over as the Chief Minister. Kamal Nath belongs to Madhya Pradesh in central India.
But that did not happen. WTO was surely disappointed.
Speaking recently in Oman, before the formation of the Indian Cabinet, Pascal Lamy, had reportedly said now that the Indian general elections are over, India and the United States should hold bilateral talks to resolve their differences over agriculture and NAMA issues, and enable the Doha negotiations to conclude. If only Lamy had known that Kamal Nath would not be the Trade and Commerce Minister, I am sure he would have been more confident about the Doha Round finally coming to a conclusion in 2009.
The 7th WTO Ministerial is planned from Nov 30 to Dec 2 in Hong Kong.
Kamal Nath has been an eye sore not only for Pascal Lamy, but also for the United States and European Union. They had been wanting his removal for quite sometime now. Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wasn't very happy with Kamal Nath because he did not blindly follow the Prime Minister's directive. I am aware that Kamal Nath has stood his ground a number of times despite New Delhi wanting him to accept the deal. Remember the failure of the WTO latest round of talks in Aug 2008. Kamal Nath was aware that George Bush had called up Manmohan Singh thrice and yet he didn't give an impression as if he was buckling under pressure.
This had obviously annoyed the Prime Minister. So much so, that there were rumours that Kamal Nath may be replaced by the deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, a more pliable economist.
With Anand Sharma sworn-in as the new Commerce Minister, it will be relatively easy now to push for an early completion of the Doha Round. Knowing the interest of the ruling UPA government, India will try its best to compromise on agriculture and NAMA, and bend backwards to appease the US/EU. I agree it may not be as easy and simple as what I have said, but let there be no doubt that the previous government has been more than keen to conclude the Doha agreement. It will be much easier to do so now.
Unless of course the civil society, more importantly the farmer movements, wake up to the severe threat looming ahead. After all, the WTO is a life and death issue for the 600 million strong farming population of India.
May 29, 2009
May 28, 2009
Beware, saving seeds may soon be outlawed
If you are a farmer, beware. Your right to save seed and replant it the next year will soon be taken away. It has happened in the United States, which officially does not bar farmers from saving seed, but unofficially does nothing to safegyuard Farmer's Right over his seed. In fact, in the days to come the US is going to witness a test case that will, if it goes the industry way, take away farmer's right to save seed by indirectly penalising him for not paying the 'technology fee' or royalty.
The lawsuit that is coming up for full trial at St. Louis, which also happens to be Monsanto's headquarters, on Aug 10, 2009, will have a bearing not only on the American farmers but farmers elsewhere, including India. So far, Indian seed laws have allowed farmers to save, sell and exchange seed unless it is branded, this right will sooner or later be taken away. The Seed Bill 2004, which is still pending before Parliament, in a way is a step forward. The seed industry is not taking it lying down. There is tremendous pressure to disband the Plant Varieties Protection and Farmers Rights Authority (PVPFRA) or make it useless.
At the same time, the recent amendments to the patents law allows for biotech patents, which makes the PVPFRA redundant. I have always been saying that policy makers and civil society activists in India must learn to look ahead while formulating laws. Let me illustrate. India is one of the places of origins of rice. We have thousands of rice strains, despite the erosion of genetic diversity witnessed especially over the past few decades. We can list these varieties under the PVPFRA and feel that our rice is 'protected'. But with Syngenta seeking patents over 30,000 genes of rice (from a total of 37,500 genes rice has), the control over rice plant goes into the hands of th Swiss seed company.
What is the use of 'protecting' rice varieties under PVPFRA? Shouldn't our lawmakers looked ahead, and prepared the law/Act in the light of the developments taking place in genomic research and the changing IPR regime?
Anyway, we will talk about this in subsequent blogs. Let us first try to understand what is at stake in the lawsuit that is coming up for full trial in America. This commentary (excerpts of which are being published here) has been provided by James M. Harrington, founder of Harrington Practice, a patent litigation law firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.
Mon May 25, 2009 at 09:14:33 PM PDT
Near the sleepy North Carolina town of Harmony, a mile or two off I-77 about an hour's drive north of Charlotte, Robert Trivette farms about 200 acres of soybeans. Small by modern standards, this farm has been his for some four decades, and it has provided him and his wife, Jennifer, with enough to live on, to raise a family and to survive but not to thrive.
Bob is at an age, 60, when most men are beginning to dream of retirement. Like most farmers, he worries about drought, about the pernicious pigweed that threatens the soy crop, about pests, and about whether his ancient tractor and combine will make it through another season. But these days, Bob is worried about an enemy of an altogether different character. After all, he's the defendant in a major lawsuit over his farming practices--a lawsuit that threatens his way of life.
In that suit, our law firm is defending Bob Trivette pro bono publico--"for the public good," meaning free of charge--and we need your financial help. This is the first in a series of diaries that will introduce the public to Bob Trivette, a man who is fighting for all of us.
Regular readers of this (HarringtonPractice's diary) and other liberal websites know Bob Trivette's enemy all too well. He's fighting against the Monsanto Company. And Monsanto is spending all that it can to destroy Bob, in order to make an example of him, and ultimately in the pursuit of ever-expanding hegemony over the world's food supply.
About ten years ago, Robert Trivette decided to upgrade a portion of his soybean crop, about 20 acres' worth, to the latest thing in farming: Monsanto's exciting new Roundup Ready® soybean technology. Monsanto promised a revolution in farming. Rather than fighting weeds with specific, often toxic and highly regulated herbicides, Monsanto's genetically engineered seeds grew into plants that would resist Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide, glyphosate, which it sold under the name Roundup.
Spraying his crops with Roundup would kill the weeds and leave the healthy soybean plants behind. Although Roundup Ready seed was more expensive than conventional seed, Monsanto promised greater yields, less chemical expense, and an easier time in the fields. But these advances, to the extent that they came about at all, came at a heavy price.
Monsanto's innovations weren't limited to the laboratory, of course. Along with Roundup Ready technology, Monsanto instituted a unique new scheme for selling crop seeds. Instead of saving a small portion of one year's crop for replanting next year, as they had done for thousands of years, farmers would be required to buy new original seed stock from Monsanto each year.
In order to enforce this requirement, Monsanto required each farmer to sign a "technology agreement," which prohibits the farmer from using the seeds he bought for more than a single crop, from saving any of that crop for replanting the next year, and from selling the original seeds or the crop to any other farmer. The farmer is required to submit to the jurisdiction of Monsanto's home courts in St. Louis for any disputes. Some later agreements have required the farmer to allow Monsanto's investigators to come on his property and test his crops at any time.
If the farmer violated the agreement, he would have to pay a huge penalty--in some cases up to 20 times the price of a bag of soybeans for each bag he saved. Although the courts have struck that penalty down, they regularly impose penalties of more than $100 per bag for a commodity that usually costs $30-$35 per bag. Monsanto's licensing regime requires the cooperation of farmers. Since not every farm can be inspected,
Monsanto coerces that cooperation by coming down hard on those farmers it believes skirt its rules. It maintains a hotline for anonymous reporting of violators. It sends out teams of investigators, who surreptitiously surveil farmers in their daily work, correlating sales records and farm sizes, showing up unannounced and threatening fines and criminal charges against their targets. They demand an extortive payment from every farmer they "catch," promising that consulting with a lawyer or challenging Monsanto's authority will result in much greater pain and suffering.
In that respect, Monsanto is little better than a criminal gang--better only because Monsanto, at least, has the authority under federal law to enforce its patent rights...but the Corleones and the Sopranos never had the assistance of the federal courts, either. In reality, Monsanto cares very little about the truth in pursuit of its aims.
In 2006, Monsanto's investigators approached Bob Trivette at his farm. For about an hour, they quizzed him about his farming practices and his use of Roundup Ready. They decided he was guilty of patent infringement, and they offered him a choice: pay them $100 for every bag of seed they thought he saved, or Monsanto will sue him and make it five times worse. Oh, and if he contacted a lawyer, the deal was off.
For Bob, based on the investigators' "calculations," that price would have been about two years' worth of his farming income. He couldn't pay it. So when Monsanto sued him in early 2007, he turned to our law firm for help.
For the last two years, our law firm has been fighting Monsanto on Bob Trivette's behalf, and we have done so, to date, without charging him one penny for our services. Our firm is small--only three attorneys and one support staff member--and taking on a patent infringement case, some of the most complicated litigation around, for no money at all, was a serious commitment of a major portion of our firm's resources.
We took on his case because of our sympathy for him as an individual, but we are fighting today not just for Bob, but for all farmers, and by extension, for all of us. As a patent attorney, I believe that the limited monopolies granted by patents foster innovation by rewarding it financially. But Monsanto's tactics have strayed far from the kinds of healthy, competitive practices our economy needs, into territory previously reserved for mobsters and racketeers.
We head to a full trial in St. Louis on August 10, 2009, and your help is urgently needed to make victory possible. Although we will take no professional fees for any part of our representation of Bob Trivette, we need to pay the out-of-pocket expenses of our trial team for the two weeks the trial is expected to take.
For more background on Monsanto's business practices, we recommend reading Don Barlett and James Steele's excellent article in Vanity Fair's May 2008 issue, "Monsanto's Harvest of Fear."
The lawsuit that is coming up for full trial at St. Louis, which also happens to be Monsanto's headquarters, on Aug 10, 2009, will have a bearing not only on the American farmers but farmers elsewhere, including India. So far, Indian seed laws have allowed farmers to save, sell and exchange seed unless it is branded, this right will sooner or later be taken away. The Seed Bill 2004, which is still pending before Parliament, in a way is a step forward. The seed industry is not taking it lying down. There is tremendous pressure to disband the Plant Varieties Protection and Farmers Rights Authority (PVPFRA) or make it useless.
At the same time, the recent amendments to the patents law allows for biotech patents, which makes the PVPFRA redundant. I have always been saying that policy makers and civil society activists in India must learn to look ahead while formulating laws. Let me illustrate. India is one of the places of origins of rice. We have thousands of rice strains, despite the erosion of genetic diversity witnessed especially over the past few decades. We can list these varieties under the PVPFRA and feel that our rice is 'protected'. But with Syngenta seeking patents over 30,000 genes of rice (from a total of 37,500 genes rice has), the control over rice plant goes into the hands of th Swiss seed company.
What is the use of 'protecting' rice varieties under PVPFRA? Shouldn't our lawmakers looked ahead, and prepared the law/Act in the light of the developments taking place in genomic research and the changing IPR regime?
Anyway, we will talk about this in subsequent blogs. Let us first try to understand what is at stake in the lawsuit that is coming up for full trial in America. This commentary (excerpts of which are being published here) has been provided by James M. Harrington, founder of Harrington Practice, a patent litigation law firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.
Mon May 25, 2009 at 09:14:33 PM PDT
Near the sleepy North Carolina town of Harmony, a mile or two off I-77 about an hour's drive north of Charlotte, Robert Trivette farms about 200 acres of soybeans. Small by modern standards, this farm has been his for some four decades, and it has provided him and his wife, Jennifer, with enough to live on, to raise a family and to survive but not to thrive.
Bob is at an age, 60, when most men are beginning to dream of retirement. Like most farmers, he worries about drought, about the pernicious pigweed that threatens the soy crop, about pests, and about whether his ancient tractor and combine will make it through another season. But these days, Bob is worried about an enemy of an altogether different character. After all, he's the defendant in a major lawsuit over his farming practices--a lawsuit that threatens his way of life.
In that suit, our law firm is defending Bob Trivette pro bono publico--"for the public good," meaning free of charge--and we need your financial help. This is the first in a series of diaries that will introduce the public to Bob Trivette, a man who is fighting for all of us.
Regular readers of this (HarringtonPractice's diary) and other liberal websites know Bob Trivette's enemy all too well. He's fighting against the Monsanto Company. And Monsanto is spending all that it can to destroy Bob, in order to make an example of him, and ultimately in the pursuit of ever-expanding hegemony over the world's food supply.
About ten years ago, Robert Trivette decided to upgrade a portion of his soybean crop, about 20 acres' worth, to the latest thing in farming: Monsanto's exciting new Roundup Ready® soybean technology. Monsanto promised a revolution in farming. Rather than fighting weeds with specific, often toxic and highly regulated herbicides, Monsanto's genetically engineered seeds grew into plants that would resist Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide, glyphosate, which it sold under the name Roundup.
Spraying his crops with Roundup would kill the weeds and leave the healthy soybean plants behind. Although Roundup Ready seed was more expensive than conventional seed, Monsanto promised greater yields, less chemical expense, and an easier time in the fields. But these advances, to the extent that they came about at all, came at a heavy price.
Monsanto's innovations weren't limited to the laboratory, of course. Along with Roundup Ready technology, Monsanto instituted a unique new scheme for selling crop seeds. Instead of saving a small portion of one year's crop for replanting next year, as they had done for thousands of years, farmers would be required to buy new original seed stock from Monsanto each year.
In order to enforce this requirement, Monsanto required each farmer to sign a "technology agreement," which prohibits the farmer from using the seeds he bought for more than a single crop, from saving any of that crop for replanting the next year, and from selling the original seeds or the crop to any other farmer. The farmer is required to submit to the jurisdiction of Monsanto's home courts in St. Louis for any disputes. Some later agreements have required the farmer to allow Monsanto's investigators to come on his property and test his crops at any time.
If the farmer violated the agreement, he would have to pay a huge penalty--in some cases up to 20 times the price of a bag of soybeans for each bag he saved. Although the courts have struck that penalty down, they regularly impose penalties of more than $100 per bag for a commodity that usually costs $30-$35 per bag. Monsanto's licensing regime requires the cooperation of farmers. Since not every farm can be inspected,
Monsanto coerces that cooperation by coming down hard on those farmers it believes skirt its rules. It maintains a hotline for anonymous reporting of violators. It sends out teams of investigators, who surreptitiously surveil farmers in their daily work, correlating sales records and farm sizes, showing up unannounced and threatening fines and criminal charges against their targets. They demand an extortive payment from every farmer they "catch," promising that consulting with a lawyer or challenging Monsanto's authority will result in much greater pain and suffering.
In that respect, Monsanto is little better than a criminal gang--better only because Monsanto, at least, has the authority under federal law to enforce its patent rights...but the Corleones and the Sopranos never had the assistance of the federal courts, either. In reality, Monsanto cares very little about the truth in pursuit of its aims.
In 2006, Monsanto's investigators approached Bob Trivette at his farm. For about an hour, they quizzed him about his farming practices and his use of Roundup Ready. They decided he was guilty of patent infringement, and they offered him a choice: pay them $100 for every bag of seed they thought he saved, or Monsanto will sue him and make it five times worse. Oh, and if he contacted a lawyer, the deal was off.
For Bob, based on the investigators' "calculations," that price would have been about two years' worth of his farming income. He couldn't pay it. So when Monsanto sued him in early 2007, he turned to our law firm for help.
For the last two years, our law firm has been fighting Monsanto on Bob Trivette's behalf, and we have done so, to date, without charging him one penny for our services. Our firm is small--only three attorneys and one support staff member--and taking on a patent infringement case, some of the most complicated litigation around, for no money at all, was a serious commitment of a major portion of our firm's resources.
We took on his case because of our sympathy for him as an individual, but we are fighting today not just for Bob, but for all farmers, and by extension, for all of us. As a patent attorney, I believe that the limited monopolies granted by patents foster innovation by rewarding it financially. But Monsanto's tactics have strayed far from the kinds of healthy, competitive practices our economy needs, into territory previously reserved for mobsters and racketeers.
We head to a full trial in St. Louis on August 10, 2009, and your help is urgently needed to make victory possible. Although we will take no professional fees for any part of our representation of Bob Trivette, we need to pay the out-of-pocket expenses of our trial team for the two weeks the trial is expected to take.
For more background on Monsanto's business practices, we recommend reading Don Barlett and James Steele's excellent article in Vanity Fair's May 2008 issue, "Monsanto's Harvest of Fear."
May 26, 2009
Stem the rot in agricultural research -- save the Vice Chancellor
The rot had set in quite sometime back. It is now like the last stage of a cancerous growth. What was once viewed as an institution in itself -- much above the institute that he/she would be heading -- and I am talking of the prestigious position of a Vice-Chancellor, is in an advanced stage of decay.
If there is one educational institution that needs to be urgently resurrected, it is the office of the Vice-Chancellor. The future of Indian education is directly linked to the survival of the VC as an institution.
You have probably followed the controversy surrounding the appointment of VCs of ten Central Universities just prior to the general elections. The urgency with which the then HRD Minister Arjun Singh made the appointments certainly was enough to raise eyebrows. In any case, general universities are faced with a terrible crisis in educational integrity given the way the VCs are being appointed. Private universities are much worse. The top slot often goes to people whose only qualification is proximity and loyalty to the promoter of the university.
In Madhya Pradesh, the selection committee for a Vice Chancellor also includes a builder from Indore. A former minister is also in the race for becoming a Vice Chancellor. Another is trying to push the name of his wife for the coveted post of Vice Chancellor.
I am more worried about the fate of agricultural universities. The future of agricultural science and research primarily depends upon the kind of leadership that is demonstrated by the VCs. It not only determines the usefulness and utility of the kind of research being conducted, but also in a way is responsible for the country's food security and the livelihood security of its 600 million farmers.
The appointment of a Vice-Chancellor of an agricultural university was for quite some time viewed as a political exercise. For a number of years now I have seen a number of VCs whose only qualification for the coveted job was his/her proximity to the powers that be. There may be some exceptions, but by and large the entire process of nomination and selection of a VC has over the years been reduced to a scientific farce.
