What new hopes on agriculture front? Three priorities in agriculture

Water, energy, biotechnology

Inter-linking of the Southern rivers, high investments in
agri-biotechnology, energy efficient management in electricity and water consumption in agriculture.
The National Development Council met with the one single aim of what to do in the Indian agriculture. We have becoming accustomed to speak of India’s “spectacular” economic growth of 9.2 per cent and there is now every indication that the Indian economy will continue to grow on a higher growth path.
The recently met G-8 countries saw fit to invite the G-5 developing countries as participants for the world economy now faces some common opportunities and also some common problems.
Problems like climate change, global warming are giving rise to fears of worldwide deterioration in global  greenhouse emissions and also serious deteriorations in water levels.
So, India has a role to play as a responsible nation in the use of precious resources, water and energy and also in the need to increase our efficiencies in the technological applications like energy conservation etc. Our 380 thermal power from 320 million tonnes of coal gives only 20-30 percent efficiency!

We can produce 50 per cent more electricity from the same quantity of coal.  What Sushil Kumar Shinde’s performance? 

It is pointed out that India consumes as much as Germany in crude oil and yet India produces only one-third of the goods and services in the manufacturing sector as Germany.

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Every one knows the exact reasons!
No one dares to speak out!

We are publishing this magazine, now for more than two decades. And we have built up a dedicated readership. It is not easy to publish an agriculture magazine in English.
All the English publications are newspapers or magazines and all are urban-focused.
No educated Indian thinks of himself or herself as interested in agriculture or rural India. Those of the more prominent ones, both men and women, who are often seem vocal and appear on TV screens, what is called the “page three people” are all well-off people, have government connections, sit on the committees, or  have taken up some public causes as they fit and they run either NGOs or other non-profit or government-grant based activities.
Even the academic experts, retired government servants, the others who are all highly visible in the various NGOs, think of agriculture more in romantic ways than in any serious, direct-people related normal and honest livelihood activity.
We have some 50 or so agri universities. But we haven’t in all our years in this business, ever received one letter or other evidence they read any serious agriculture policy magazine.
By the way, is there any other English language agriculture magazine in India that is read by the public?
It is a hell of a lot of money and effort. It is not financially viable and every other publishing house knows this truth!
If we have chosen any other field, other than agriculture field, we would have got national recognition or awards, Padma Bushans or what have you!
The trouble is that all our experts are experts in cultivating the government, all the time. Then only the government knew you, isnt so?

That is why Indian agriculture is getting neglected, that is the real business of making a living in agriculture.
The Left and the populist parties like the DMK have done enough damage by crushing genuine farmers and promoting factious names as farmers and tenants. Also, by spoiling the farm labour as landless and allotting wastelands. Given the rural reality, such lands would be sold out in no time for the other landowners in the same villages very soon! Is this the land reform we are all still harking upon?

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Dear Meenakshi Mukeherjee,

I read with great your book review in the Economic and Political Weekly for June 2-8 2007 on A.K.Chettiar’s reminiscences of making a documentary on Mahatama Gandhi. In fact, the late A.K.Chettiar was my long time friend and mentor. I knew him for a fairly long time, since my college days in Chennai to his last years. He helped me in writing and also to get to know people at all sorts of places and countries. When I went to Santiniketan for the first time when I was hardly eighteen or so, he gave me a letter of introduction to some friend who came to receive me at the Howrah railway station! Such was his habit that whenever I sought his help there he was. He knew so many people, big and small and Issued to be amazed at his capacity to strike friendships that lasted his lifetime. He brought his unique personal charm and charisma and that you used to find in his friends too.

He was in his prime the most celebrated writer of a translucent Tamil prose style and he was the pioneer in Tamil travel writing. His books sold in thousands in those days and one classic was called, “A Tamil who is a wanderer in the world”. This narrated the worldwide admiration the Gandhi name enjoyed even long before India got freedom. He must have met almost all the Gandhi contemporaries, from Gandhi’s South African colleagues to such names like Romain Rolland and Subash Bose in Vienna and each of such encounters he brought to life in his sensitive portraits in the Tamil language.

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Poets and philosophers! When you think of them, what thoughts immediately spring to mind?

