Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh, has decided to give a Valentines Gift to North Indian wheat farmers, of his own accord.
On Valentine's Day, mindful of the falling wheat production levels, and unmindful of the disincentives, that encircle Indian food growing farmers - while the Commerce Ministry and Agriculture Ministry, are busy entertaining the US Commerce Secretary, rather than rebutting his agricultural prescriptions, the Prime Minister has not told the Indian farmers that this Valentine's gift from him is a double edged sword, and actually, one more sacrifice they must make for the nation.
Vish ka pyala pee lo mere lal ... kisan bhai
Jai Jawan Jai Kisan !!!
With much sarcasm, his Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, had claimed last year, at beginning of procurement season, that as Food Minister, it was his "duty to import wheat from anywhere in the world, that he found it cheap".
And that as Food Minister of India, he is more concerned about storage and transportation charges of North Indian wheat, to South Indian wheat eaters.
Thus he justified paying a higher price to Australian farmers than he would tolerate paying to Indian wheat growing farmers.
Thus maybe now, there is a case for having two separate ministers in India for Agriculture, one for North India and one for South India as per the logic of this minister. Or maybe it is just too many duties he is is burdened with for him to be able to do justice to all his contradictory roles.
This year it seems the reasons being given are that it forms part of a slew of measures to arrest inflation.
Wheat and milk export have been banned.
The Cricket Minister and the Sensex Minister, are busy playing the Pied Piper with Indian farmers and Indian consumers.
India currently exports less than 1 lakh tonnes of wheat.
Indian wheat farmers currently produce about 72 million tonnes annually.
India usually imports much more.
Indian inflation has touched 6.58 percent.
45 lakh tonnes of wheat imported by Sharad Pawar, is already in Indian markets.
What a country India is. Incredible India. Rising inflation - ban wheat exports !!!
1. Cant the Indian economy and industry import less oil, introduce fuel energy conservation practices, to stop global warming and play a responsible role in the climate change debate ? In climate change summits, Indian leaders and bureaucrats, blame poverty for India's energy bill, and dependence on hydrocarbon fuels. They mention the average energy consumption of the rural villager and do not mention the fuel guzzling Daimler Chrysler cars being bought by Indians, to show how eco sensitive Indians traditionally are. Real joke, but a trifle absurd one ....
They can fool Indian farmers, but they will not be able to fool the world once the global powers realize the double speak played by Indian elite in climate change arguments, and India's role in pushing up global temperatures.
After all global oil prices are falling for quite some time now, and the civilian nuclear handshake with USA has been accomplished.
2. Cant the Indian stock market, transform to bear from bull, and come to the rescue of Shri Man Mohan Singh, and the Sensex Minister, Shri Chidambaram and relieve currency and monetary pressures on Indian economy ? Cant RBI step in ?
3. Cant the American Commerce Secretary and Agriculture Secretary, help the Indian Commerce Minister with free food imports ?
4. Cant top Indian software companies, export more software services to balance out the import oil and energy bill ?
5. Cant Indian navratnas and private industry, stop importing defence supplies and announce 100% defence materials indigenous production and non reliance on foreign suppliers this coming Republic Day ?
6. Cant the Special Export Zones be incentivised and forced to compete with Chinese imports rather than only focussing on exports in preparation for WTO regime ?
7. Cant the government ministers accept a salary cut this year and eat less wheat ?
8. Cant there be a question about this on Kaun Banega CrorePati ?
9. Could they not forecast wheat outputs in advance and have to intervene only like the arhatiya at harvest time to depress wholesale prices ?
10. Why are the farmers not allowed to enter 10 year advance wheat export contracts with Africa ?
11. Cant all the leading industrialists of India, and the industry bodies and commerce federations, come together in national interest, to arrest rising inflation in India as a small contribution to Shining India ?
12. Cant the finance companies, mortgage banks, construction companies, and housing builders, be persuaded to reduce house prices and work at lower profit margins, as a small sacrfice towards arresting spiralling inflation ? Afterall farmlands, are available very cheap as farmers are dying off one by one.
Indian farmers can text so many questions and answers, if only Shah Rukh Khan will ask these question on prime time media. Aaj Ki Raat...kisanon ke saath...sarkaar se kuchh sawaal ?
The farmers of India, will be ready to pay the full fees of Shahrukh by distress selling their lands, if only he does one special Questions night like this following the Special Valentines Night questions. - Special Kisan Questions Night with Sensex Minister !!!
No, it seems the Indian economists, RBI, Commerce Ministers, Finance Minister and industry are determined that they must give a dubious gift to north Indian wheat farmers this Valentine's Day. All while they tell a different story to the American and European visitors, about opening up domestic Indian markets to finance, health, insurance, food retail, food logistics and food processing multinationals.
And they sing a different tune, from what they do in Delhi, when they represent India in Global Warming and Climate Change summits in foreign countries.
And all in the name of providing wheat buffer stocks, for South Indian wheat eaters and arresting inflation, that the Indian farmer is supposedly responsible for, with his futures commodities trading, his contract farming contracts, his investments in the food retail sector, his global export ambitions under the ambit of WTO.
Do Indian politicians and economists think that Indian farmers are so very illiterate ?
Is this what the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Agriculture Minister and Commerce Minister are sitting in New Delhi for ?
This is in fact, fine tuning by New Delhi and Mumbai, of the rural surplus plunder of last six decades.
In this WTO era, it is now fine tuned into an Exit Policy for Indian farmers.
WTO will never ever be a WTO for Indian farmers, Indian politicians will ensure that. If they are delaying it today, it is only because they are still looking at ways by which WTO can also be yet another tool to deny Indian farmers, control over his life and freedom from the diktats of Delhi and Mumbai.