Take the case of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) in Coimbatore. As a young student of agriculture, I remember the prestige attached to this premier institution. TNAU was one of the most respected of the agricultural universities. Like most of the educational institutions in the country, research and educational standards in TNAU too have fallen. But I didn't expect that it would stoop to such a low level that the PS of an Agriculture Minister would be able to get himself almost appointed as the VC. It was only after an uproar from the TNAU faculty that the move was reportedly shelved.
TNAU is no exception. Most of the agricultural universities get the VCs they don't deserve.
Gone are the days when students and faculty would have respect for the VC. I remember several years back when Dr D R Bhumbla suddenly resigned as VC of the Haryana Agricultural University in Hisar, the students had gone on a strike. This was something unusual. As a journalist covering agriculture, believe me I had never heard of the students wanting the VC not to go. In fact, I can cite several instances when the students had gone on strike demanding the removal of a VC. I still remember vividly my column in Indian Express, wherein I had analysed this unique development, surely something to be appreciated and applauded.
The distinguished administrator, the late Dr M S Randhawa, who himself had served as the VC of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, told me an interesting story. One day he received a call from the governor of Himachal Pradesh seeking his advise for the selection of a VC for the Y S Parmar University of Horticultural Sciences and Forestry at Solan. The governor mentioned three names, and Dr Randhawa picked up who he thought was more suited for the job. A few days later, he was surprised to read in the newspapers that someone else had been appointed.
If you are wondering how are the VCs selected, let me explain. At the face of it, the selection process appears to be based on merit. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) shortlists generally a panel of three names. These names are then forwarded to the State Governor (where the agricultural university is situated), who by virtue of being the Chancellor of the university, is called upon to make the final selection. In reality ofcourse it is the Chief Minister of the State who has the last word. To tell you the truth, the Chief Minister's choice is conveyed to the ICAR much in advance, which takes care to short-list the candidate.
Merit and professional competence have for quite sometime been thrown out of the window. But what worries me is that the once coveted position now comes with a price tag. Political proximity is not the only criteria, how much you can pay is also what determines the final selection. Like at the time of elections, agribusiness companies are moving in fast to lobby for particular candidates. No wonder, the research agenda and priorities is then suitably modified to suit the company's commercial interests.
This may not be true of every appointment, but the grapevine tells us that many a VCs have carried a money bag. I certainly do not intend to denigrate the office of the VC, but keeping the wrong doings under a wrap is also not going to be helpful. I am not sure who will stem this rot, but you will definitely agree that there is a dire need to save the dying institution.
The sooner it is done, the better it will be for the future of this country. Is Rahul Gandhi listening?
If there is one educational institution that needs to be urgently resurrected, it is the office of the Vice-Chancellor. The future of Indian education is directly linked to the survival of the VC as an institution.
You have probably followed the controversy surrounding the appointment of VCs of ten Central Universities just prior to the general elections. The urgency with which the then HRD Minister Arjun Singh made the appointments certainly was enough to raise eyebrows. In any case, general universities are faced with a terrible crisis in educational integrity given the way the VCs are being appointed. Private universities are much worse. The top slot often goes to people whose only qualification is proximity and loyalty to the promoter of the university.
In Madhya Pradesh, the selection committee for a Vice Chancellor also includes a builder from Indore. A former minister is also in the race for becoming a Vice Chancellor. Another is trying to push the name of his wife for the coveted post of Vice Chancellor.
I am more worried about the fate of agricultural universities. The future of agricultural science and research primarily depends upon the kind of leadership that is demonstrated by the VCs. It not only determines the usefulness and utility of the kind of research being conducted, but also in a way is responsible for the country's food security and the livelihood security of its 600 million farmers.
The appointment of a Vice-Chancellor of an agricultural university was for quite some time viewed as a political exercise. For a number of years now I have seen a number of VCs whose only qualification for the coveted job was his/her proximity to the powers that be. There may be some exceptions, but by and large the entire process of nomination and selection of a VC has over the years been reduced to a scientific farce.
Take the case of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) in Coimbatore. As a young student of agriculture, I remember the prestige attached to this premier institution. TNAU was one of the most respected of the agricultural universities. Like most of the educational institutions in the country, research and educational standards in TNAU too have fallen. But I didn't expect that it would stoop to such a low level that the PS of an Agriculture Minister would be able to get himself almost appointed as the VC. It was only after an uproar from the TNAU faculty that the move was reportedly shelved.
TNAU is no exception. Most of the agricultural universities get the VCs they don't deserve.
Gone are the days when students and faculty would have respect for the VC. I remember several years back when Dr D R Bhumbla suddenly resigned as VC of the Haryana Agricultural University in Hisar, the students had gone on a strike. This was something unusual. As a journalist covering agriculture, believe me I had never heard of the students wanting the VC not to go. In fact, I can cite several instances when the students had gone on strike demanding the removal of a VC. I still remember vividly my column in Indian Express, wherein I had analysed this unique development, surely something to be appreciated and applauded.
The distinguished administrator, the late Dr M S Randhawa, who himself had served as the VC of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, told me an interesting story. One day he received a call from the governor of Himachal Pradesh seeking his advise for the selection of a VC for the Y S Parmar University of Horticultural Sciences and Forestry at Solan. The governor mentioned three names, and Dr Randhawa picked up who he thought was more suited for the job. A few days later, he was surprised to read in the newspapers that someone else had been appointed.
If you are wondering how are the VCs selected, let me explain. At the face of it, the selection process appears to be based on merit. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) shortlists generally a panel of three names. These names are then forwarded to the State Governor (where the agricultural university is situated), who by virtue of being the Chancellor of the university, is called upon to make the final selection. In reality ofcourse it is the Chief Minister of the State who has the last word. To tell you the truth, the Chief Minister's choice is conveyed to the ICAR much in advance, which takes care to short-list the candidate.
Merit and professional competence have for quite sometime been thrown out of the window. But what worries me is that the once coveted position now comes with a price tag. Political proximity is not the only criteria, how much you can pay is also what determines the final selection. Like at the time of elections, agribusiness companies are moving in fast to lobby for particular candidates. No wonder, the research agenda and priorities is then suitably modified to suit the company's commercial interests.
This may not be true of every appointment, but the grapevine tells us that many a VCs have carried a money bag. I certainly do not intend to denigrate the office of the VC, but keeping the wrong doings under a wrap is also not going to be helpful. I am not sure who will stem this rot, but you will definitely agree that there is a dire need to save the dying institution.
The sooner it is done, the better it will be for the future of this country. Is Rahul Gandhi listening?
Thailand classifies Neem, Turmeric, Ginger and Chilli formulations as "hazardous"
This is shocking indeed. In India, while the Ministry of Agriculture works in tandem with the chemical and pesticides industry to promote hazardous pesticides in the name of food security, Thailand has gone a step further. It has actually classified some (formulations) of the well known plant species with insect repelling properties as "hazardous".
Only the other day, I had talked about the virtues of neem tree in controlling insect pests and diseases. In my blog Renewed interest in wonder tree: harnessing neem (Jan 29, 2009), I had detailed out how in the next five years the global trade in neem products for pest control, medicines, pharmaceuticals, toiletries is expected to grow to US $ 500 million. In fact, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) has launched a nationwide project on the production and promotion of neem based pesticides.
Why I am telling you this, is because neem is now listed among the 'hazardous substance type 1" in Thailand. The list includes 13 plants in this category, and neem is not the only wonder tree that has been surruptiously brought under this category. Two other plants -- turmeric and ginger -- which formed part of your grandmothers's recipe for some of the commonly occuring ailments are also classified as "hazardous". The list of such "hazardous" substances includes: neem, turmeric, ginger, citronella grass, Chinese ginger, Chinese celery, African marigold, Siam weed and chilli.
I am not only shocked but feel outraged. How can the pesticides industry be allowed to challenge my grandmother's wisdom that has been passed from generations to generations? Is this the level to which the governments have come down to? That they are willing to do everything and anything (howsoever absurd it might be) for the sake of commercial interests of the pesticides industry?
Turmeric and ginger form part of our daily diet. Both these plants, in addition to neem, are also used by farmers all over the country in different formulations to control pests and diseases. I agree that there may be some problems in standardisation of the techniques in manufacturing herbal products made from these plant species, but to classify them as 'hazardous' is a loud warning about the shape of things to come. In the name of standards, which should conform to industry prescription, the objective is to sully the name of herbal formulations and by doing so the Ministry of Agriculture actually protects the commercial interests of the pesticides companies.
That is what they are paid for. Let there be no doubt about it. And if you think the malaise is only confined to Thailand, think again. The Ministry of Agriculture in India is no different.
Thailand's Department of Agriculture, like that in India, does not know about these herbal formulations and has never promoted them. All it does is to promote the chemical pesticides. In India, you will be surprised to learn that in a recent workshop in Hyderabad, the Ministry of Agriculture was so perturbed when some NGOs and agricultural scientists called for stopping the use of weedicides in rice (in the light of the underlying principles of SRI technique in rice), that an apology has been sought for 'commenting against government'.
Here is a newsreport from the pages of The Nation, Bangkok.
Govt called to cancel rules listing herbs as hazardous
BANGKOK: -- A group of organic farmers and alternative agricultural activists have called on the government to cancel regulations listing 13 herbal plants as hazardous substances, saying they would destroy local initiative in using the plants as alternative pesticides in place of chemicals.
The group also asked the government to withdraw this legislation - an Industry Ministerial regulation and a Draft of Agricultural Ministerial regulation - within 30 days.
If there was no response from the government they would gather at Government House to submit their petition and pressure Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, said the group's leader, Thai Health Foundation's director, Veerapong Kriangsinyot.
The Industry Ministry - aiming to control pesticide production and commercialisation - announced its new regulation on February 3, listing the 13 plants as "hazardous substances type 1" under the 1992 Hazardous Substances Act.
The plants are: neem, citronella grass, tumeric, ginger, Chinese ginger, African marigold, Siam weed or bitter bush, tea seed cake, chilli, Chinese celery, ringworn bush, glory lily and stemona.
They are widely used among farmers as alternatives for expensive and toxic farm chemicals, pesticides and herbicides.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, a member of the hazardous substances committee, has proposed the new draft requiring growers, manufacturers, importers and exporters of pesticides made from the 13 herbal plants to conform to the Department of Agriculture and follow safety and quality control regulations issued by the committee. Law violators will face six months in jail and a fine of 50,000 baht.
A 44 year-old organic farmer from Suphan Buri province, Sumalee Tanyachareon said the regulation has made her life more difficult. She must inform the agricultural office that she cultivates some of the 13 herbal plants and produces them as a pesticide.
"The regulation would be an obstacle and a burden for farmers instead of promoting organic farming," she said.
Sumalee previously used chemical pesticides to kill insects in her rice farms. Now she uses herbal pesticide, after learning it is cheaper and safer than chemical pesticide.
She said regardless of whether the regulation is withdrawn or not, she will continue to use home-made herbal pesticide as it cuts costs on her rice farms.
Department of Agriculture's director general, Somchai Chanarong insisted the new regulation and the draft would not affect the use of herbal plants in the country. Growers or manufacturers were required only to inform agricultural agencies when they produced herbal pesticide for commercialisation.
" We want to protect the consumer from someone who would cheat them and sell faked products," he said.
Department of Industrial Works' director general, Rachada Singkalwanich said the announcement of the industry ministerial regulation followed a proposal from the Department of Agriculture.
" The Department of Agriculture proposed this regulation because it was receiving a lot of complaints from organic farmers and the department had no regulations to control the misuse of herbal pesticides. "
The Department of Agriculture would draw up a guideline for relevant agencies on the nature of the herbal plants. If the Department of Agriculture had such a regulation, the Department of Industrial Works would withdraw the 13 herbal plants from the hazardous substances list.
Meanwhile, the Public Health Deputy Minister, Manit Nopamorbodhi said he would discuss with the Industry Minister how to help people understand more about the role of the 13 herbal plants in daily lives.
In the near future, he said he would ask the Department for Development of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine to produce a logo as a safety warning display for herbal products sold in the market.
The Department for Development of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine's director general, Dr Nara Nakwattananukul said there was misunderstanding about the implementation of the industry ministerial regulation to list the 13 herbal plant as hazardous substances.
Under the regulation, farmers are allowed to use herbal plants as medicine. They do not have to register with the Department of Agriculture if they have small herbal plantations.
The department will organise a meeting which invite related agencies to discuss over this issue on this Friday.
Source: The Nation 2009-02-12
Only the other day, I had talked about the virtues of neem tree in controlling insect pests and diseases. In my blog Renewed interest in wonder tree: harnessing neem (Jan 29, 2009), I had detailed out how in the next five years the global trade in neem products for pest control, medicines, pharmaceuticals, toiletries is expected to grow to US $ 500 million. In fact, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) has launched a nationwide project on the production and promotion of neem based pesticides.
Why I am telling you this, is because neem is now listed among the 'hazardous substance type 1" in Thailand. The list includes 13 plants in this category, and neem is not the only wonder tree that has been surruptiously brought under this category. Two other plants -- turmeric and ginger -- which formed part of your grandmothers's recipe for some of the commonly occuring ailments are also classified as "hazardous". The list of such "hazardous" substances includes: neem, turmeric, ginger, citronella grass, Chinese ginger, Chinese celery, African marigold, Siam weed and chilli.
I am not only shocked but feel outraged. How can the pesticides industry be allowed to challenge my grandmother's wisdom that has been passed from generations to generations? Is this the level to which the governments have come down to? That they are willing to do everything and anything (howsoever absurd it might be) for the sake of commercial interests of the pesticides industry?
Turmeric and ginger form part of our daily diet. Both these plants, in addition to neem, are also used by farmers all over the country in different formulations to control pests and diseases. I agree that there may be some problems in standardisation of the techniques in manufacturing herbal products made from these plant species, but to classify them as 'hazardous' is a loud warning about the shape of things to come. In the name of standards, which should conform to industry prescription, the objective is to sully the name of herbal formulations and by doing so the Ministry of Agriculture actually protects the commercial interests of the pesticides companies.
That is what they are paid for. Let there be no doubt about it. And if you think the malaise is only confined to Thailand, think again. The Ministry of Agriculture in India is no different.
Thailand's Department of Agriculture, like that in India, does not know about these herbal formulations and has never promoted them. All it does is to promote the chemical pesticides. In India, you will be surprised to learn that in a recent workshop in Hyderabad, the Ministry of Agriculture was so perturbed when some NGOs and agricultural scientists called for stopping the use of weedicides in rice (in the light of the underlying principles of SRI technique in rice), that an apology has been sought for 'commenting against government'.
Here is a newsreport from the pages of The Nation, Bangkok.
Govt called to cancel rules listing herbs as hazardous
BANGKOK: -- A group of organic farmers and alternative agricultural activists have called on the government to cancel regulations listing 13 herbal plants as hazardous substances, saying they would destroy local initiative in using the plants as alternative pesticides in place of chemicals.
The group also asked the government to withdraw this legislation - an Industry Ministerial regulation and a Draft of Agricultural Ministerial regulation - within 30 days.
If there was no response from the government they would gather at Government House to submit their petition and pressure Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, said the group's leader, Thai Health Foundation's director, Veerapong Kriangsinyot.
The Industry Ministry - aiming to control pesticide production and commercialisation - announced its new regulation on February 3, listing the 13 plants as "hazardous substances type 1" under the 1992 Hazardous Substances Act.
The plants are: neem, citronella grass, tumeric, ginger, Chinese ginger, African marigold, Siam weed or bitter bush, tea seed cake, chilli, Chinese celery, ringworn bush, glory lily and stemona.
They are widely used among farmers as alternatives for expensive and toxic farm chemicals, pesticides and herbicides.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, a member of the hazardous substances committee, has proposed the new draft requiring growers, manufacturers, importers and exporters of pesticides made from the 13 herbal plants to conform to the Department of Agriculture and follow safety and quality control regulations issued by the committee. Law violators will face six months in jail and a fine of 50,000 baht.
A 44 year-old organic farmer from Suphan Buri province, Sumalee Tanyachareon said the regulation has made her life more difficult. She must inform the agricultural office that she cultivates some of the 13 herbal plants and produces them as a pesticide.
"The regulation would be an obstacle and a burden for farmers instead of promoting organic farming," she said.
Sumalee previously used chemical pesticides to kill insects in her rice farms. Now she uses herbal pesticide, after learning it is cheaper and safer than chemical pesticide.
She said regardless of whether the regulation is withdrawn or not, she will continue to use home-made herbal pesticide as it cuts costs on her rice farms.
Department of Agriculture's director general, Somchai Chanarong insisted the new regulation and the draft would not affect the use of herbal plants in the country. Growers or manufacturers were required only to inform agricultural agencies when they produced herbal pesticide for commercialisation.
" We want to protect the consumer from someone who would cheat them and sell faked products," he said.
Department of Industrial Works' director general, Rachada Singkalwanich said the announcement of the industry ministerial regulation followed a proposal from the Department of Agriculture.
" The Department of Agriculture proposed this regulation because it was receiving a lot of complaints from organic farmers and the department had no regulations to control the misuse of herbal pesticides. "
The Department of Agriculture would draw up a guideline for relevant agencies on the nature of the herbal plants. If the Department of Agriculture had such a regulation, the Department of Industrial Works would withdraw the 13 herbal plants from the hazardous substances list.
Meanwhile, the Public Health Deputy Minister, Manit Nopamorbodhi said he would discuss with the Industry Minister how to help people understand more about the role of the 13 herbal plants in daily lives.
In the near future, he said he would ask the Department for Development of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine to produce a logo as a safety warning display for herbal products sold in the market.