They seem to give much life and light to society.Much of our sense of culture and pure aesthetic pleasures, it m is poets and writers seem to be capable of providing.A society without some intellectual strength cant be a society and cant even survive.It is the intellectual backbone,the philosophers,the thinkers and intellectuals bring to bear.
Yet think of their individual and collective lives.How unstable and often so insecure and isolated they live their lives.

Not many genuine poets or writers or philosophers are fortunate enough to get recognition or material rewards in their life times.Most often,the fame and name ,at all,comes too late or too little to be of any use for them or for their families.The posthumous fame,if and when it comes,it is for the society and not for the families concerned.
Yet,how sad and often tragic, their lives!

I have always been interested in poetry. Reading poetry came long after I started writing poetry.This pursuit and passion remained with me all all along.

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Will the call for conscience vote in the upcoming presidential election in India trigger some unpredictable outcome? An internal rebellion in the Congress?

The nomination papers of B.S.Shekhawat,the Opposition candidate for the Presidency by Natwar Singh,till the other day a leading light of the Sonia Gandhi’s inner circle points to a new development.Mr.Singh is still officially a Congressman,a senior Congress leader with a sort of aura of the Nehru-Gandhi loyalty very much attaching to his persona.And,if Mr.Singh can dare to take on Sonia Gandhi in such a sensitive contest like the Presidential elections,then,what about the more genuinely aggrieved sections within the Congress.There are as many factions as you can count the loyal members in the party and there is no place for guessing the “certainty”,a word made notorious now by none other than the incumbent President, of the outcome of this Presidential race.
One thing is ‘certain’,however.The Congress is very much left to feel the growing loneliness of the leader who is driven not by any visible principles in matters of high state issues.The search and the final zeroing in on an unknown Mrs. Patil for the President’s post has also proved what Sonia Gandhi is like.She is a terribly insecure person and also terribly secretive.See her mid-night parleys with Mayawati,another unpredictable character in Indian politics.They clinch a deal while all the other dependable allies are waiting and watching.Then,a search for an acceptable candidate leads to ruthless elimination,of course on the dogmatic postures of the Left.Then,only a dark horse emerges.
Now,what is the rationale of justifying voting by the Shiv Sena on the strength of the Daughter of Maharashtra and now the Son of Rajasthan!
If the voting is on the bassi of such narrow considerations of sons and daughters of the soil,then caste can also be invoked,as it will surely,given the strength of the caste factor in Indian politics.Then,would come other considerations.So,where do we go from here?From where does the BJP go from a rabid Hindutva to the more liberal face?Yes,Rajnath Singh,the BJP president,has started talking on some “liberal”sentiments,the party’s principles have all gone,with the MPs showing themselves to be any other in taking bribes or indulging in human trafficking.
So,the party loyalty factor is becoming thin and in the Presidential election,party loyalties are likely to be dented.
The one other factor that is very much on everybody’s mind is the money factor!If big money comes into play,then,it will be a real politics of the past kinds.In the 1969 Congress split,in the defeat of V.P.Singh,in the elevation of Chandrashekhar government,we saw the power of the big money.

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Presidential election loses its dignity and gravitas?

Is democracy only a numbers game? If so, then, is politics is all about mere political survival for some persons or some families?

It looks Sonia Gandhi’s approach to matters of high state, the legacy of the Congress party and its ideals and much else seems to be coming under increased strain. To make matters worse for the stature and maturity of Indian democracy, are the other parties, including the BJP and the smaller parties that seem to thrive on a very narrow agenda of self-survival and also to cling on to power by adopting the most cynical and negative approach to what should be a highly moral positioning when it comes to high Constitutional offices.

It looks the current faces of Presidential candidates, be it Mrs.Pratiba Patil or Bhairon Singh Shekhawat or even the current incumbent, Abdul Kalam who has surprisingly expressed his interest to contest and wait for some more days had only added to the emerging confusion. Whose name is being bandied about by the newly formed Third Front, are all honourable names otherwise but now made to look like masks for real politics of the narrow and cynical leaders who lead the parties in the current scenario.
Does the Congress party stand for any high principles? Or, the BJP has an alternative vision for India? Or, for that matter, the various smaller parties, both national and the regional parties are being driven by national interest and national dignity?