Congress government is planning an exit policy for Indian farmers.
The Russian thinker Lev Tolstoy, whose statue is standing on Janpath in New Delhi, said this ..."I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself, and others, that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back " - Leo Tolstoy
This Congress government has changed Lal Bahadur Shastri's words to "Jai Jawan, Hai Kisan". What a mockery of Shining India, Incredible India.
Showing posts with label wheat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wheat. Show all posts
Thursday, 15 February 2007
Tuesday, 30 January 2007
Food Minister or Agriculture Minister ?
I recently read a statement by Shri Sharad Pawar in the course of a TV interview by Karan Thapar, asking him, what was his response to the powerless accusation made that the Indian Congress government, is much happier "importing wheat from an Australian corporation," than from local Indian farmers who are silently playing out the dance of death in the Indian killing fields, especially in the very states the Agriculture Minister represents.
The honourable minister referred to the peculiar difficulty of his situation. Maybe he does have a point. He referrred to his role as that of being burdened with the twin responsibilities of being the Food Minister as well as the Agriculture Minister of the second most populous country in the world - India.
India also happens to have the largest number of farm dependant population, that is, those who have no sources of income other than from farming, a fact often forgotten in global negotiations on tariffs and agricultural subsidies.
I quote his response - "As representative of the government, I know better than the papers. Suppose I purchase wheat from Punjab and Haryana and if I have to sell it to the entire South India, my yearly storage charges and my transport charges alone cost me Rs 1,150 to Rs 1,160 per quintal.
My import price from Australia in southern India is somewhat close to Rs 950.
It is my responsibility to protect the interests of the consumer, and for the sake of protecting the interests, I have to build up my buffer stock, and essentially in southern India. For the sake of building the buffer stock, in the case of an eventuality, I have no choice, I will import from anywhere..."
This is very interesting and maybe a precursor to the changed Indian position in the Doha talks.
Suddenly, the Indian minister is finding a conflict in his position as Food Minister and as Agriculture Minister.
While on the one hand he is happy that farmers have the option to "not sell" wheat to the government, he is also very concerned about the wheat consumers of South India.
Does it not make sense to relieve the minister of his dual responsibilities, so that there can be separate ministers for Agriculture and for Food ? He will then not have to play pick and choose and can truly represent his constituency more appropriately.
Afterall, the constituency of food growers is very large, and now, with farmers quitting agriculture, thanks to an undeclared farm exit policy, the constituency of urban food consumers is also very large.
Yes Minister, you do have a point. There needs to be some urgent action and the terrible burden on his shoulders must be released. He can choose which ministry he wants to keep and the other can be given to effect one more expansion of the Cabinet.
In case he chooses the Food Ministry, then he can the promote the ill fated Doha Round of WTO talks. The WTO Head, the EU Trade Commissioner and now the US Agriculture Secretary, have suddenly woken up to the need for progressing on the collapsed Doha talks. Many rapid fire visits have been made to Indian and Brazil capitals, in an attempt to rope in the shakers and the movers of the Indian trade and agriculture ministries.
Of course, the poor African farmers, the Indian farmers, and all those who are supposed to benefit from WTO revival, are still not aware that such hectic and back breaking efforts are being made " on their behalf " by such good intentioned folks.
The honourable minister referred to the peculiar difficulty of his situation. Maybe he does have a point. He referrred to his role as that of being burdened with the twin responsibilities of being the Food Minister as well as the Agriculture Minister of the second most populous country in the world - India.
India also happens to have the largest number of farm dependant population, that is, those who have no sources of income other than from farming, a fact often forgotten in global negotiations on tariffs and agricultural subsidies.
I quote his response - "As representative of the government, I know better than the papers. Suppose I purchase wheat from Punjab and Haryana and if I have to sell it to the entire South India, my yearly storage charges and my transport charges alone cost me Rs 1,150 to Rs 1,160 per quintal.
My import price from Australia in southern India is somewhat close to Rs 950.
It is my responsibility to protect the interests of the consumer, and for the sake of protecting the interests, I have to build up my buffer stock, and essentially in southern India. For the sake of building the buffer stock, in the case of an eventuality, I have no choice, I will import from anywhere..."
This is very interesting and maybe a precursor to the changed Indian position in the Doha talks.
Suddenly, the Indian minister is finding a conflict in his position as Food Minister and as Agriculture Minister.
While on the one hand he is happy that farmers have the option to "not sell" wheat to the government, he is also very concerned about the wheat consumers of South India.
Does it not make sense to relieve the minister of his dual responsibilities, so that there can be separate ministers for Agriculture and for Food ? He will then not have to play pick and choose and can truly represent his constituency more appropriately.
Afterall, the constituency of food growers is very large, and now, with farmers quitting agriculture, thanks to an undeclared farm exit policy, the constituency of urban food consumers is also very large.
Yes Minister, you do have a point. There needs to be some urgent action and the terrible burden on his shoulders must be released. He can choose which ministry he wants to keep and the other can be given to effect one more expansion of the Cabinet.
In case he chooses the Food Ministry, then he can the promote the ill fated Doha Round of WTO talks. The WTO Head, the EU Trade Commissioner and now the US Agriculture Secretary, have suddenly woken up to the need for progressing on the collapsed Doha talks. Many rapid fire visits have been made to Indian and Brazil capitals, in an attempt to rope in the shakers and the movers of the Indian trade and agriculture ministries.
Of course, the poor African farmers, the Indian farmers, and all those who are supposed to benefit from WTO revival, are still not aware that such hectic and back breaking efforts are being made " on their behalf " by such good intentioned folks.
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