The Department for Development of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine's director general, Dr Nara Nakwattananukul said there was misunderstanding about the implementation of the industry ministerial regulation to list the 13 herbal plant as hazardous substances.
Under the regulation, farmers are allowed to use herbal plants as medicine. They do not have to register with the Department of Agriculture if they have small herbal plantations.
The department will organise a meeting which invite related agencies to discuss over this issue on this Friday.
Source: The Nation 2009-02-12
May 17, 2009
Verdict 2009 is for dal-roti
It is not a vote for stability. This verdict is for dal-roti.
In May 2004, an angry rural protest vote had driven out an arrogant Shining India brigade. Five years later, in 2009, rural anger seems to have mellowed down. Probably for the first time, dal-roti has taken precedence over the competitive caste calculus. The rural poor certainly voted for those who gave them their daily bread. Political stability at the national level was not on their minds, it never was.
It is also not a vote for reforms. In fact, if the Congress is back in saddle it is despite the reforms. Corporate India's excitement at the verdict is obvious, but if the Congress gets swayed by a corporate-controlled media which continues to chant the reform mantra day and night, it will script its own demise.
A year back, Rs 60,000-crore farm loan waiver was announced in Budget 2008. The loan waiver was subsequently raised to Rs 71,000-crore. Before the loan waiver came, the UPA had already launched the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Promising to provide a guaranteed employment for at least 100 days in a year to an adult member of any rural household, it was launched on Feb 2, 2006 in 200 districts. In April 2008, at the insistence of Rahul Gandhi, the NREGS was expanded to cover the entire country.
Reports of corruption and misuse notwithstanding, the NREGS has certainly changed the economic profile of the landless workers. Ever since the scheme was launched, daily wage of workers have at least doubled. In Bihar, from Rs 50-60 in 2007, the daily wages have now gone up to Rs 120-130 in 2009; in Andhra Pradesh, from Rs 70-80 to Rs 140-150; in Maharashtra, from Rs 65-75 to Rs 150-180 and in Gujarat, from Rs 70-85 to Rs 150-160.
Both the NREGS as well as the farm loan waiver were strongly opposed by neoliberal economists. It is well known that the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Rural Development had initially opposed the launch of NREGS. Later, the World Bank opposed it saying that the NREGS actually created barrier for free movement of labour.
The third, and an equally important decision that has weighed heavily in favour of the ruling UPA is the quantum jump in the procurement price of wheat, rice, cotton, and also in some other crops like sugarcane, soybean, tur and arhar. It really is a significant hike, unprecedented since the days of the Green Revolution. In the past three years, wheat procurement prices have risen by a whopping 69 per cent, whereas that of rice by 61 per cent. Cotton prices have been raised by 50 per cent, from Rs 2050 a quital in 2008 to Rs 3000 a quintal in 2009.
During the NDA regime, procurement prices had remained more or less stangnant.
With wheat prices rising by approximately Rs 300 a quintal in a span of 2-3 years, Punjab and Haryana farmers had enough reasons to cheer. In Uttar Pradesh, media reports highlighted the distress sale of wheat in the absence of regulated mandis. Wheat farmers had to take their produce to neighbouring Haryana and Madhya Pradesh to realise the procurement price of Rs 1080 a quintal. If only the State government had stepped in at the right time, probably Mayawati's electoral fortunes would have been a little brighter.
In Bihar, Nitish Kumar not only streamlined the law and order machinery but also focused on programmes like NREGS, Mid-Day meal, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Bihar voted for an able administrator and not for national stability. West Bengal too uprooted the Corporate driven industrial salvation. By voting for Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, West Bengal has given a clear verdict against land acquisitions in the name of development. Again, Nandigram and Singur became a symbol of the Corporate efforts to snatch dal-roti from the poor, and the people resisted. The underlying message is crystal clear: land is the only economic security for the poor millions.
In Andhra Pradesh, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy could feel the pulse of the masses, and prepared himself accordingly. Rs 2 kg rice for the poor, health insurance through the Argoaysri scheme under which the poor can get surgeries upto Rs 2 lakh free, Indiramma houses for the poor and the old-age pension scheme have paid him rich dividends. At least, 1.85 crore families living below poverty line gained from the Rs 2 kg rice scheme alone.
In addition, YSR has made heavy investments in irrigation projects, not all of which can be justified, but still has generated hope for the farming community. Free power to farmers definitely proved to be the clincher with the rural masses.
In Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh, the BJP rode back to power last December by promising Rs 2/kg rice for BPL families. Chhatisgarh's existing Rs 3/kg rice scheme which benefits 3.7 million BPL families is ready to be converted to Rs 2/kg scheme on the lines of Madhya Pradesh. In Orissa, Navin Patnaik too picked up and launched a Rs 2/kg rice scheme for the poor benefiting 55.79 lakh families. In these three States, the poverty-stricken beneficiaries of the laudable food security scheme certainly had reasons to vote for the ruling parties in the State rather than aim at national stability.
Besides making available cheap rice, MP government's popular ‘Ladli’ scheme wherein the government makes deposits in the bank accounts of every girl child attending school has also been able to woo voters. Under this scheme, the state government buys savings certificates of Rs 6,000 each year for five consecutive years for every girl born into a family. The girl gets Rs 2,000 after she completes the fifth standard, another Rs 4,000 after she completes the eighth standard, Rs 7,500 after she completes the tenth standard, Rs 200 a month in her eleventh standard, and a lump sum amount of Rs 1,18,000 after she enters the twelfth standard, or, alternatively, attains the age of 18 years.
In Tamil Nadu, media reports say that in the run up to the 2006 assembly elections, the DMK had announced free colour televisions; rice at Rs.2 per kg (once in power this was reduced to Re.1 a kg); two acres of land for the landless; free gas stoves and Rs.300 cash doles for the unemployed; maternity assistance of Rs.1,000 for all poor women for six months; as well as free power to weavers. Subsequently, in 2009-10 budget, Tamil Nadu has allocated Rs.2.79 billion for supply of free power to farmers and Rs.12.51 billion towards free electricity connections to huts and places of worship and subsidised connections for homes and local bodies; Rs.5 billion for free distribution of 2.5 million colour TV sets and Rs.1.4 billion for free gas stoves and connections.
The voters in Tamil Nadu certainly preferred DMK over national stability. By and large you will find that the verdict is clearly in favour of the ruling parties that provided more income and food in the hands of the poor. Providing poor with life-saving support, whether in the form of food or transfer of cash, is also an economic stimulus. Call it 'populist' or 'electoral compulsion', there is no other way to ensure inclusive growth. #
In May 2004, an angry rural protest vote had driven out an arrogant Shining India brigade. Five years later, in 2009, rural anger seems to have mellowed down. Probably for the first time, dal-roti has taken precedence over the competitive caste calculus. The rural poor certainly voted for those who gave them their daily bread. Political stability at the national level was not on their minds, it never was.
It is also not a vote for reforms. In fact, if the Congress is back in saddle it is despite the reforms. Corporate India's excitement at the verdict is obvious, but if the Congress gets swayed by a corporate-controlled media which continues to chant the reform mantra day and night, it will script its own demise.
A year back, Rs 60,000-crore farm loan waiver was announced in Budget 2008. The loan waiver was subsequently raised to Rs 71,000-crore. Before the loan waiver came, the UPA had already launched the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Promising to provide a guaranteed employment for at least 100 days in a year to an adult member of any rural household, it was launched on Feb 2, 2006 in 200 districts. In April 2008, at the insistence of Rahul Gandhi, the NREGS was expanded to cover the entire country.
Reports of corruption and misuse notwithstanding, the NREGS has certainly changed the economic profile of the landless workers. Ever since the scheme was launched, daily wage of workers have at least doubled. In Bihar, from Rs 50-60 in 2007, the daily wages have now gone up to Rs 120-130 in 2009; in Andhra Pradesh, from Rs 70-80 to Rs 140-150; in Maharashtra, from Rs 65-75 to Rs 150-180 and in Gujarat, from Rs 70-85 to Rs 150-160.
Both the NREGS as well as the farm loan waiver were strongly opposed by neoliberal economists. It is well known that the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Rural Development had initially opposed the launch of NREGS. Later, the World Bank opposed it saying that the NREGS actually created barrier for free movement of labour.
The third, and an equally important decision that has weighed heavily in favour of the ruling UPA is the quantum jump in the procurement price of wheat, rice, cotton, and also in some other crops like sugarcane, soybean, tur and arhar. It really is a significant hike, unprecedented since the days of the Green Revolution. In the past three years, wheat procurement prices have risen by a whopping 69 per cent, whereas that of rice by 61 per cent. Cotton prices have been raised by 50 per cent, from Rs 2050 a quital in 2008 to Rs 3000 a quintal in 2009.
During the NDA regime, procurement prices had remained more or less stangnant.
With wheat prices rising by approximately Rs 300 a quintal in a span of 2-3 years, Punjab and Haryana farmers had enough reasons to cheer. In Uttar Pradesh, media reports highlighted the distress sale of wheat in the absence of regulated mandis. Wheat farmers had to take their produce to neighbouring Haryana and Madhya Pradesh to realise the procurement price of Rs 1080 a quintal. If only the State government had stepped in at the right time, probably Mayawati's electoral fortunes would have been a little brighter.
In Bihar, Nitish Kumar not only streamlined the law and order machinery but also focused on programmes like NREGS, Mid-Day meal, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Bihar voted for an able administrator and not for national stability. West Bengal too uprooted the Corporate driven industrial salvation. By voting for Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, West Bengal has given a clear verdict against land acquisitions in the name of development. Again, Nandigram and Singur became a symbol of the Corporate efforts to snatch dal-roti from the poor, and the people resisted. The underlying message is crystal clear: land is the only economic security for the poor millions.
In Andhra Pradesh, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy could feel the pulse of the masses, and prepared himself accordingly. Rs 2 kg rice for the poor, health insurance through the Argoaysri scheme under which the poor can get surgeries upto Rs 2 lakh free, Indiramma houses for the poor and the old-age pension scheme have paid him rich dividends. At least, 1.85 crore families living below poverty line gained from the Rs 2 kg rice scheme alone.
In addition, YSR has made heavy investments in irrigation projects, not all of which can be justified, but still has generated hope for the farming community. Free power to farmers definitely proved to be the clincher with the rural masses.
In Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh, the BJP rode back to power last December by promising Rs 2/kg rice for BPL families. Chhatisgarh's existing Rs 3/kg rice scheme which benefits 3.7 million BPL families is ready to be converted to Rs 2/kg scheme on the lines of Madhya Pradesh. In Orissa, Navin Patnaik too picked up and launched a Rs 2/kg rice scheme for the poor benefiting 55.79 lakh families. In these three States, the poverty-stricken beneficiaries of the laudable food security scheme certainly had reasons to vote for the ruling parties in the State rather than aim at national stability.
Besides making available cheap rice, MP government's popular ‘Ladli’ scheme wherein the government makes deposits in the bank accounts of every girl child attending school has also been able to woo voters. Under this scheme, the state government buys savings certificates of Rs 6,000 each year for five consecutive years for every girl born into a family. The girl gets Rs 2,000 after she completes the fifth standard, another Rs 4,000 after she completes the eighth standard, Rs 7,500 after she completes the tenth standard, Rs 200 a month in her eleventh standard, and a lump sum amount of Rs 1,18,000 after she enters the twelfth standard, or, alternatively, attains the age of 18 years.
In Tamil Nadu, media reports say that in the run up to the 2006 assembly elections, the DMK had announced free colour televisions; rice at Rs.2 per kg (once in power this was reduced to Re.1 a kg); two acres of land for the landless; free gas stoves and Rs.300 cash doles for the unemployed; maternity assistance of Rs.1,000 for all poor women for six months; as well as free power to weavers. Subsequently, in 2009-10 budget, Tamil Nadu has allocated Rs.2.79 billion for supply of free power to farmers and Rs.12.51 billion towards free electricity connections to huts and places of worship and subsidised connections for homes and local bodies; Rs.5 billion for free distribution of 2.5 million colour TV sets and Rs.1.4 billion for free gas stoves and connections.
The voters in Tamil Nadu certainly preferred DMK over national stability. By and large you will find that the verdict is clearly in favour of the ruling parties that provided more income and food in the hands of the poor. Providing poor with life-saving support, whether in the form of food or transfer of cash, is also an economic stimulus. Call it 'populist' or 'electoral compulsion', there is no other way to ensure inclusive growth. #
May 15, 2009
Jatropha seeds fuelling another scandal?
Another dream is about to go bust. I am talking about India's oil dream from jatropha seeds. The dream was oiled on hype, and of course business interests. The Planning Commission triggered it, and like much of what it does, it actually relied on industrial projections without ascertaining whether biofuels could actually be produced on a scale to make any significant contribution to the country's evergrowing fuel needs.
In April 2003, the Planning Commission had initiated a proposal calling for a major multi-dimensional programme seeking to replace 20 per cent of country's diesel requirement. In March 2004, the first instalment of Rs 800-crore for the National Programme on Jatropha was released to 'support cultivation of jatropha in 200,000 hectares'. Under the programme, a total allocation of Rs 1500 crore to cover 400,000 hectares was envisaged for the next five years.
A total of 13 million hectares had to be brought under jatropha plantations by 2013.
To know about the potential of jatropha plants as biofuel, I had travelled sometimes back to the Directorate of Oilseeds Research in Hyderabad, a premier research centre of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research. My colleague, Dr G V Ramanjaneyulu of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, also based in Hyderabad, accompanied me. Talking to scientists, what we learnt was simply shocking. They were researching on the potential of jatropha for a number of years, but had for some 6-7 years now abandoned the research project. The conclusion: it was not a plant suitable for India.
And yet, the Planning Commission launched a kind of a national mission on jatropha. I am not the least surprised, knowing what India's Planning Commission is capable of doing. But what certainly I don't understand is what refrained the enlightened members of the Planning Commission to talk to DOR scientists before accepting the industry claims. If I and Dr Ramanjaneyulu could talk to the scientists concerned to know about its potential, why couldn't these members do the same? If the dream fails, as is becoming increasingly evident, shouldn't the Planning Commission be held accountable? And why not? After all, it is the tax-payers money that is being squandered, and someone should be held accountable.
And what about large tracts of land that the State Government's have transferred to the private companies at a throwaway price? Isn't that another scandal?
Read the news report below --Jatropha seeds yield little hope for India's oil dream -- and you will understand why I am asking for accountability in the planning process. The Chief Ministers of the States which went out of the way to allocate lands (in the garb of wastelands) too should be held accountable. We cannot let the bigger fish go scot free.
Jatropha seeds yield litle hope for India's oil dream
By Richard Orange
The National, May 11
Back in 2005, Professor RR Shah sent a team to Navsari Agricultural University’s most parched and desolate strip of land, a farm in the Vyasa district of India’s northern state of Gujarat. Their instructions: to set up a model farm for Jatropha, the hardy shrub with oil-rich seeds that were then emerging as one of the most promising alternatives to crude oil.
At the time, Jatropha’s promise seemed boundless. APJ Abdul Kalam, the president, even used his presidential address that year to extol its virtues. Jatropha can survive in the most arid wastelands, the story went, so vast barren swathes of India could be put to productive use. It is inedible so it would not cause a backlash by competing with food crops. The government announced a scheme to plant 13 million hectares, enough to generate nearly 500,000 barrels of Jatropha oil per day.
But as Prof Shah’s project in Vyasa nears its end this month, the dean of agribusiness at Navsari is sceptical. “There is no yield,” he says. “The literature said that with dry land, after four years’ growth, you can get a yield of 1kg per plant. For us, it is hardly 200g per plant.”
Navsari is not alone. As the findings come in from pilot schemes at 22 different agricultural colleges across India, the central claim of Jatropha’s evangelists, that it thrives in barren land, is looking threadbare.
And that is even before you study the difficulties Jatropha faces competing with crude oil at today’s prices. According to Dharmendra Parekh, the managing director of Aditya Aromatics, a Jatropha pioneer in Gujarat, oil from the shrub now costs more than 100 rupees (Dh7.5) per litre to produce, compared with 34 rupees per litre for normal diesel.
Suman Jha, a researcher on Prof Shah’s team, shows me patches where he is growing the plant with fertiliser, intermingled with other crops and trees. Even here, it is a dull and unremarkable green shrub, but at least it is thriving, producing as much as 4kg per plant.
“This is not a wasteland crop,” Dr Jha says. “It needs fertiliser, water and good management. Yes, it grows on wasteland, but it doesn’t give you any yield.”
Dr Jha says companies such as D1 Oils, the London-listed biofuels company, which has planted about 257,000 hectares of Jatropha, mainly in India, moved far too early.
“What we did with this crop is that we distributed it everywhere without having any patience, before finding out which genotypes are high-yielding. If we want, we can get a good amount of profit out if it, but we need to have patience.”
D1 is also having some nasty surprises on yield. It said in 2006 that it aimed to produce 2.7 tonnes of oil per hectare from areas planted with its new E1 variety, and 1.7 tonnes of oil from normal seed. That is equivalent to about 8 tonnes and 5 tonnes of seed per hectare respectively, or 3.5kg and 2kg a plant.
Pradip Bhar, who runs the company’s D1 Williamson Magor Bio Fuel joint venture in India’s north east, admits he has yet to achieve a fraction of that.
“Hitting 500g is the challenge,” he says. “Mortality is quite high. But if we can reach 500g in two years’ time, after that the bush will continue to grow. Our expectation is that after the fourth year we will hit 1kg. The 1.5kg mark we haven’t touched as yet.”