The most inexplicable are the so-called “progressive” parties, CPM and CPI and others with tags like socialist or other such names! Why, these parties have only made matters worse by rejecting more qualified candidates and then falling to the trap by the Congress to go for what is widely perceived to be a low profile and low key candidate. The only gratifying argument is the candidate happens to be a woman! Is this all to India’s Presidency? One wonders!

What is supposed to be an election process that is about the dignity and gravitas of the high office of the President of India has suddenly become trivialised by the major political parties in India. The lead was given by the Congress party that suddenly threw off the established conventions and beliefs and went for a candidate who was the least qualified in the perception of the party’s rank and file and also in the public eye.

Mr.Shivraj Patil, the home minister, is surely not the man with the requisite stature as said by one and all.
This also saw Mrs.Sonia Gandhi’s own insecurities and she rejected all the claims of the more seniors in her party and they also didn’t hide their disquiet about her first choice. The final choice saw an unknown woman candidate whose only claim to the post is that she is a woman. In the given atmosphere of political correctness, it is extremely embarrassing to comment on her choice. That is likely to be misconstrued as a slur on the dignity of women in general and also about questioning the supposed trend towards women empowerment.

So, the country waited for  two days before another woman leader, this time, the supremo of the All Indian Anna Dravida Kazhagam, Ms.Jayalalitha calling the choice of Mrs.Patil as” the joke  sprung on the nation by Sonia Gandhi”.

Anyway, the Third Front composing of the 8 regional parties wanted to have its own candidate and they could only come out in favour of Dr.Abdul Kalam, the present incumbent for a second term.

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How a high Constitutional office was dragged to a low common denominator!

The Presidential contest between Mrs.Pratiba Patil and the incumbent Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat has taken some ugly turns.This is most unfortunate.
Given the high office of the President under the Indian Constitution,an office that is both ceremonial and symbolic of the hopes and aspirations and the determination of the Indian people as regarding their freedoms and sovereignty,the sudden burst of anger and indignity after Kalam expressed his readiness to contest the election if promised ” certainty” has led to an outburst by Ms.Jayalalitha,the spokesperson of the United National Democratic Alliance.This Third Front is of course a hastily formed group that was not there some days ago and yet it brought to the fore the hypocrisy and humbug involved the selection of the current Presidential candidate. The reasons given for her selection were bogus.This everybody knows,Sonia Gandhi knows,the Prime Minister knows,so helpless was he,given the constrains on his authority and even on his right for free expression of views.In the event Dr.Singh couldn’t even to bring himself to suggest some eminent names like his friend ,the Nobel Laureate Prof.Amartya Sen or one or two others.Such was the pathetic spectacle that the Prime Minister was seen as just a willing accomplice in the scheming Mrs.Sonia Gandhi was indulging in with her stubborn favorite,Shivraj Patil,the home minister.Poor Patil,he was not acceptable even for a section of the Congress leaders and in quick succession,the others,may be more eminent veterans like N.D.Tiwari,Motilal Vohra and Dr.Karan Singh were all picked up and discarded.The most humiliated of all of them was no doubt Mr.Pranab Mukerjee who was a clear and natural successor to Dr.Kalam ,given his seniority in the government and yet Sonia Gandhi was quite unwilling and in fact fiercely opposed.There were rumours about how Mukerjee was showing his ambitions in the wake of Mrs.Indira Gandhi’s assassination and hence a rival to her husband Rajiv Gandhi who in fact took over as the PM.
Thus,there was this public perception that Mrs.Sonia Gandhi wanted one person who would be subservient to her at all times. More so in 2009,when the next general election might throw up numbers that might create new uncertainties.So,a person in 2009 at Rashtrapathi Bhavan must be pliant to Sonia Gandhi’s wishes.
This became clear when she decided to find an alternative to her first choice Patil.In the fact of the Left resistance to her other names,she was forced back to come up with a dark horse in Mrs.Patil.So Mrs.Patil was never her first choice and in fact,her choice is forced upon an unwilling Mrs.Gandhi.
Now,what threw the whole process of Presidential election into a new low,a new unseemly political contest is the fact that at the last minute when everything seemed settled in favour of Mrs.Patil who,given the numbers in the election college.was set to have a walk over,was the entry of Dr.Abdul Kalam suddenly into the electoral contest.Here is a President who was the idol of the masses,the icon of the middle class prim and proper persona,learned,visionary and given his penchant for science and technology,as the tools for India’s development,everyone thought here was an ideal President.