Those are the results from the fertile state of Assam. The yields in other, dryer states such as Jharkand and Orissa, he says, are much worse.
But he still believes D1 was right to forge ahead with early planting because it will be at least an eight-year wait before varieties with good yields on wastelands are developed. Even D1’s E1 variety is not yet available in sufficient quantities.
Mr Bhar intends to hold the area under cultivation steady at about 132,000 hectares this year. As his plantations account for more than half of D1 Oils’ Jatropha crop, the company’s goal of planting 1 million hectares by 2011 looks like a tough one. He is concentrating instead on ensuring his small contract farmers continue tending it for the two or three years needed before it becomes profitable.
This challenge is one of the reasons why Prof Shah doubts the 500,000 hectares of Jatropha the Indian government estimates has been planted so far. Only last month, he unsettled an annual meeting of the universities researching Jatropha and India’s National Oilseeds and Vegetable Oil Development Board by reporting that only 5,000 hectares was actually under plantation in Gujarat, half the official estimate.
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090511/BUSINESS/705119944/-1/SPORT
In April 2003, the Planning Commission had initiated a proposal calling for a major multi-dimensional programme seeking to replace 20 per cent of country's diesel requirement. In March 2004, the first instalment of Rs 800-crore for the National Programme on Jatropha was released to 'support cultivation of jatropha in 200,000 hectares'. Under the programme, a total allocation of Rs 1500 crore to cover 400,000 hectares was envisaged for the next five years.
A total of 13 million hectares had to be brought under jatropha plantations by 2013.
To know about the potential of jatropha plants as biofuel, I had travelled sometimes back to the Directorate of Oilseeds Research in Hyderabad, a premier research centre of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research. My colleague, Dr G V Ramanjaneyulu of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, also based in Hyderabad, accompanied me. Talking to scientists, what we learnt was simply shocking. They were researching on the potential of jatropha for a number of years, but had for some 6-7 years now abandoned the research project. The conclusion: it was not a plant suitable for India.
And yet, the Planning Commission launched a kind of a national mission on jatropha. I am not the least surprised, knowing what India's Planning Commission is capable of doing. But what certainly I don't understand is what refrained the enlightened members of the Planning Commission to talk to DOR scientists before accepting the industry claims. If I and Dr Ramanjaneyulu could talk to the scientists concerned to know about its potential, why couldn't these members do the same? If the dream fails, as is becoming increasingly evident, shouldn't the Planning Commission be held accountable? And why not? After all, it is the tax-payers money that is being squandered, and someone should be held accountable.
And what about large tracts of land that the State Government's have transferred to the private companies at a throwaway price? Isn't that another scandal?
Read the news report below --Jatropha seeds yield little hope for India's oil dream -- and you will understand why I am asking for accountability in the planning process. The Chief Ministers of the States which went out of the way to allocate lands (in the garb of wastelands) too should be held accountable. We cannot let the bigger fish go scot free.
Jatropha seeds yield litle hope for India's oil dream
By Richard Orange
The National, May 11
Back in 2005, Professor RR Shah sent a team to Navsari Agricultural University’s most parched and desolate strip of land, a farm in the Vyasa district of India’s northern state of Gujarat. Their instructions: to set up a model farm for Jatropha, the hardy shrub with oil-rich seeds that were then emerging as one of the most promising alternatives to crude oil.
At the time, Jatropha’s promise seemed boundless. APJ Abdul Kalam, the president, even used his presidential address that year to extol its virtues. Jatropha can survive in the most arid wastelands, the story went, so vast barren swathes of India could be put to productive use. It is inedible so it would not cause a backlash by competing with food crops. The government announced a scheme to plant 13 million hectares, enough to generate nearly 500,000 barrels of Jatropha oil per day.
But as Prof Shah’s project in Vyasa nears its end this month, the dean of agribusiness at Navsari is sceptical. “There is no yield,” he says. “The literature said that with dry land, after four years’ growth, you can get a yield of 1kg per plant. For us, it is hardly 200g per plant.”
Navsari is not alone. As the findings come in from pilot schemes at 22 different agricultural colleges across India, the central claim of Jatropha’s evangelists, that it thrives in barren land, is looking threadbare.
And that is even before you study the difficulties Jatropha faces competing with crude oil at today’s prices. According to Dharmendra Parekh, the managing director of Aditya Aromatics, a Jatropha pioneer in Gujarat, oil from the shrub now costs more than 100 rupees (Dh7.5) per litre to produce, compared with 34 rupees per litre for normal diesel.
Suman Jha, a researcher on Prof Shah’s team, shows me patches where he is growing the plant with fertiliser, intermingled with other crops and trees. Even here, it is a dull and unremarkable green shrub, but at least it is thriving, producing as much as 4kg per plant.
“This is not a wasteland crop,” Dr Jha says. “It needs fertiliser, water and good management. Yes, it grows on wasteland, but it doesn’t give you any yield.”
Dr Jha says companies such as D1 Oils, the London-listed biofuels company, which has planted about 257,000 hectares of Jatropha, mainly in India, moved far too early.
“What we did with this crop is that we distributed it everywhere without having any patience, before finding out which genotypes are high-yielding. If we want, we can get a good amount of profit out if it, but we need to have patience.”
D1 is also having some nasty surprises on yield. It said in 2006 that it aimed to produce 2.7 tonnes of oil per hectare from areas planted with its new E1 variety, and 1.7 tonnes of oil from normal seed. That is equivalent to about 8 tonnes and 5 tonnes of seed per hectare respectively, or 3.5kg and 2kg a plant.
Pradip Bhar, who runs the company’s D1 Williamson Magor Bio Fuel joint venture in India’s north east, admits he has yet to achieve a fraction of that.
“Hitting 500g is the challenge,” he says. “Mortality is quite high. But if we can reach 500g in two years’ time, after that the bush will continue to grow. Our expectation is that after the fourth year we will hit 1kg. The 1.5kg mark we haven’t touched as yet.”
Those are the results from the fertile state of Assam. The yields in other, dryer states such as Jharkand and Orissa, he says, are much worse.
But he still believes D1 was right to forge ahead with early planting because it will be at least an eight-year wait before varieties with good yields on wastelands are developed. Even D1’s E1 variety is not yet available in sufficient quantities.
Mr Bhar intends to hold the area under cultivation steady at about 132,000 hectares this year. As his plantations account for more than half of D1 Oils’ Jatropha crop, the company’s goal of planting 1 million hectares by 2011 looks like a tough one. He is concentrating instead on ensuring his small contract farmers continue tending it for the two or three years needed before it becomes profitable.
This challenge is one of the reasons why Prof Shah doubts the 500,000 hectares of Jatropha the Indian government estimates has been planted so far. Only last month, he unsettled an annual meeting of the universities researching Jatropha and India’s National Oilseeds and Vegetable Oil Development Board by reporting that only 5,000 hectares was actually under plantation in Gujarat, half the official estimate.
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090511/BUSINESS/705119944/-1/SPORT
May 14, 2009
"Want Press Coverage? Give Me Some Money"
As we wait eagerly for the results of the 2009 election marathon, it is time to reflect on the role the media played. More so, considering that for the next few days you would be glued to your TV set and would be desperately scanning through the daily newspapers to work out the political arithmatic. Wait, pause and think. How reliable is the media's take on the political scenario? Has the media also gone the political way, I mean as far as corruption is concerned? Are you getting tainted and biased analysis?
Well, as you know the media of today deals in big money. You already know why the media prefers to ignore the real issues confronting the society. You must be thinking why doesn't the media ever talk of hunger, starvation and malnutrition, for instance, that is so rampant in our society. You are told that celebrities and the phoney discussions is all that the people want to view or read. Some TV channels have special programmes on how the CEOs spend their day, many bring you programme on cars and automobiles, and of course you have programme on cooking and dining, life and lifestyles, and still worse the friday launch of new films becomes breaking news on some channels.
Well, it is all because of big money. And how much of big money we are talking about. A recent forecast by a leading media service firm, ZenithOptimedia, provides you with the advertisement spending over the next three years. Hold your breath. It says that 2009 will see a slight increase of 6 per cent in the ad revenue of the Indian media -- increasing from Rs 22,757 crore in 2008 to Rs 25,004 crore in 2009.
Share of Ad revenue by TV channels will increase by 8.6 per cent over 2008, and in 2009 TV channels will rake in Rs 9,301 crore. Obviously, the TV channels will talk of what brings them more ad revenue. And what brings in more ad revenue are the commercial interests. Rest everything is a downmarket subject for them.
The race for making more money now goes beyond ad revenues. Newspapers and TV channels are now selling space. You don't know and it is very difficult to find out what is news and what is an advertisement. But still worse, and shocking indeed, are the reports that say that even election coverage was sold. Some newspapers had put up rate cards for the prospective candidates to be seen in the newspapers
I am pasting below a newsreport from the pages of The Wall Street Journal.
Want Press Coverage? Give Me Some Money
By PAUL BECKETT
The Wall Street Journal
Ajay Goyal is a serious, independent candidate contesting for a Lok Sabha seat in Chandigarh.
Never heard of him? Neither, probably, have a lot of people in Chandigarh because when it came to getting press coverage for his campaign he was faced with a simple message: If you want press, you have to pay.
So far, he says, he's been approached by about 10 people – some brokers and public relations managers acting on behalf of newspaper owners, some reporters and editors – with the message that he'll only get written about in the news pages for a fee. We're not talking advertising; we're talking news.
One broker offered three weeks of coverage in four newspapers for 10 lakh rupees ($20,000). A reporter and a photographer from a Chandigarh newspaper told him that for 1.5 lakh rupees ($3,000) for them and a further 3 lakh rupees ($6,000) for other reporters, they could guarantee coverage in up to five newspapers for two weeks.
"We would do good coverage for you," he says they told him. All of those who approached him either were from national Hindi language papers or regional papers, Mr. Goyal says.
“You want a front page photo for free? This is something people pay for.”
In one case, he went along to see what would happen: a press release he submitted full of falsehoods – claiming he had campaigned in places he had never been, for instance – ran verbatim. One thing he has never seen on his real campaign: a reporter there to cover the story.
"It's disappointing," Mr. Goyal says. "What good is literacy and education if people have no access to real news, investigation, skepticism or a questioning reporter."
At the nexus of corruption in India, the nation's newspapers usually play either vigilante cop exposing wrongdoing in the public interest (on a good day, at a few publications) or spineless patsy killing stories on the orders of powerful advertisers. Many papers also engage in practices that cross the ethical line between advertising and editorial in a way that is opaque, if not downright obscure, to readers.
To read the full story, click http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124158152250690795.html
Well, as you know the media of today deals in big money. You already know why the media prefers to ignore the real issues confronting the society. You must be thinking why doesn't the media ever talk of hunger, starvation and malnutrition, for instance, that is so rampant in our society. You are told that celebrities and the phoney discussions is all that the people want to view or read. Some TV channels have special programmes on how the CEOs spend their day, many bring you programme on cars and automobiles, and of course you have programme on cooking and dining, life and lifestyles, and still worse the friday launch of new films becomes breaking news on some channels.
Well, it is all because of big money. And how much of big money we are talking about. A recent forecast by a leading media service firm, ZenithOptimedia, provides you with the advertisement spending over the next three years. Hold your breath. It says that 2009 will see a slight increase of 6 per cent in the ad revenue of the Indian media -- increasing from Rs 22,757 crore in 2008 to Rs 25,004 crore in 2009.
Share of Ad revenue by TV channels will increase by 8.6 per cent over 2008, and in 2009 TV channels will rake in Rs 9,301 crore. Obviously, the TV channels will talk of what brings them more ad revenue. And what brings in more ad revenue are the commercial interests. Rest everything is a downmarket subject for them.
The race for making more money now goes beyond ad revenues. Newspapers and TV channels are now selling space. You don't know and it is very difficult to find out what is news and what is an advertisement. But still worse, and shocking indeed, are the reports that say that even election coverage was sold. Some newspapers had put up rate cards for the prospective candidates to be seen in the newspapers
I am pasting below a newsreport from the pages of The Wall Street Journal.
Want Press Coverage? Give Me Some Money
By PAUL BECKETT
The Wall Street Journal
Ajay Goyal is a serious, independent candidate contesting for a Lok Sabha seat in Chandigarh.
Never heard of him? Neither, probably, have a lot of people in Chandigarh because when it came to getting press coverage for his campaign he was faced with a simple message: If you want press, you have to pay.
So far, he says, he's been approached by about 10 people – some brokers and public relations managers acting on behalf of newspaper owners, some reporters and editors – with the message that he'll only get written about in the news pages for a fee. We're not talking advertising; we're talking news.
One broker offered three weeks of coverage in four newspapers for 10 lakh rupees ($20,000). A reporter and a photographer from a Chandigarh newspaper told him that for 1.5 lakh rupees ($3,000) for them and a further 3 lakh rupees ($6,000) for other reporters, they could guarantee coverage in up to five newspapers for two weeks.
"We would do good coverage for you," he says they told him. All of those who approached him either were from national Hindi language papers or regional papers, Mr. Goyal says.
“You want a front page photo for free? This is something people pay for.”
In one case, he went along to see what would happen: a press release he submitted full of falsehoods – claiming he had campaigned in places he had never been, for instance – ran verbatim. One thing he has never seen on his real campaign: a reporter there to cover the story.
"It's disappointing," Mr. Goyal says. "What good is literacy and education if people have no access to real news, investigation, skepticism or a questioning reporter."
At the nexus of corruption in India, the nation's newspapers usually play either vigilante cop exposing wrongdoing in the public interest (on a good day, at a few publications) or spineless patsy killing stories on the orders of powerful advertisers. Many papers also engage in practices that cross the ethical line between advertising and editorial in a way that is opaque, if not downright obscure, to readers.
To read the full story, click http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124158152250690795.html
May 12, 2009
Child labour -- The ugly side of American agriculture
Child labour in American Agriculture? You must be kidding !
That's exactly what I thought when I first heard about it. I mean I had never even visualised that American agriculture could employ children on the farm. All the reports/studies and the stories we had heard about American agriculture always talked about big machines, big business, sophisticated technologies, and of course monumental agricultural subsidies. Exploiting children as farm labour, some as young as 10 years of age, has never been talked about in the international media. At least, I had never read about it.
At the ongoing WTO negotiations, the US and Europe have often accused India of employing children in agriculture and industry, and some countries have used the social clause (a non-tariff barrier) to stop exports of carpets for instance from India. We have been often accused of turning a blind eye to the curse of child labour. As a nation, I agree, we need to hang our head in shame for not being able to send these children of a lesser god to schools, and instead force them into labour because of poverty. For any nation, whether it is a developed or a developing economy, those exploiting child labour cannot and should not be pardoned.
But I see no reason why America, the world's biggest economy, and which never gets tired of preaching us about the social cost of child labour, be using children in its own heavily mechanised farms. This ugly face of American agriculture had remained hidden from public glare all these years.
How many children are employed in American agriculture? Well, there are about 2 to 2.5 million farm worker families in the United States, most of them are migrating from one county to another, and carry their children along. A large number of these children have to work on the farms to enable these families to survive. An average migrant family in a medium wage category does not earn more than US $ 16,000 a year. The pressure on children to work therefore is great. No wonder, about 65 per cent of these children drop out from schools, and never return for formal education.
According to David Strauss, Executive Director of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, a lot of the children working on the farms suffer from pesticides poisoning and injuries from machines. They live under stress, perform all the dangerous jobs on the farm, and also aspire to go to school like other children. David Strauss was talking to Michael Olson on The Food Show radio programme on child farm abour (http://www.metrofarm.com/).
David said that around this time (this programme was broadcast last week) thousands of families are packing up and moving up north from south Texas. They will be working in the crop fields in summers and upto November, and their children too would be accompanying them. Child labour is particularly severe in Texas, California, Washington, Michigen, North Carolina, and the midwest. "Agriculture is the most dangerous place for children," he says.
I can understand about the children of farmers working on the farm. This happens everywhere, including India. I wouldn't however approve of it. The reason being that these children need to be like other children, go to school and go for higher education before opting for farming, if need be. But the children of migratory workers cannot be placed in the same category. David says that some of these children are made to work till midnight after they come back from the school, and often work 70-80 hours a week. This is really treacherous.
The US is following an outdated 1938 labour law that does not prohibit children below the age of 14 to work on the farms. Interestingly, while children below 14 are not supposed to be employed in offices, educational institutions or industries, there is no such regulation for children in agriculture. The Association for Farmworker Opportunity Programs is fighting for regulating child labour in agriculture and is trying to create more awareness about this hidden and ugly underbelly of American agriculture.
Most of these migratory workers come from Mexico. Some come from Latin America, Africa and I know many Indian and Pakistani families who work on the farm. That should make it obvious for you to know why the US doesn't care about child labour in agriculture. So much for a country that believes in ethnic equality and does not belive in racial discrimination.
That's exactly what I thought when I first heard about it. I mean I had never even visualised that American agriculture could employ children on the farm. All the reports/studies and the stories we had heard about American agriculture always talked about big machines, big business, sophisticated technologies, and of course monumental agricultural subsidies. Exploiting children as farm labour, some as young as 10 years of age, has never been talked about in the international media. At least, I had never read about it.
At the ongoing WTO negotiations, the US and Europe have often accused India of employing children in agriculture and industry, and some countries have used the social clause (a non-tariff barrier) to stop exports of carpets for instance from India. We have been often accused of turning a blind eye to the curse of child labour. As a nation, I agree, we need to hang our head in shame for not being able to send these children of a lesser god to schools, and instead force them into labour because of poverty. For any nation, whether it is a developed or a developing economy, those exploiting child labour cannot and should not be pardoned.
But I see no reason why America, the world's biggest economy, and which never gets tired of preaching us about the social cost of child labour, be using children in its own heavily mechanised farms. This ugly face of American agriculture had remained hidden from public glare all these years.
How many children are employed in American agriculture? Well, there are about 2 to 2.5 million farm worker families in the United States, most of them are migrating from one county to another, and carry their children along. A large number of these children have to work on the farms to enable these families to survive. An average migrant family in a medium wage category does not earn more than US $ 16,000 a year. The pressure on children to work therefore is great. No wonder, about 65 per cent of these children drop out from schools, and never return for formal education.
According to David Strauss, Executive Director of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, a lot of the children working on the farms suffer from pesticides poisoning and injuries from machines. They live under stress, perform all the dangerous jobs on the farm, and also aspire to go to school like other children. David Strauss was talking to Michael Olson on The Food Show radio programme on child farm abour (http://www.metrofarm.com/).
David said that around this time (this programme was broadcast last week) thousands of families are packing up and moving up north from south Texas. They will be working in the crop fields in summers and upto November, and their children too would be accompanying them. Child labour is particularly severe in Texas, California, Washington, Michigen, North Carolina, and the midwest. "Agriculture is the most dangerous place for children," he says.
I can understand about the children of farmers working on the farm. This happens everywhere, including India. I wouldn't however approve of it. The reason being that these children need to be like other children, go to school and go for higher education before opting for farming, if need be. But the children of migratory workers cannot be placed in the same category. David says that some of these children are made to work till midnight after they come back from the school, and often work 70-80 hours a week. This is really treacherous.
The US is following an outdated 1938 labour law that does not prohibit children below the age of 14 to work on the farms. Interestingly, while children below 14 are not supposed to be employed in offices, educational institutions or industries, there is no such regulation for children in agriculture. The Association for Farmworker Opportunity Programs is fighting for regulating child labour in agriculture and is trying to create more awareness about this hidden and ugly underbelly of American agriculture.
Most of these migratory workers come from Mexico. Some come from Latin America, Africa and I know many Indian and Pakistani families who work on the farm. That should make it obvious for you to know why the US doesn't care about child labour in agriculture. So much for a country that believes in ethnic equality and does not belive in racial discrimination.
The Damned Rain -- a sensitive portrayal of the farming crisis
There have been a number of regional language films on farmer suicides. I have read some reviews, and am aware that a couple of them have done well whereas most of these films have simply disappeared from public glare. This does not however mean that these films were not well made, it is only a reflection of audience preference. The indifference that the society is exhibiting to the agrarian crisis is not only confined to the media, there is a visible disconnect that exists all around. Farmer suicides is perceived to be a tragedy in some alien land.
Yesterday, I had gone to see a Marathi feature film (with English subtitles) on farmer suicides. The film Gabhricha Paus meaning The Damned Rain was featured at the Habitat Centre, New Delhi. I knew the film had won several awards and still awaits commercial release. And as expected, I didn't find many people in the auditorium -- so much so for New Delhi's umbilical cord with the rural hinterland.
I sat glued to my seat all through the 100 minutes. It is very well made, and tries to capture the continuing crisis in a simple and humane way. It brings out the tragedy in the Vidharba fields through the eyes of a farmer's family. In a very sensitive way, the film depicts the arduous struggle a farmer has to undergo to survive. Director Satish Manwar has protrayed the realities without getting into any complexities, and without touching on the plethora of issues that afflict agriculture. For his maiden venture, I think Satish Manwar needs to be profusely applauded.
Kisna is a hardworking farmer. He fights against all odds, and vows to continue farming till he dies. His family is conscious that the stress and tension under which Kisna operates can take a toll of him. They try to keep a continuous watch on him, pamper him with good food at times to keep him in good spirits. His wife sells her ornaments to make him replough the cotton fields after the rains have failed. She is a strong support in his farming operations, but somewhere in her conscious she is aware and worried at the suicide tendency (that is mistakenly construed) in Kisna.
The rains come, and as their only child Dinu says it is the damned rain. A heavy downpour washed away much of his crop. And then comes the money-lender taking away what ever little he harvested. And still, Kisna doesn't give up.
All through the film, I realised that providing more credit to Kisna was not the solution. Even with all the loans he had taken, and the money he could get from even selling the last tree on his farm, he remained indebted. As someone has said a farmer is born in debt and dies in debt. Kisna was no exception. And so are the millions who somehow manage to survive against all odds. If only Kisna was insured against the failure of monsoon, he would have survived the crisis situation. The more I think about the film, the more I realise that the only way to pull farmers from the crisis is to provide them direct income support. Farmers need to have an assured monthly take-home packet.
Thanks to Satish Manwar for such a touching and emotional peep into the agrarian crisis. You can find more about the film at http://thedamnedrain.com/main.html
Yesterday, I had gone to see a Marathi feature film (with English subtitles) on farmer suicides. The film Gabhricha Paus meaning The Damned Rain was featured at the Habitat Centre, New Delhi. I knew the film had won several awards and still awaits commercial release. And as expected, I didn't find many people in the auditorium -- so much so for New Delhi's umbilical cord with the rural hinterland.
I sat glued to my seat all through the 100 minutes. It is very well made, and tries to capture the continuing crisis in a simple and humane way. It brings out the tragedy in the Vidharba fields through the eyes of a farmer's family. In a very sensitive way, the film depicts the arduous struggle a farmer has to undergo to survive. Director Satish Manwar has protrayed the realities without getting into any complexities, and without touching on the plethora of issues that afflict agriculture. For his maiden venture, I think Satish Manwar needs to be profusely applauded.
Kisna is a hardworking farmer. He fights against all odds, and vows to continue farming till he dies. His family is conscious that the stress and tension under which Kisna operates can take a toll of him. They try to keep a continuous watch on him, pamper him with good food at times to keep him in good spirits. His wife sells her ornaments to make him replough the cotton fields after the rains have failed. She is a strong support in his farming operations, but somewhere in her conscious she is aware and worried at the suicide tendency (that is mistakenly construed) in Kisna.
The rains come, and as their only child Dinu says it is the damned rain. A heavy downpour washed away much of his crop. And then comes the money-lender taking away what ever little he harvested. And still, Kisna doesn't give up.
All through the film, I realised that providing more credit to Kisna was not the solution. Even with all the loans he had taken, and the money he could get from even selling the last tree on his farm, he remained indebted. As someone has said a farmer is born in debt and dies in debt. Kisna was no exception. And so are the millions who somehow manage to survive against all odds. If only Kisna was insured against the failure of monsoon, he would have survived the crisis situation. The more I think about the film, the more I realise that the only way to pull farmers from the crisis is to provide them direct income support. Farmers need to have an assured monthly take-home packet.
Thanks to Satish Manwar for such a touching and emotional peep into the agrarian crisis. You can find more about the film at http://thedamnedrain.com/main.html
May 10, 2009
Is corruption the reason for economic prosperity?
Come to think of it. Over the last few years, there is more prosperity visible all around. More people have disposable incomes (even at times of global recession), more people are now travelling abroad, more people are flying around in the country, more people throng the super malls, more cars (including the luxury models) clog the roads, more restaurants are now dotting the streets, and so on. The rich have become super rich and the middle class is fast catching up.
We believe that it is all because of the unprecedented growth rate. Ever since economic liberalisation was unleashed in 1991, India seems to have found its feet. The country is witnessing an economic boom. Even at times of a global meltdown, our newspapers tell us that the growth rate would remain around an impressive 7 per cent. Isn't that surprising? After all, exports are down, manufacturing is down, industry is not looking up, business and trade are hit by recession, agriculture is down. Than what drives the country's economic growth?
Well, while you ponder over this question, let me draw your attention to a related aspect. Agreed that income levels in IT sector, and other service industries, have gone up in recent past. But don't forget, IT/BPO only employs 1.7 million people. Other sectors may also have fared well, but how come the financial standard of every other household around you is suddenly in the grip of a new-found prosperity? How come every other urban household (and I am not talking of the lower middle class and the poor) has become rich? Is it because of the higher economic growth rate? Has economic growth trickled down to the middle class in such a uniform pattern so as to benefit one and all?
I have often wondered as to what is the reason behind this new-found prosperity. I find that the reasons are all apparent. It is only that we refuse to acknowledge it. The reason is simple. We are primarily the beneficiary of a parallel economic system that has brought about this visible change in our incomes.
Think again. There is hardly a day when we don't read of a scandal or a corruption case in the newspapers. We are told that a director of health services was apprehended for stacking crores of rupees in his house. We have read in the media that the owner of a canteen in Parliament owned a fleet of expensive cars. We read everyother day how money is being squandered in the name of development, how the traffic police makes money, how the government officials move the files (unless it comes weighted with money), and how the public services have to be 'paid' for. The list is endless. And this has been going on for decades now. It is not a new phenomenon.
You will also agree that what appears in the media is not even a tip of the iceberg. We are a corrupt nation, whether we like it or not. Transparency International ranks India 85th in an index of 180 countries. Transparency International's India chairperson, R H Tahiliani, was quoted in the media as saying that police, politics and lower judiciary were the worst dens of corruption.
Rajiv Gandhi has once said that only 15 paise from a rupee that is allocated for the rural areas reaches the true beneficiary. Rahul Gandhi now says that it is only 10 paise. We have used these statements in our media debates but no one has ever quantified how much is the money that is squandered on the way, or in practical terms pocketed by the functionaries in the name of development. A recent report in Nai Duniya has made an effort to quantify the amount. It says in the past five years, Rs 2,394 billion, earmarked for rural development has simply disappeared. And this is only the money that has been officially provided for rural development in the past five years. Imagine the colossal amount that has been pocketed in the past four decades, if we were to be a little conservative in our estimates.
You will agree that not all of this has flown out of the country. In fact, only a few of us are privileged to hoard blackmoney in safe tax-havens abroad. The US-based Global Financial Integrity has ranked India fifth in a list of 160 developing countries suffering outflow of huge amounts through illicit channels. Accordingly, US $ 27 billion flows out illegally every year from India.
Now, where does the rest of the unaccounted money go? No where. It says within the country.
Let us face it. Over the years, our parents, relatives and friends (ofcourse there are exceptions, and a lot many honest people live simple lives) have made money by illegal means. Don't get angry, even if you want to deny it I will accept it. But the fact remains that if corruption is so rampant, it is quite obvious those who indulged in it were somebody's relative. And when economic liberalisation came, it provided an opportunity to take out the unaccounted money and invest. Real estate boomed. Stock market grew. People invested in expensive cars and expensive gadgets, dining out every other day, and frequent holidays abroad.
In some way or the other we are all beneficiaries of the parallel economic system that prevails in this country. You don't need the economic understanding of economist Arun Kumar to know the influence of unaccounted money in our economic prosperity. Corruption has really paid us well. We all crib at someone else's corruption, but we try to remain discreet when it comes to our own share. We think we are the only ones who are honest, rest everyone is corrupt. We know it is not true and yet we want to flaunt this image. It is all about images, my dear. We live in times where images count.
Nevertheless, it is the tainted money, the unaccounted wealth that has propelled this country into a new-found economic prosperity. Economists will not accept this because it falls outside the gambit of their textbooks. Policy makers will remain quiet because like politicians they too are beneficiaries of this corrupt system. Private sector will only tarnish the public sector as corrupt, maintaining complete silence at the massive swindles that place in government approvals and acquisitions. I have often said that what makes corruption in a developing country like India different from the rich and industrialised countries is that in India corruption is decentralised. Every one can make money the illegal way. In the developed countries, there is massive corruption but at the top level only. Corruption is centralised in developed countries.
Does it mean that a democratically-elected but corrupt country has a better distribution pattern for the unaccounted wealth? Does it not mean that corruption can lead to economic prosperity?
Of course, it doesn't trickle down to the majority. In India, 77 per cent of the population is able to spend only Rs 20 a day. They may be victims of corruption, but certainly are not the beneficiaries. It is the remaining 23 per cent, and that includes the middle class, that has benefitted. The country's economic growth is measured in the purchasing power exhibited by the middle class. This is the real Shining India. Let there be no qualms about it.
Isn't it time we change our perception about economic prosperity?
We believe that it is all because of the unprecedented growth rate. Ever since economic liberalisation was unleashed in 1991, India seems to have found its feet. The country is witnessing an economic boom. Even at times of a global meltdown, our newspapers tell us that the growth rate would remain around an impressive 7 per cent. Isn't that surprising? After all, exports are down, manufacturing is down, industry is not looking up, business and trade are hit by recession, agriculture is down. Than what drives the country's economic growth?
Well, while you ponder over this question, let me draw your attention to a related aspect. Agreed that income levels in IT sector, and other service industries, have gone up in recent past. But don't forget, IT/BPO only employs 1.7 million people. Other sectors may also have fared well, but how come the financial standard of every other household around you is suddenly in the grip of a new-found prosperity? How come every other urban household (and I am not talking of the lower middle class and the poor) has become rich? Is it because of the higher economic growth rate? Has economic growth trickled down to the middle class in such a uniform pattern so as to benefit one and all?
I have often wondered as to what is the reason behind this new-found prosperity. I find that the reasons are all apparent. It is only that we refuse to acknowledge it. The reason is simple. We are primarily the beneficiary of a parallel economic system that has brought about this visible change in our incomes.
Think again. There is hardly a day when we don't read of a scandal or a corruption case in the newspapers. We are told that a director of health services was apprehended for stacking crores of rupees in his house. We have read in the media that the owner of a canteen in Parliament owned a fleet of expensive cars. We read everyother day how money is being squandered in the name of development, how the traffic police makes money, how the government officials move the files (unless it comes weighted with money), and how the public services have to be 'paid' for. The list is endless. And this has been going on for decades now. It is not a new phenomenon.
You will also agree that what appears in the media is not even a tip of the iceberg. We are a corrupt nation, whether we like it or not. Transparency International ranks India 85th in an index of 180 countries. Transparency International's India chairperson, R H Tahiliani, was quoted in the media as saying that police, politics and lower judiciary were the worst dens of corruption.
Rajiv Gandhi has once said that only 15 paise from a rupee that is allocated for the rural areas reaches the true beneficiary. Rahul Gandhi now says that it is only 10 paise. We have used these statements in our media debates but no one has ever quantified how much is the money that is squandered on the way, or in practical terms pocketed by the functionaries in the name of development. A recent report in Nai Duniya has made an effort to quantify the amount. It says in the past five years, Rs 2,394 billion, earmarked for rural development has simply disappeared. And this is only the money that has been officially provided for rural development in the past five years. Imagine the colossal amount that has been pocketed in the past four decades, if we were to be a little conservative in our estimates.
You will agree that not all of this has flown out of the country. In fact, only a few of us are privileged to hoard blackmoney in safe tax-havens abroad. The US-based Global Financial Integrity has ranked India fifth in a list of 160 developing countries suffering outflow of huge amounts through illicit channels. Accordingly, US $ 27 billion flows out illegally every year from India.
Now, where does the rest of the unaccounted money go? No where. It says within the country.
Let us face it. Over the years, our parents, relatives and friends (ofcourse there are exceptions, and a lot many honest people live simple lives) have made money by illegal means. Don't get angry, even if you want to deny it I will accept it. But the fact remains that if corruption is so rampant, it is quite obvious those who indulged in it were somebody's relative. And when economic liberalisation came, it provided an opportunity to take out the unaccounted money and invest. Real estate boomed. Stock market grew. People invested in expensive cars and expensive gadgets, dining out every other day, and frequent holidays abroad.
In some way or the other we are all beneficiaries of the parallel economic system that prevails in this country. You don't need the economic understanding of economist Arun Kumar to know the influence of unaccounted money in our economic prosperity. Corruption has really paid us well. We all crib at someone else's corruption, but we try to remain discreet when it comes to our own share. We think we are the only ones who are honest, rest everyone is corrupt. We know it is not true and yet we want to flaunt this image. It is all about images, my dear. We live in times where images count.
Nevertheless, it is the tainted money, the unaccounted wealth that has propelled this country into a new-found economic prosperity. Economists will not accept this because it falls outside the gambit of their textbooks. Policy makers will remain quiet because like politicians they too are beneficiaries of this corrupt system. Private sector will only tarnish the public sector as corrupt, maintaining complete silence at the massive swindles that place in government approvals and acquisitions. I have often said that what makes corruption in a developing country like India different from the rich and industrialised countries is that in India corruption is decentralised. Every one can make money the illegal way. In the developed countries, there is massive corruption but at the top level only. Corruption is centralised in developed countries.
Does it mean that a democratically-elected but corrupt country has a better distribution pattern for the unaccounted wealth? Does it not mean that corruption can lead to economic prosperity?
Of course, it doesn't trickle down to the majority. In India, 77 per cent of the population is able to spend only Rs 20 a day. They may be victims of corruption, but certainly are not the beneficiaries. It is the remaining 23 per cent, and that includes the middle class, that has benefitted. The country's economic growth is measured in the purchasing power exhibited by the middle class. This is the real Shining India. Let there be no qualms about it.
Isn't it time we change our perception about economic prosperity?
May 8, 2009
China's Untold Story 1 -- Abandoned cities
China is projected as the global model of growth. Every developing country wants to be part of the Chinese economic boom. India goes a step further, it wants to emulate the Chinese model. Such has been the media blitz about the extraordinary developments that have taken place in China that most educated people believe in it. The glitter and glamour of Shinghai being too strong to even ask an uncomfortable question. Behind the unprecedented growth is hidden a sordid story of environmental destruction with tremendous socio-economic and political implications.