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India would turn into a food importer?
Yes, says our Agriculture Minister!

Our policy makers have become smug about agriculture! They don’t in fact know what to do to turn agriculture as India’s strength. That is the current tragedy of policy making. All our top ministers are able men. They are widely seen as the most competent in the team. Yet, what is happening in the agri sector. India is desperate to save the food self-sufficiency status. We are fast moving forward, it seems towards turning India into a food importing country.
Even the otherwise strong Asian economies like Japan, South Korea are battling bravely to save their food market from becoming dependent upon the outside market, more so on the US agriculture and food market. Rice in these countries is more symbolic of their survival as independent economies. The world knows how Japan and South Korea are dictated by America. Yet they fight on to keep their food self-sufficiency goals as national honour.

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Biltin Toker, my friend Biltin Toker was my friend at Oxford, he was from Istanbul, Turkey. He studied architecture at Oxford and we became close friends. He used to win prizes for his innovative architecture designs and he and his designs used to be flashed at the Oxford towns local paper, Oxford Mail. After we departed, we used to correspond regularly and I was kept in constant with his art, business and politics. Our ways went in different directions and we lost touch with each other. Suddently now, all of a sudden I got this email from Alaz Toker after he noticed his fathers’s name in one of my artices on my personal blog. I mourn the loss of a dear friend, full of fire and energy and dreams and ideals to create a better world. V. Isvarmurti.

Usually people speak about the good and bad sides of technology and how it(the consumerist mass media society) captures the individual….but this meeting on the internet once again showed/proved me that the facts are not always that bad!… Unfortunately biltin passed away 11 years ago…he was born in 1937 so he was 59 years old when he passed away….Biltin’s father was one of the top doctor’s/prof’s of the country who founded the main 2 hospitals in turkey just after the foundation of the republic in 1923….. Unfortunately, he himself passed away in 1954 when he was 61 years old….our family has a heart problem I believe, like the famous composer Gustav Mahler’s family…. Biltin used to go doctors regularly and he had his check-ups every 6 months…but all of a sudden, he had an heart attack at a bus when he was on his way to a meeting, at the centre of Istanbul-taksim square….

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How it would transform Indian politics?

A new Indian political flavour, this new coalition of regional and smaller parties? Yes, it looks like that. So long it was the two big national parties that headed the coalition politics in India.

Now, it is the regional parties, the smaller parties that are converging towards a new coalition. Or, a new coalition dharma! To that extent, the new coalition must only bring better to the people, the citizens. The more oppressive, the oligarchy-like domination of the rather rigid, undemocratic party structures that characterise the Congress and the BJP, might, let us hope, give way to a more open and a more tolerant and divergent points of view that might be reflected in the new front.
Coalition politics in a democracy could contribute to much good for the people. On the whole, coalition politics enlarges the freedoms of the individuals, the citizens. Sometimes, as in the present situation in India, coalition politics could also cause some deeply-rooted problems. In India now, there is a fairly well-laid foundation for sustained economic growth. Yet, there is also cause for concern, agricultural crisis, rural India’s many issues left unattended, so there are inequities etc. But again on the whole there is cause for optimism on the economic front.
On the political front there is an air of lack of openness in governance, there is unaccountability, there is the dual nature of authority etc.
So, the formation of the Third Front, on-Congress-led and non-BJP-led front could contribute to some evolution and some maturity of democracy.
There is some hope for the formation of two broad-based economic and social philosophy and also very likely for a dilution of the virulent rightwing communal approach by the BJP-led front. As for the Congress-led front, it is very likely in the event of the Congress not winning enough seats to form a government on its own, nor even not winning the last tally of 145; there could be a more viable alternative in the Third Front, more left-centered approach to economic development. Whatever be the rhetoric, whatever the Left may expound or Mr.Chandrababu Naidu says about the need for an alternative economic policy, it is very unlikely the already grown economy, as it is based on the thrust of the private sector can be reversed. Be it W.Bengal where the Buddhadeb government tried only the industrialisation route based on big industrial investments by the private sector or in AP where Mr.Naidu himself has initiated the World Bank-funded big projects model, the need for faster growth would be the common shared economic philosophy in the India of the new millennium.

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