The more I read about China's stupendous growth, the more I am reminded of the book Collapse by Jared Diamond. If you haven't read it, pick up your copy at the next given opportunity.
Anyway, I am so glad that The Pulitzer Centre for Crisis Reporting has done an excellent series on China's Growing Sands. The first part of the series below is from Sean Gallaghar, a photographer. In the days to come, I will try to reproduce the series on this blog with due credits to the Pulitzer Centre for Crisis Reporting. It opens up our eyes to the devastation taking place in China. These reports are from the other side, and bring you the untold stories.
I hope this series will change your perception about growth economics, and will make you sit back and think. Are we being led on a garden path? Do we even know where are we heading towards? Do we want our cities to collapse, and the countryside to trun into a desert? Well, the decision wrests with you. You can't be a Pappu anymore. If you can come out and vote, you too can raise your voice and make a difference in the national thinking. Pick up your pen and write. Stand up and ask the right question. Don't hesitate to ask even if you think it may be politically incorrect to say so.
China's Abandoned cities
By Sean Gallagher, for the Pulitzer Center
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Human remains scatter the floor in the abandoned city of Yinpan. A result of a combination of natural erosion revealing graves and disturbance by grave robbers.
It is estimated that nearly 40 cities have been abandoned as a result of desertification in Northwest China in the past 2000 years. The old city of Yinpan, which lies approximately 300km east of the modern city of Korla in China’s western Xinjiang province, is one of those cities. Lying on the fringes of China’s most formidable desert, the Taklamakan, its location is one of the harshest and most remote in all of China.
Approximately 2000 years ago, the city of Yinpan was a successful, thriving and eclectic city. Welcoming travelers from across Asia, plying the legendary Silk Road, the city was populated by a diverse mix of ethnic groups originating from the now-known Middle East, Mongolia and Western China. The city’s exact beginnings are unclear, but what is known, is that nature and man inadvertently conspired to fuel the city’s rapid demise some 1500 years ago.
To continue reading the report, click on http://pulitzercenter.typepad.com/untold_stories/2009/05/china-abandoned-cities.html#more
The more I read about China's stupendous growth, the more I am reminded of the book Collapse by Jared Diamond. If you haven't read it, pick up your copy at the next given opportunity.
Anyway, I am so glad that The Pulitzer Centre for Crisis Reporting has done an excellent series on China's Growing Sands. The first part of the series below is from Sean Gallaghar, a photographer. In the days to come, I will try to reproduce the series on this blog with due credits to the Pulitzer Centre for Crisis Reporting. It opens up our eyes to the devastation taking place in China. These reports are from the other side, and bring you the untold stories.
I hope this series will change your perception about growth economics, and will make you sit back and think. Are we being led on a garden path? Do we even know where are we heading towards? Do we want our cities to collapse, and the countryside to trun into a desert? Well, the decision wrests with you. You can't be a Pappu anymore. If you can come out and vote, you too can raise your voice and make a difference in the national thinking. Pick up your pen and write. Stand up and ask the right question. Don't hesitate to ask even if you think it may be politically incorrect to say so.
China's Abandoned cities
By Sean Gallagher, for the Pulitzer Center
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Human remains scatter the floor in the abandoned city of Yinpan. A result of a combination of natural erosion revealing graves and disturbance by grave robbers.
It is estimated that nearly 40 cities have been abandoned as a result of desertification in Northwest China in the past 2000 years. The old city of Yinpan, which lies approximately 300km east of the modern city of Korla in China’s western Xinjiang province, is one of those cities. Lying on the fringes of China’s most formidable desert, the Taklamakan, its location is one of the harshest and most remote in all of China.
Approximately 2000 years ago, the city of Yinpan was a successful, thriving and eclectic city. Welcoming travelers from across Asia, plying the legendary Silk Road, the city was populated by a diverse mix of ethnic groups originating from the now-known Middle East, Mongolia and Western China. The city’s exact beginnings are unclear, but what is known, is that nature and man inadvertently conspired to fuel the city’s rapid demise some 1500 years ago.
To continue reading the report, click on http://pulitzercenter.typepad.com/untold_stories/2009/05/china-abandoned-cities.html#more
May 6, 2009
Thank you, Mr Obama. You have sown the seeds of an economic renovation
This is a historic decision. It goes beyond what the economic textbooks teach us. It will surely upset the mainline economists (and the economic and business journals), and will therefore come in for some sharp criticism. But to any sensible person, whether he is an economist or an educated unemployed, the US President Barack Obama's proposal to reform tax structures by scrapping incentives for American companies outsourcing services to other nations, is the First Commandent of a New Global Economic Renovation.
Thank you, Mr Obama. You have sown the seeds of what I call as an economic renovation.
Hitting hard at the current taxation system, of which he has been very critical since his election days, he said: "It is a tax code that says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York." Unveiling his tax reform agenda at the White House in Washington, Mr Obama added: "The way we make our business competitive is not to reward American companies operating overseas with a roughly two per cent tax rate on foreign profits; a rate that costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year."
He of course want the US companies to remain most competitive in the world. "But the way to make sure that happens is not to reward our companies for moving jobs off our shores or transferring profits to overseas tax havens." Well said, Mr Obama. You are the first President that I know who had dared to think out of the box, and that too of a box that is coloured with human blood and sweat. I am aware that your move will hit the Indian IT sector hard, but that's a small price for making a historic correction.
Newspaper headlines in India clearly tell you that India Inc is not happy. After all, 60 per cent is the US share in the business of India's IT-BPO industry; US $ 47 billion is the total worth of India's IT-BPO industry; employing less than 2 million professionals (it is 1.7 million by the latest count).
About 5.1 million jobs have vanished in the US since December 2007. The job of any President or Prime Minister should be to protect as well as create more jobs in his/her country rather than to fill the coffers of big business. Mr Obama has shown the right way.
What shames me is that to protect the business interests of a handful of IT companies, India had been more than willing to sacrifice the livelihood of a majority of 600 million farmers. If you have followed the ongoing WTO negotiations, India has always been asserting that lifting protection in agriculture is necessary to make agriculture competitive and at the same time is a trade-off to meet the rising aspirations of the educated young (read IT professionals).
But let us first look at what the economists and analysts (don't forget their role in the economic meltdown) have to say. Some say that any protectionist initiative by the US government could delay an economic recovery. An article in the April 6 issue of Time weekly calls such protective measures as The Road to Ruin. Obviously, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is worried at the growing protectionism and slowing trade worldwide.
I am not the least surprised. Whether it is the WTO or Time magazine or the World Bank chief Robert Zullick, they all work for big business. Their job is to protect the commercial interest of the multinational corporations and financial institutions. Although they use the arguement of creating more jobs to justify the unhindered march of the MNCs, the fact remains that the theory of 'comparative advantage' on which this assumption is based is fundamentally flawed. It is based on wrong analysis and assumptions. Take for instance the case of oilseeds. The World Bank had been telling India to reduce the area and production under oilseeds because of its uncompetitiveness vis a vis the American soybean. But what it cleverly hid is the fact that the amount of subsidies that go into soybean production in the US is more than the total output in value terms of oilseeds produced in India.
How can you measure the 'comparative advantage' of a commodity which is highly subsidised with an output that does not receive even a fraction of the subsidies received in the US? I have always been saying that American agriculture (or for that matter agriculture in OECD countries) is competitive as long as it continues to receive subsidies. Remove these subsidies, agriculture in the US and Europe will collapse like a house of cards.
'Comparative advantage' is what has been behind the outsourcing of US jobs to India. Over the last few months, most of the BPO jobs have also deserted India, and moved to still cheaper destinations like the Philippines.
This is no sensible economics by any standards. We all know that the rich and developed countries had protected their own economies when they were in the process of development. Historically, all over the world protectionism has led to development. After reaching a stage where they don't need the protective ring anymore, the industrialised countries are forcing the majority world to open up their borders and allow for cheaper imports to come in. You do what we tell you to do, not what we did (is what these rich countries tell the poor nations).
If you see a report that I and my colleagues have compiled on the impact of WTO Agreement on Agriculture in its first 10 years, you will be shocked to see how millions of jobs have been destroyed in the developing world. Food is becoming cheaper but the people who produce food are being kicked out of the farms, and further marginalised.
Whether the WTO/World Bank/or the American universities like it or not, the only way to grow economically and emerge out of the economic recession is by creating more jobs. This will spur growth and demand, and kickstart the economy. And this can happen only if nations take adequate steps to see that domestic jobs are not lost to outsourcing. Hats off to Mr Obama for demonstrating political courage at a time when the world is being ruled by economic lunacy.
Mr Obama would do well to remember what Mahatma Gandhi had once said. What we need is a production system by the masses and not for the masses. The key to economic sustainability and justice lies in what Mahatma Gandhi had said. Mr Obama, let this be your talisman. And mark my words, you will never fail.
Thank you, Mr Obama. You have sown the seeds of what I call as an economic renovation.
Hitting hard at the current taxation system, of which he has been very critical since his election days, he said: "It is a tax code that says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York." Unveiling his tax reform agenda at the White House in Washington, Mr Obama added: "The way we make our business competitive is not to reward American companies operating overseas with a roughly two per cent tax rate on foreign profits; a rate that costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year."
He of course want the US companies to remain most competitive in the world. "But the way to make sure that happens is not to reward our companies for moving jobs off our shores or transferring profits to overseas tax havens." Well said, Mr Obama. You are the first President that I know who had dared to think out of the box, and that too of a box that is coloured with human blood and sweat. I am aware that your move will hit the Indian IT sector hard, but that's a small price for making a historic correction.
Newspaper headlines in India clearly tell you that India Inc is not happy. After all, 60 per cent is the US share in the business of India's IT-BPO industry; US $ 47 billion is the total worth of India's IT-BPO industry; employing less than 2 million professionals (it is 1.7 million by the latest count).
About 5.1 million jobs have vanished in the US since December 2007. The job of any President or Prime Minister should be to protect as well as create more jobs in his/her country rather than to fill the coffers of big business. Mr Obama has shown the right way.
What shames me is that to protect the business interests of a handful of IT companies, India had been more than willing to sacrifice the livelihood of a majority of 600 million farmers. If you have followed the ongoing WTO negotiations, India has always been asserting that lifting protection in agriculture is necessary to make agriculture competitive and at the same time is a trade-off to meet the rising aspirations of the educated young (read IT professionals).
But let us first look at what the economists and analysts (don't forget their role in the economic meltdown) have to say. Some say that any protectionist initiative by the US government could delay an economic recovery. An article in the April 6 issue of Time weekly calls such protective measures as The Road to Ruin. Obviously, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is worried at the growing protectionism and slowing trade worldwide.
I am not the least surprised. Whether it is the WTO or Time magazine or the World Bank chief Robert Zullick, they all work for big business. Their job is to protect the commercial interest of the multinational corporations and financial institutions. Although they use the arguement of creating more jobs to justify the unhindered march of the MNCs, the fact remains that the theory of 'comparative advantage' on which this assumption is based is fundamentally flawed. It is based on wrong analysis and assumptions. Take for instance the case of oilseeds. The World Bank had been telling India to reduce the area and production under oilseeds because of its uncompetitiveness vis a vis the American soybean. But what it cleverly hid is the fact that the amount of subsidies that go into soybean production in the US is more than the total output in value terms of oilseeds produced in India.
How can you measure the 'comparative advantage' of a commodity which is highly subsidised with an output that does not receive even a fraction of the subsidies received in the US? I have always been saying that American agriculture (or for that matter agriculture in OECD countries) is competitive as long as it continues to receive subsidies. Remove these subsidies, agriculture in the US and Europe will collapse like a house of cards.
'Comparative advantage' is what has been behind the outsourcing of US jobs to India. Over the last few months, most of the BPO jobs have also deserted India, and moved to still cheaper destinations like the Philippines.
This is no sensible economics by any standards. We all know that the rich and developed countries had protected their own economies when they were in the process of development. Historically, all over the world protectionism has led to development. After reaching a stage where they don't need the protective ring anymore, the industrialised countries are forcing the majority world to open up their borders and allow for cheaper imports to come in. You do what we tell you to do, not what we did (is what these rich countries tell the poor nations).
If you see a report that I and my colleagues have compiled on the impact of WTO Agreement on Agriculture in its first 10 years, you will be shocked to see how millions of jobs have been destroyed in the developing world. Food is becoming cheaper but the people who produce food are being kicked out of the farms, and further marginalised.
Whether the WTO/World Bank/or the American universities like it or not, the only way to grow economically and emerge out of the economic recession is by creating more jobs. This will spur growth and demand, and kickstart the economy. And this can happen only if nations take adequate steps to see that domestic jobs are not lost to outsourcing. Hats off to Mr Obama for demonstrating political courage at a time when the world is being ruled by economic lunacy.
Mr Obama would do well to remember what Mahatma Gandhi had once said. What we need is a production system by the masses and not for the masses. The key to economic sustainability and justice lies in what Mahatma Gandhi had said. Mr Obama, let this be your talisman. And mark my words, you will never fail.
Killing Fields
There is excitement on a new-found prosperity in rural areas. Screaming headlines tell us of farmers finding new ways to prosperity. Is that the ground reality?
By Devinder Sharma
http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2009/05/2901
At the height of the green revolution, the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) showcased a prosperous farmer in the outskirts of Ludhiana as the emerging face of agriculture. As a young reporter with the Indian Express, I remember visiting his farm a number of times, and every time I returned from his farm, I woke up with a heady hangover.
There was hardly an evening when Harmik Singh (name changed) would not empty a crate of Peter Scot, quite an expensive whisky those days. No wonder, scientists, industrialists, international visitors, journalists, writers and politicians lined up at his farm. As they devoured chicken with a never-ending flow of liquor, it looked as if farming had suddenly become economically viable; there was prosperity all around.
For 40 years now, ever since the green revolution began in 1966-67, the nation has eulogised the Punjab farmer. Newspapers have, over the years, reported about the visible prosperity ushered in through intensive agriculture. Magazine articles have featured the opulent life style of prosperous Punjabi farmers. It wasn't unusual to see cover stories of farmers driving a Maruti car and relaxing by the side of the pool in their sprawling farm houses.
Not many journalists tried to explore the reasons behind the new-found prosperity. Harmik Singh's rich lifestyle, for instance, had more to do with an agency of pick-up vehicles he had, and which he never talked about. Nor did we try to find out the source of the money flow. We believed what the mainline economists - who misled us all these years because of their own lack of grip over the ground realities - told us.
Punjab is now paying the price of such faulty projections. Agriculture is in distress. It always was. Punjab's underbelly was gradually caving in. We refused to see it. Agriculture not only became economically unviable but also highly unsustainable. Farmers were made to pump in more chemical inputs to maintain their crop harvests. Mining for water to artificially sustain a wheat-rice cropping pattern became a necessity. Intensive farming has finally destroyed the natural resource base.
The farm prosperity we were made to believe in has disappeared. Over the years, indebtedness began growing to phenomenal levels. A recent PAU study shows as many as 89 per cent of Punjab farm households reeling under debt. Debt per farm family today stands at a staggering Rs 1.78 lakh. In other words, for every hectare of land holding, the outstanding debt is Rs 50,140.
Forty years after the green revolution, isn't it a shame to learn that the average income of a Punjab farm family hovers around a mere Rs 3,200 a month? What happened to the rural prosperity that we all knew about? Aren't more and more Punjab farmers abandoning agriculture? Thousands have already committed suicide. With every passing year, more and more farmers are being pushed to the edge.
With non-farm job opportunities drying, escape from Punjab to greener pastures abroad by legitimate and illegitimate means has become a norm. Travel agencies promising jobs abroad are now the fastest growing service industry. Punjab farmers have in reality become a victim of the same economic policies that projected them as country's heroes.
I see a similar trend now. There is excitement all around on a newfound prosperity in the rural areas. Bharat, they say, is now shining. Screaming headlines tell us of farmers finding new ways to prosperity. We hear of mini-agricultural revolutions taking place in every nook and corner of the country. We are told the next phase of growth is expected to come from rural markets and rural India accounting for almost half the domestic retail market, which is valued over $300 billion. The media is again full of success stories.
A higher minimum support price (MSP) since 2005, the Rs 71,000-crore loan waiver in 2008, and a step-up in public spending in agriculture is being held responsible for doubling the farm growth to around three per cent. Some even add that 100 days of assured employment under the NREGA has 'empowered' the rural landless. Isn't all this a measure of the new-found rural prosperity? Will it not propel the economy on a growth trajectory?
Planning Commission member and economist, Abhijit Sen, has this to say: "The idea that agricultural incomes were catching up with the rest is simply false. With overall GDP growth at more than 8 per cent since 2004-05, twice as fast as agriculture, people on the farms were, in fact, falling further behind the rest of the country."
Indeed, while the farm sector is lagging behind, hunger is growing. The 2006-07 report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) brings out the stark truth. What makes the alarming situation still worse is that ever since economic liberalisation was launched in 1991, the NSSO tells us that cereal consumption has been on a steady decline, with no corresponding increase in the intake of more nutritious eggs, vegetables, fruits and milk. It means hunger has been on a rise and is now more widespread and well-entrenched. And, of course, hunger does not reflect in the GDP. What jacks up the GDP is the sale of consumer and industrial goods.
Per capita cereal consumption per month in the rural areas across the country has fallen from 13.4 kg in 1993-94 to 11.7 kg in 2006-07. There has been a corresponding decrease in the urban areas, too. The decline has been sharper between the period 2004 and 2007 when in just three years, cereal consumption fell in rural areas from 12.1 kg to 11.7 kg.
There is no denying that over the past four years rice and wheat procurement prices have risen by 61 per cent and 69 per cent, respectively. Cotton procurement price has gone up from Rs 2,050 per kg in 2007-08 to Rs 3,000 per kg in 2008-09, as a result of which nearly 90 per cent of the crop has been bought by the government agencies. This is a temporary and welcome relief for a beleaguered farming community.
I wonder how can a few hundred more rupees in the pocket of rice, wheat and cotton farmers be construed as a sign of prosperity. More so, considering that the average monthly income of a farm family (as worked out by NSSO in 2003-04) did not exceed Rs 2,115. Ironically, while a farmer earns barely Rs 2,000 every month, a peon in government service has been assured a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 under the Sixth Pay Commission.
What is more worrying is that instead of learning any lessons from the continuing farm debacle, the UPA regime has put the second green revolution on a fast track, which would not only compound the existing crisis but push farmers out of agriculture. Under the Indo-US Initiative in Agriculture Research, Education and Marketing (KIA), an agreement signed with the Bush administration, India is committed to privatisation of agriculture, and vertical integration of farming to promote "farm-to-fork" model wherein farmers are not required.
The Rs 1,000-crore KIA, formally launched by American President George Bush at Hyderabad on March 3, 2005, brings Indian agriculture under the direct control of US corporate houses. With Monsanto, Wal-Mart and ADM sitting on the board of KIA, India has already chosen the future pathway to ensure food security. No wonder, the prime minister has repeatedly talked of a population shift from the rural to the urban centres.
Farmers have to be moved out of agriculture. Economists tell us that there is no other way to growth. But no one tells us where will these farmers go? Which country in the world, including USA, can provide jobs to even 10 million people? Which company/industry in the world, in times of jobless growth, can promise jobs to even one million people? And, we in India are talking of displacing at least 50 per cent of the farming population, close to 250 million, in another 10-15 years. We must be mad. #
By Devinder Sharma
http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2009/05/2901
At the height of the green revolution, the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) showcased a prosperous farmer in the outskirts of Ludhiana as the emerging face of agriculture. As a young reporter with the Indian Express, I remember visiting his farm a number of times, and every time I returned from his farm, I woke up with a heady hangover.
There was hardly an evening when Harmik Singh (name changed) would not empty a crate of Peter Scot, quite an expensive whisky those days. No wonder, scientists, industrialists, international visitors, journalists, writers and politicians lined up at his farm. As they devoured chicken with a never-ending flow of liquor, it looked as if farming had suddenly become economically viable; there was prosperity all around.
For 40 years now, ever since the green revolution began in 1966-67, the nation has eulogised the Punjab farmer. Newspapers have, over the years, reported about the visible prosperity ushered in through intensive agriculture. Magazine articles have featured the opulent life style of prosperous Punjabi farmers. It wasn't unusual to see cover stories of farmers driving a Maruti car and relaxing by the side of the pool in their sprawling farm houses.
Not many journalists tried to explore the reasons behind the new-found prosperity. Harmik Singh's rich lifestyle, for instance, had more to do with an agency of pick-up vehicles he had, and which he never talked about. Nor did we try to find out the source of the money flow. We believed what the mainline economists - who misled us all these years because of their own lack of grip over the ground realities - told us.
Punjab is now paying the price of such faulty projections. Agriculture is in distress. It always was. Punjab's underbelly was gradually caving in. We refused to see it. Agriculture not only became economically unviable but also highly unsustainable. Farmers were made to pump in more chemical inputs to maintain their crop harvests. Mining for water to artificially sustain a wheat-rice cropping pattern became a necessity. Intensive farming has finally destroyed the natural resource base.
The farm prosperity we were made to believe in has disappeared. Over the years, indebtedness began growing to phenomenal levels. A recent PAU study shows as many as 89 per cent of Punjab farm households reeling under debt. Debt per farm family today stands at a staggering Rs 1.78 lakh. In other words, for every hectare of land holding, the outstanding debt is Rs 50,140.
Forty years after the green revolution, isn't it a shame to learn that the average income of a Punjab farm family hovers around a mere Rs 3,200 a month? What happened to the rural prosperity that we all knew about? Aren't more and more Punjab farmers abandoning agriculture? Thousands have already committed suicide. With every passing year, more and more farmers are being pushed to the edge.
With non-farm job opportunities drying, escape from Punjab to greener pastures abroad by legitimate and illegitimate means has become a norm. Travel agencies promising jobs abroad are now the fastest growing service industry. Punjab farmers have in reality become a victim of the same economic policies that projected them as country's heroes.
I see a similar trend now. There is excitement all around on a newfound prosperity in the rural areas. Bharat, they say, is now shining. Screaming headlines tell us of farmers finding new ways to prosperity. We hear of mini-agricultural revolutions taking place in every nook and corner of the country. We are told the next phase of growth is expected to come from rural markets and rural India accounting for almost half the domestic retail market, which is valued over $300 billion. The media is again full of success stories.
A higher minimum support price (MSP) since 2005, the Rs 71,000-crore loan waiver in 2008, and a step-up in public spending in agriculture is being held responsible for doubling the farm growth to around three per cent. Some even add that 100 days of assured employment under the NREGA has 'empowered' the rural landless. Isn't all this a measure of the new-found rural prosperity? Will it not propel the economy on a growth trajectory?
Planning Commission member and economist, Abhijit Sen, has this to say: "The idea that agricultural incomes were catching up with the rest is simply false. With overall GDP growth at more than 8 per cent since 2004-05, twice as fast as agriculture, people on the farms were, in fact, falling further behind the rest of the country."
Indeed, while the farm sector is lagging behind, hunger is growing. The 2006-07 report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) brings out the stark truth. What makes the alarming situation still worse is that ever since economic liberalisation was launched in 1991, the NSSO tells us that cereal consumption has been on a steady decline, with no corresponding increase in the intake of more nutritious eggs, vegetables, fruits and milk. It means hunger has been on a rise and is now more widespread and well-entrenched. And, of course, hunger does not reflect in the GDP. What jacks up the GDP is the sale of consumer and industrial goods.
Per capita cereal consumption per month in the rural areas across the country has fallen from 13.4 kg in 1993-94 to 11.7 kg in 2006-07. There has been a corresponding decrease in the urban areas, too. The decline has been sharper between the period 2004 and 2007 when in just three years, cereal consumption fell in rural areas from 12.1 kg to 11.7 kg.
There is no denying that over the past four years rice and wheat procurement prices have risen by 61 per cent and 69 per cent, respectively. Cotton procurement price has gone up from Rs 2,050 per kg in 2007-08 to Rs 3,000 per kg in 2008-09, as a result of which nearly 90 per cent of the crop has been bought by the government agencies. This is a temporary and welcome relief for a beleaguered farming community.
I wonder how can a few hundred more rupees in the pocket of rice, wheat and cotton farmers be construed as a sign of prosperity. More so, considering that the average monthly income of a farm family (as worked out by NSSO in 2003-04) did not exceed Rs 2,115. Ironically, while a farmer earns barely Rs 2,000 every month, a peon in government service has been assured a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 under the Sixth Pay Commission.
What is more worrying is that instead of learning any lessons from the continuing farm debacle, the UPA regime has put the second green revolution on a fast track, which would not only compound the existing crisis but push farmers out of agriculture. Under the Indo-US Initiative in Agriculture Research, Education and Marketing (KIA), an agreement signed with the Bush administration, India is committed to privatisation of agriculture, and vertical integration of farming to promote "farm-to-fork" model wherein farmers are not required.
The Rs 1,000-crore KIA, formally launched by American President George Bush at Hyderabad on March 3, 2005, brings Indian agriculture under the direct control of US corporate houses. With Monsanto, Wal-Mart and ADM sitting on the board of KIA, India has already chosen the future pathway to ensure food security. No wonder, the prime minister has repeatedly talked of a population shift from the rural to the urban centres.
Farmers have to be moved out of agriculture. Economists tell us that there is no other way to growth. But no one tells us where will these farmers go? Which country in the world, including USA, can provide jobs to even 10 million people? Which company/industry in the world, in times of jobless growth, can promise jobs to even one million people? And, we in India are talking of displacing at least 50 per cent of the farming population, close to 250 million, in another 10-15 years. We must be mad. #
May 5, 2009
Plants have become unhealthy, and so have you
You must be wondering as to what has happened to you food. You eat a lot or at least you eat enough and yet your body does not get the required nutrition, minerals and vitamins. You try to make it up with food supplements, and other nutritional foods that are available off the shelf, and you knowingly or unknowingly fall into health-related problems. The food in your food has simply disappeared.
The food equation has gone topsy turvy after the 2nd World War. Belive it or not, it is the intensive farming system that the Green Revolution promoted that has actually sapped the nutrients from your food. Your food is not only tasteless but is also devoid of nutrients. You fill your belly, but your body remains deprived of the building elements. Your body is like a tall building with a weak foundation, and you know what can happen to it.
The other day I was listening to an interesting radio programme called The Food Chain (http://www.metrofarm.com/). I have been off and on listening to it on the web ever since I was invited to be on the show some years back while I was travelling in California. I still recall how wonderful it was to be on this live radio show with Michael Olson, and with a number of callers asking you meaningful questions. Coming back, this programme entitled "The Missing Food in Your Food" made me go back to my university days, when we were taught that the high-yielding varieties (HYVs) that were being developed in the agricultural universities actually reduced the nutritional content in these varieties.
We were told that this was a small price to be paid for feeding the nation. The challenge before agricultural scientists was to increase crop productivity, which as you know is a genetic character and is directly proportionate to a fall in nutrition. In simple words, it means that the more productive a plant is, there is a proportionate decline in nutrients, minerals and vitamins.
In the past six decades, after the 2nd world War, of the 12 important nutrients that scientists studied, there has been a visible decline in six of them. The decline varies from 15 to 40 per cent on an average, with an high of 80 per cent decline in the availability of copper mineral. A shortfall in copper intake results in elevated cholesterol levels. There is a general decline in the availability of calcium and phosphorous in vegetables. The tragedy is that not many nutritionists know of this linkage.
In the radio programme it was told that in case of proteins in wheat, the decline is around 30 per cent. And that reminds me, when I was doing my post-graduation in plant breeding, I had collected some local wheat cultivars from Himachal Pradesh to understand the genotype-environment interaction. One wheat strain that I had picked up from the higher reaches of Chamba actually contained 14 per cent protein. The wheat that we eat today has an average protein content of about 9-10 per cent.
It is quite apparent that the development of HYVs took away the nutrition.
Now let us look at how it happened. It was sometimes in the 1940s and 1950s that scientists began to see the correlation between yield and nutrition. Post 1945, fertiliser use increased in the developed countries accompanied by a drop in the concentration of minerals. Later, with the advent of HYVs in the mid-1960s, and its spread in the developing world, the application of chemical fertilisers also went up globally. As I said earlier, scientists say that fertiliser intake showed a tendency for certain nutrients and mineral content to decline. Last week, another study showed that the increase in fertiliser application has also resulted in the disappearance of biodiversity.
As the soil became unhealthy, so did the plants. In fact, unhealthy soils means that the concentration of adequate minerals declines sharply. This is the primary reason for declining germination in case of wheat seeds. The seeds and the saplings do not get the minerals needed for germination. Soil nutrient deficiency has in any case reached appalling levels in the last few decades.
Anyway, the radio programme also referred to some studies done in UK at a research station in Rothamsted. I had visited this 160-year-old Rothamsted Research station (http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/) some years back. This is the largest agricultural research centre in England and is considered to be the oldest agricultural research centre in the world. I think visiting Rothamsted (for any agricultural scientist or a student in agricultural research) is like going on a pilgrimage to Mecca. What it can teach you can for ever change your perception about modern agriculture, and the inherant destructive power of the intensive farming systems. You just have to see the 160-year-old experiments in sustainability, and you get your answers.
In the radio programme it was mentioned that between 1845 to 1960, studies at Rothamsted showed that the minerals and nutrients in soil as well as in wheat plants had remained stable. The amount of minerals in soils actually increased in some cases between this period because of the build up in organic manure. Which means, the sharp decline in plant nutrients actually came after 1960s. If only we had followed the wisdom of traditional farming system, the food we eat today would have been healthy.
Are we willing to draw any lesson? I doubt it.
The food equation has gone topsy turvy after the 2nd World War. Belive it or not, it is the intensive farming system that the Green Revolution promoted that has actually sapped the nutrients from your food. Your food is not only tasteless but is also devoid of nutrients. You fill your belly, but your body remains deprived of the building elements. Your body is like a tall building with a weak foundation, and you know what can happen to it.
The other day I was listening to an interesting radio programme called The Food Chain (http://www.metrofarm.com/). I have been off and on listening to it on the web ever since I was invited to be on the show some years back while I was travelling in California. I still recall how wonderful it was to be on this live radio show with Michael Olson, and with a number of callers asking you meaningful questions. Coming back, this programme entitled "The Missing Food in Your Food" made me go back to my university days, when we were taught that the high-yielding varieties (HYVs) that were being developed in the agricultural universities actually reduced the nutritional content in these varieties.
We were told that this was a small price to be paid for feeding the nation. The challenge before agricultural scientists was to increase crop productivity, which as you know is a genetic character and is directly proportionate to a fall in nutrition. In simple words, it means that the more productive a plant is, there is a proportionate decline in nutrients, minerals and vitamins.
In the past six decades, after the 2nd world War, of the 12 important nutrients that scientists studied, there has been a visible decline in six of them. The decline varies from 15 to 40 per cent on an average, with an high of 80 per cent decline in the availability of copper mineral. A shortfall in copper intake results in elevated cholesterol levels. There is a general decline in the availability of calcium and phosphorous in vegetables. The tragedy is that not many nutritionists know of this linkage.
In the radio programme it was told that in case of proteins in wheat, the decline is around 30 per cent. And that reminds me, when I was doing my post-graduation in plant breeding, I had collected some local wheat cultivars from Himachal Pradesh to understand the genotype-environment interaction. One wheat strain that I had picked up from the higher reaches of Chamba actually contained 14 per cent protein. The wheat that we eat today has an average protein content of about 9-10 per cent.
It is quite apparent that the development of HYVs took away the nutrition.
Now let us look at how it happened. It was sometimes in the 1940s and 1950s that scientists began to see the correlation between yield and nutrition. Post 1945, fertiliser use increased in the developed countries accompanied by a drop in the concentration of minerals. Later, with the advent of HYVs in the mid-1960s, and its spread in the developing world, the application of chemical fertilisers also went up globally. As I said earlier, scientists say that fertiliser intake showed a tendency for certain nutrients and mineral content to decline. Last week, another study showed that the increase in fertiliser application has also resulted in the disappearance of biodiversity.
As the soil became unhealthy, so did the plants. In fact, unhealthy soils means that the concentration of adequate minerals declines sharply. This is the primary reason for declining germination in case of wheat seeds. The seeds and the saplings do not get the minerals needed for germination. Soil nutrient deficiency has in any case reached appalling levels in the last few decades.
Anyway, the radio programme also referred to some studies done in UK at a research station in Rothamsted. I had visited this 160-year-old Rothamsted Research station (http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/) some years back. This is the largest agricultural research centre in England and is considered to be the oldest agricultural research centre in the world. I think visiting Rothamsted (for any agricultural scientist or a student in agricultural research) is like going on a pilgrimage to Mecca. What it can teach you can for ever change your perception about modern agriculture, and the inherant destructive power of the intensive farming systems. You just have to see the 160-year-old experiments in sustainability, and you get your answers.
In the radio programme it was mentioned that between 1845 to 1960, studies at Rothamsted showed that the minerals and nutrients in soil as well as in wheat plants had remained stable. The amount of minerals in soils actually increased in some cases between this period because of the build up in organic manure. Which means, the sharp decline in plant nutrients actually came after 1960s. If only we had followed the wisdom of traditional farming system, the food we eat today would have been healthy.
Are we willing to draw any lesson? I doubt it.
May 3, 2009
Bt brinjal is unsafe
Bt brinjal is the first genetically modified food crop awaiting approval from the industry-backed Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC). In the last few weeks you have probably read Mahyco's statement from different parts of the country claiming Bt brinjal to be safe, and that the approval will come through by the end of this year.
How safe is Bt brinjal? After all, the Bt gene from the soil bacteria that has been inserted into brinjal produces a toxin. What will happen after the Bt brinjal has been harvested? Will the toxin be still in the fruit? If yes, than will it impact the human body? Will it lead to slow poisoning of the human body?
Addressing this crucial issue, I had written sometime back : Don't just take my word for it. Listen instead to Professor Dave Schubert of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California: "The Bt toxin is 1000 times more concentrated than in Bt sprays, which do not themselves have a history of safe use." In simple words, what Dr Schubert says is that genetically modified Bt plants, and that includes Bt Brinjal, carry a toxin that is a thousand times more potent than what is used to kill insects. Strains of Bt have been used as sprays to control harmful insects.
I haven't yet received any response from the agricultural scientific community. I wonder if they even know of this toxicity study. They only read the pro-GM technology claims, and then become cheerleaders for a risky and unproven technology. And you will see they mock at every study which poses critical questions about the GM technology. That is why GM companies do not invest significantly on maintaining public relations team. With agricultural scientists doing the job free for them, why should they spend on PROs?
Anyway, I posed this question about toxicity to Dr Pushpa Bhargava. Since he has been nominated by the Supreme Court to GEAC, he has been following the recent developments much more carefully and meticulously than all of us. He told me that as per the data presented by Mahyco, the company that is developing Bt brinjal, no tests for 'acute toxicity' have been done. He said that what he is asking for is that tests for 'acute toxicity' to be done with native genes and not with surrogate genes.
Interestingly, he says that when the GEAC was examining the Mayhco's data on toxicity, it emerged from their report that if Bt brinjal is cooked for 5 to 10 minutes, there is no bt protein. "But non-Bt brinjal cooked for 5-10 minutes, is positive for Bt protein." To this, Rajni Warrior, the member secretary of GEAC's reply was that it was a typo mistake.
I wonder how many other typo mistakes are in that document!
According to Dr Bhargava, the fact remains that adequate toxicity tests have not been conducted. The GEAC is merely going by what the company is saying.
I am shocked at the casual manner in which the GEAC is treating the toxicity aspect of Bt brinjal. How can they be so indifferent when it comes to human health? Even college students would be more careful in presenting toxicity data in their research papers than what Mahyco has been allowed to do. But with GEAC, which as I have time again said is a rubber stamp for the biotech industry, obviously the company has nothing to fear.
Please tell me where in India do we cook vegetables with a thermometer in hand? How will we know whether we conform to the cooking temperature to get rid of the toxin? What about the use of raw Bt brinjal in ayurvedic preparations, and also what happens when cows on the street eat Bt brinjal from the public dumps? What will happen when birds like crows for instance feed on brinjals rotting in the garbage dumps?
So far we were told to wash brinjals carefully to get rid of the pesticides toxins. Isn't it true that with Bt brinjal, even if you were to wash the toxins, it will not go away. The toxin is within the brinjal.
And still worse, do we even know how much toxin the Bt gene produces in the brinjal? Dr Bhargava says that the company hasn't spelled this out. Nor has the GEAC asked the company to provide data on all aspects of toxicity. Given this, I am sure you will agree that we need to demand capital punishment for the chairman of the GEAC if any approval granted in his tenure results in health damages. After all, we must hold GEAC accountable for its acts of omission and commission. We can't be treated as guinea pigs any more.
As Dr Bhargava told a recent workshop on GM crops at the Kerala Agriculture University, Thrissur, that the GEAC has also been telling lies. He cited several instances where GEAC had simply lied, including its claim that it had provided an opportunity to NGOs to present their view/analysis on the controversy surrounding the death of thousands of sheep and goat in Andhra Pradesh. Besides AP, animal deaths have also been reported subsequently from Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana.
He said that there is an urgent need to get 29 biosafety tests done before any GM crop is released into the environment. So far only 4 tests are being done, and even these are not being conducted efficiently and in a scientfic manner. All these tests are being performed by the companies, and the GEAC accepts the data provided by the companies. What will shock you to know that at Thrissur many senior agricultural scientists actually said that there is no need for such elaborate safety trials. They were happy with the present testing protocols, and wanted the approval for large-scale field trials to come in quickly.
To this, Usha from Thanal made a very interesting intervention. She said that if GM crops are safe and do not need all these tests than why doesn't the agricultural university ask India to withdraw from the Cartagena Protocol commitments on biosafety? I wonder if many of the professors of plant breeding have actually heard of Cartagena Protocol in the first place? If they didn't know what IAASTD stands for, it is futile to expect them to know what Cartagena Protocol is.
Well, all I can suggest is that if you feel concerned about your health, and the health of the nation, don't rely on the claims made by the GM companies, the GEAC and the agricultural universities. They are simply misguiding you, creating confusion in the minds of the public, and are more concerned about their bank receipts when the GEAC gives it a thumbs up for commercial cultivation. What happens to your health is not their concern, it never was.
PS: If you haven't yet watched Mahesh Bhatt's Poison on the Platter, I suggest you do it now before it gets too late. You can scroll down this blog, and click on the video link provided.
How safe is Bt brinjal? After all, the Bt gene from the soil bacteria that has been inserted into brinjal produces a toxin. What will happen after the Bt brinjal has been harvested? Will the toxin be still in the fruit? If yes, than will it impact the human body? Will it lead to slow poisoning of the human body?
Addressing this crucial issue, I had written sometime back : Don't just take my word for it. Listen instead to Professor Dave Schubert of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California: "The Bt toxin is 1000 times more concentrated than in Bt sprays, which do not themselves have a history of safe use." In simple words, what Dr Schubert says is that genetically modified Bt plants, and that includes Bt Brinjal, carry a toxin that is a thousand times more potent than what is used to kill insects. Strains of Bt have been used as sprays to control harmful insects.
I haven't yet received any response from the agricultural scientific community. I wonder if they even know of this toxicity study. They only read the pro-GM technology claims, and then become cheerleaders for a risky and unproven technology. And you will see they mock at every study which poses critical questions about the GM technology. That is why GM companies do not invest significantly on maintaining public relations team. With agricultural scientists doing the job free for them, why should they spend on PROs?
Anyway, I posed this question about toxicity to Dr Pushpa Bhargava. Since he has been nominated by the Supreme Court to GEAC, he has been following the recent developments much more carefully and meticulously than all of us. He told me that as per the data presented by Mahyco, the company that is developing Bt brinjal, no tests for 'acute toxicity' have been done. He said that what he is asking for is that tests for 'acute toxicity' to be done with native genes and not with surrogate genes.
Interestingly, he says that when the GEAC was examining the Mayhco's data on toxicity, it emerged from their report that if Bt brinjal is cooked for 5 to 10 minutes, there is no bt protein. "But non-Bt brinjal cooked for 5-10 minutes, is positive for Bt protein." To this, Rajni Warrior, the member secretary of GEAC's reply was that it was a typo mistake.
I wonder how many other typo mistakes are in that document!
According to Dr Bhargava, the fact remains that adequate toxicity tests have not been conducted. The GEAC is merely going by what the company is saying.
I am shocked at the casual manner in which the GEAC is treating the toxicity aspect of Bt brinjal. How can they be so indifferent when it comes to human health? Even college students would be more careful in presenting toxicity data in their research papers than what Mahyco has been allowed to do. But with GEAC, which as I have time again said is a rubber stamp for the biotech industry, obviously the company has nothing to fear.
Please tell me where in India do we cook vegetables with a thermometer in hand? How will we know whether we conform to the cooking temperature to get rid of the toxin? What about the use of raw Bt brinjal in ayurvedic preparations, and also what happens when cows on the street eat Bt brinjal from the public dumps? What will happen when birds like crows for instance feed on brinjals rotting in the garbage dumps?
So far we were told to wash brinjals carefully to get rid of the pesticides toxins. Isn't it true that with Bt brinjal, even if you were to wash the toxins, it will not go away. The toxin is within the brinjal.
And still worse, do we even know how much toxin the Bt gene produces in the brinjal? Dr Bhargava says that the company hasn't spelled this out. Nor has the GEAC asked the company to provide data on all aspects of toxicity. Given this, I am sure you will agree that we need to demand capital punishment for the chairman of the GEAC if any approval granted in his tenure results in health damages. After all, we must hold GEAC accountable for its acts of omission and commission. We can't be treated as guinea pigs any more.
As Dr Bhargava told a recent workshop on GM crops at the Kerala Agriculture University, Thrissur, that the GEAC has also been telling lies. He cited several instances where GEAC had simply lied, including its claim that it had provided an opportunity to NGOs to present their view/analysis on the controversy surrounding the death of thousands of sheep and goat in Andhra Pradesh. Besides AP, animal deaths have also been reported subsequently from Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana.
He said that there is an urgent need to get 29 biosafety tests done before any GM crop is released into the environment. So far only 4 tests are being done, and even these are not being conducted efficiently and in a scientfic manner. All these tests are being performed by the companies, and the GEAC accepts the data provided by the companies. What will shock you to know that at Thrissur many senior agricultural scientists actually said that there is no need for such elaborate safety trials. They were happy with the present testing protocols, and wanted the approval for large-scale field trials to come in quickly.
To this, Usha from Thanal made a very interesting intervention. She said that if GM crops are safe and do not need all these tests than why doesn't the agricultural university ask India to withdraw from the Cartagena Protocol commitments on biosafety? I wonder if many of the professors of plant breeding have actually heard of Cartagena Protocol in the first place? If they didn't know what IAASTD stands for, it is futile to expect them to know what Cartagena Protocol is.
Well, all I can suggest is that if you feel concerned about your health, and the health of the nation, don't rely on the claims made by the GM companies, the GEAC and the agricultural universities. They are simply misguiding you, creating confusion in the minds of the public, and are more concerned about their bank receipts when the GEAC gives it a thumbs up for commercial cultivation. What happens to your health is not their concern, it never was.
PS: If you haven't yet watched Mahesh Bhatt's Poison on the Platter, I suggest you do it now before it gets too late. You can scroll down this blog, and click on the video link provided.
May 2, 2009
Who controls agricultural science in India?
Walk into an agricultural university or an agricultural research institute being run by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and you come back dismayed. Gone are the days when agricultural scientists were somehow free and independent to plan their research priorities. When at least you could sit with them and have a free discussion on what was happening in their own laboratories. You could talk to them about the politics prevailing in the university, and how a particular scientist was being benefitted for what he was doing, and so on.
Today, when I walk into an institute or even meet some of these scientists outside at a conference/workshop, I can see their level of discomfort, the uneasiness that settles in the moment you try to find out what is happening in their universities, forget about their laboratories. They are tight-lipped, and if I may say so they are simply terrorised.
And when in the US, a group of 25-odd scientists wrote that now well-known letter saying they were no longer being allowed to conduct any meaningful research, I wasn't surprised or shocked. What actually came to my mind after having read that letter was that how could these scientists muster the courage to say this now. Nevertheless, I think it was very admirable on the part of these scientists to call a spade a spade, and this should inspire more scientists to come out of the GM shackles that is keeping their mouth shut. After all, for how long can you keep a good scientist in a box? For long can you bar a scientist from doing any meaningful research?
I wish someone in India also demonstrates the same kind of courage.
It all begins at the top. The entire research system is so well entrenched in the hands of these biotechnology companies that nothing moves without their tacit approval. We are aware the present Chairman of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB) is also on the board of ISAAA in India. The biotechnology industry therefore has made it openly clear that they have in the past and will in future be overseeing all the selections to the top posts being made. And once this is done, it is easy to ensure that the scientifc community in the university and ICAR institutes fall in line.
Isn't it strange that when Mulayam Singh's government appoints thousands of police personnel, the next government removes them saying that these were political appointees. This didn't happen only in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab too has been faced with a similar controversy. I wonder when will a similar question be asked about all the appointments that the ASRB has made in the tenure of the present chairman?
Denials notwithstanding, such is the terror psychosis that prevails that you cannot aspire to be a dean or director or a vice-chancellor in a university unless you join the GM chorus. Some of these scientists can go to any extent to demonstrate their loyalty. I remember the former vice-chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, had in a debate with me said that if we have accepted Microsoft, what is wrong with Monsanto. I still wonder what is the correlation.
Once the management of the institutes has been adequately managed, these centres become an open field for the company officials. I am amazed at the way the private company officials, move around in the corridors of not only the ICAR but also the universities and institutes. You have to see the easy access and the confort levels with which these company officials operate. Sometimes I wonder whether these company officials are on a deputation with the university. No wonder, you don't hear of many examples of a revolving door in India. Who needs a revolving door when the university doors have been opened completely to private companies.
Take the case of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC). It is loaded with scientists who are actually the cheerleaders for the biotechnology industry. And when Dr Pushpa Bhargava, the Supreme Court nominee to the GEAC, began to ask questions that challenged the unscientific cover the GEAC had very conveniently provided to the companies, the GEAC actually wanted him to be removed from the committee!
I thought any apex committee with good intentions would have drawn from the experience of Dr Pushpa Bhargava and set its own house in order. In fact, Dr Bhargava tells me an interesting story that should tell you for whom is the GEAC actually working for. Although I have been saying for quiet long now that GEAC is basically a rubber stamp for the industry, but still let us listen to what Dr Bhargava says. He only substantiates what I have been saying.
The Bt cotton varieties approved by the GEAC were all hybrids. The Central Cotton Research Institute (CCRI) at Nagpur, has recently developed a non-hybrid Bt cotton which means the gene is now in a variety from which the farmers can save seed and replant the next year. In case of hybrids, farmers have to buy seed for every sowing since the hybrid vigour is lost in the second generation. The CCRI application for approval for this variety had come before the GEAC several times, and yet it was not taken up.
Dr Bhargava says that he finally asked the GEAC chairman as to why it was not being taken up. The chairman replied that this will invite objections from them. Who is them, Dr Bhargava asked, and replied, you mean Monsanto. The chairman is reported to have said yes.
With the appointment of top administrative and scientific positions being overseen by these companies, and with the GM regulatory system virtually in their pocket, these companies have nothing to fear. That is why they are not even remotely concerned at the political stand against GM crops taken by every major political party except for the Congress. If you read the election manifesto of the political parties, it seems very clear that the majority is against the unbridled introduction of GM crops in the country, and yet the industry is not bothered. They know for sure that with agricultural scientists rallying faithfully behind them, they have nothing to fear.
While agricultural scientists never get tired to swear in the name of GM technology, I wasn't amazed when I asked at a recent workshop if any one of them had heard of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), I was only faced with blank stares. Ironically, India is a signatory to the IAASTD, and yet our agricultural scientists do not know anything about it. If only agricultural scientists had started working within the sustainability parameters outlined in the IAASTD, the future of Indian agriculture would be ever-smiling.
Today, when I walk into an institute or even meet some of these scientists outside at a conference/workshop, I can see their level of discomfort, the uneasiness that settles in the moment you try to find out what is happening in their universities, forget about their laboratories. They are tight-lipped, and if I may say so they are simply terrorised.
And when in the US, a group of 25-odd scientists wrote that now well-known letter saying they were no longer being allowed to conduct any meaningful research, I wasn't surprised or shocked. What actually came to my mind after having read that letter was that how could these scientists muster the courage to say this now. Nevertheless, I think it was very admirable on the part of these scientists to call a spade a spade, and this should inspire more scientists to come out of the GM shackles that is keeping their mouth shut. After all, for how long can you keep a good scientist in a box? For long can you bar a scientist from doing any meaningful research?
I wish someone in India also demonstrates the same kind of courage.
It all begins at the top. The entire research system is so well entrenched in the hands of these biotechnology companies that nothing moves without their tacit approval. We are aware the present Chairman of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB) is also on the board of ISAAA in India. The biotechnology industry therefore has made it openly clear that they have in the past and will in future be overseeing all the selections to the top posts being made. And once this is done, it is easy to ensure that the scientifc community in the university and ICAR institutes fall in line.
Isn't it strange that when Mulayam Singh's government appoints thousands of police personnel, the next government removes them saying that these were political appointees. This didn't happen only in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab too has been faced with a similar controversy. I wonder when will a similar question be asked about all the appointments that the ASRB has made in the tenure of the present chairman?
Denials notwithstanding, such is the terror psychosis that prevails that you cannot aspire to be a dean or director or a vice-chancellor in a university unless you join the GM chorus. Some of these scientists can go to any extent to demonstrate their loyalty. I remember the former vice-chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, had in a debate with me said that if we have accepted Microsoft, what is wrong with Monsanto. I still wonder what is the correlation.
Once the management of the institutes has been adequately managed, these centres become an open field for the company officials. I am amazed at the way the private company officials, move around in the corridors of not only the ICAR but also the universities and institutes. You have to see the easy access and the confort levels with which these company officials operate. Sometimes I wonder whether these company officials are on a deputation with the university. No wonder, you don't hear of many examples of a revolving door in India. Who needs a revolving door when the university doors have been opened completely to private companies.
Take the case of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC). It is loaded with scientists who are actually the cheerleaders for the biotechnology industry. And when Dr Pushpa Bhargava, the Supreme Court nominee to the GEAC, began to ask questions that challenged the unscientific cover the GEAC had very conveniently provided to the companies, the GEAC actually wanted him to be removed from the committee!
I thought any apex committee with good intentions would have drawn from the experience of Dr Pushpa Bhargava and set its own house in order. In fact, Dr Bhargava tells me an interesting story that should tell you for whom is the GEAC actually working for. Although I have been saying for quiet long now that GEAC is basically a rubber stamp for the industry, but still let us listen to what Dr Bhargava says. He only substantiates what I have been saying.
The Bt cotton varieties approved by the GEAC were all hybrids. The Central Cotton Research Institute (CCRI) at Nagpur, has recently developed a non-hybrid Bt cotton which means the gene is now in a variety from which the farmers can save seed and replant the next year. In case of hybrids, farmers have to buy seed for every sowing since the hybrid vigour is lost in the second generation. The CCRI application for approval for this variety had come before the GEAC several times, and yet it was not taken up.
Dr Bhargava says that he finally asked the GEAC chairman as to why it was not being taken up. The chairman replied that this will invite objections from them. Who is them, Dr Bhargava asked, and replied, you mean Monsanto. The chairman is reported to have said yes.
With the appointment of top administrative and scientific positions being overseen by these companies, and with the GM regulatory system virtually in their pocket, these companies have nothing to fear. That is why they are not even remotely concerned at the political stand against GM crops taken by every major political party except for the Congress. If you read the election manifesto of the political parties, it seems very clear that the majority is against the unbridled introduction of GM crops in the country, and yet the industry is not bothered. They know for sure that with agricultural scientists rallying faithfully behind them, they have nothing to fear.
While agricultural scientists never get tired to swear in the name of GM technology, I wasn't amazed when I asked at a recent workshop if any one of them had heard of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), I was only faced with blank stares. Ironically, India is a signatory to the IAASTD, and yet our agricultural scientists do not know anything about it. If only agricultural scientists had started working within the sustainability parameters outlined in the IAASTD, the future of Indian agriculture would be ever-smiling.
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