Autobiographies are often highly subjective and therefore only partially true in many respects.While biographies are likely to be more reliable and might give a full account of one’s life.

We seem to live at a time when there is an unprecedented change in our lives.Globally it is so.Globalisation is  now almost a cliche.
Our life on the planet has become enriched and I look up life today with full of new optimism.Yes,there are causes for worry.If you are a historian or  champion of international  peace or   disarmament or an environmentalist you have reasons to be worried.There are such great souls.I count Jimmy Carter one such.Then,I also has to contend with Bill Clinton who is anything but a pessimist! He is also on the agenda of  promoting international good with his Clinton Global Initiative.So,there is much to cheer about.
But as any  serious thinker would be  a troubled soul.There is much to decry.There is what I would call as the trivialisation of  truth.
Has reason triumphed?As hoped for Enlightenment thinkers?It hasn’t.
So,anyone who tries to write about himself  or about one’s own times has to first give an outline of what he or she thinks as the core issues of the times.

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The tangible and the intangible factors

India is seen as an internationally rising economic power. Not only just that perception one gets when one thinks of India as a country of some consequence. It all depends upon who makes this observation. If   you are placed in the USA for your career and livelihood, as most capable Indians today are placed in such strategies bases like American academic campuses or in other services in private corporations as chief executives, as some of our well-known Indian names are doing the rounds, be is in Pepsi or some other MNCs, IT companies, in Silicon Valleys are elsewhere, then you see the Indian brand value in terms of what your peers would approve of or applaud  as your very insightful new discovery or discoveries.

That is how lately, more and more Indians, NRIs, both as holders of American Passport or even holding Indian Passport, you could still be conditioned or under subtle pressure to conform to the American realities and such NRIs, be they intellectuals or just plain high-power executives see India in some America-compatible terms and say India enjoys a high brand value or not.

When it comes to the UK attitudes towards Indian brand value it is plain that India doesn’t enjoy any such brand value, except when it is Indian curry masala or Gandhi or Taj Mahal or poverty!

The Brits are the highly pretentious lot and also some sections of the Indian NRIs from the UK, also entertain such distorted notions when it comes to India and Indian icons like Gandhi.

In a recent book on India, V.S.Naipaul, the Nobel Laureate, has made some damaging observations on Gandhi and others. He seems to pretend to know more than what some of the greatest minds like Romain Rolland and others who knew Gandhi and who also know the Gandhi’s many virtues and shortcomings and yet they all evaluated Gandhi in such a way that Gandhi today symbolises some virtues that are highly rated even by the orthodox Christians and other religious groups.

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Central Vigilance Commission probes the wheat deal!  Please work for self-reliance in wheat!
Keep import as a last ditch option!

Shard Pawar is becoming increasingly an unsure minister. He hogs the news headlines entirely for the wrong reasons. Though he would like to bask in the glory of India’s historic victory in the world cricket match, poor man, he is also caught in the wheat import mishandling deal!
Everyday, he finds himself in the unending food import controversy. This is no good for a man who aspires to be the country’s Prime Minister!
First, he started the wheat import last year. Everyone thought that was the last time India imported wheat. This year? He started very badly. He became a sort of an advocate for wheat imports!

Under him, the big private traders in wheat, the MNCs and the local big fish, ruthless they are always, they are traders and they have none of the scruples one  can at least identify with even the most corrupt government agencies and they showed it this time, in such blatant fashion.
The government decided (or hustled into?)by the big private traders to quote a tender that was unusual. A government quoted a tender that was at such a high cost when the international prices were lower than what the government quoted!
How it came about?

No one knew. All we knew was Pawar’s nine-page letter he wrote to the MPs to wriggle out of the scandal!
Yet, the game doesn’t seem to have been played out.
There is every indication that this time too, in the second year running, the government might resort to wheat even when the local production and stocks are available to meet the PDS targets.

The tragedy of Sharad Pwar is that his time at the Krishi Bhavan hasn’t been a happy one; he is losing so much goodwill as he is inviting the wrath of the mass of farmers in the country. The wheat growing states of Punjab, Haryana and UP are not trusting the agriculture minister’s words and so they are holding back their stocks and hence the government at least this time came forward to raise the MSP. That is good and we welcome it. Our plea is: please give all you can to the domestic grower, instead of squandering away precious foreign exchange for a higher price for the foreign suppliers.

One hopes that the UPA would see the wisdom in keeping up its traditional policy of creating and sustaining self-sufficiency in food grains production. That is India’s only claim to some standing in the otherwise IMF-World Bank dictated economic reforms policies.
There is already the suspicion that most of the policy makers in the current regime are all ex-IMF-World Bank employees only!
So, the public would be weary of any such blasphemy like importing wheat at higher prices than what prevails in the country and thereby bartering away the interests and morale of the Indian farmers.

On a more serious note we have to say that agriculture needs a really serious introspection!
That might come after a new government comes to power? Very likely. It has to. If agriculture proves the drag what chance for the slick talks like 9 plus growth rate or containing inflation etc. Who would bother with such urban intelligentsia talk and that is how our men with no mass base manage to survive and thrive in the New Delhi milieu!

Indian agriculture sector has been changing a lot. In its own momentum. A momentum caused by the larger economic changes in the rest of the core sectors. Urban and rural infrastructure, the national highways, IT and telecommunications, civil aviation, the airports, ports are all impacting lives in the countryside.
There are positive changes; retail chains could add value to agri produce. Yet it is the negative side of the agri strategy that causes concern. Farmers’ suicides continue, the farm distress is still a reality in the countryside. Now, comes the likelihood of mid-term elections. This is no great news. Even in Left-ruled states, more so in W.Bengal in particular, such a diversion of attention would only affect the industrialisation progress. So, this is an election forced by the Left’s own ideological obsessions, not concerned with the ground level realities.

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With the ideology-neutral mandarins-turned politicians log on?
At least next time please ensure a better quality Parliament!
Nuclear power is beside the core issues of governance and credibility!

But it is not a cheap power and we needn’t have much delusions of easy future for our economic growth. Conventional energy sources have to be exploited for economic growth and economic growth has to be broad-based. Next elections would be fought and won(or lost) by the Congress only on the basis of a leadership that changes the current perceptions about its moral credibility to provide a better governance.

Parliament this time, on the eve of an early possible mid-term poll, proved a disaster, as far as the behaviour of the MPs is concerned. Can we hope the next time, in the next Parliament, Sonia Gandhi and other party leaders would give some thought to go for a better quality of ‘personnel’ to improve the working of the Parliamentary institution.

Yes, the concerns are real. Already, Sonia Gandhi and her advisers have proved they can reduce Indian politics to the lowest common denominator, by ’selecting’ not the best but the least best! Now with the anointment of Rahul Gandhi can we expect any qualitative change in Indian politics? New Delhi’s new tribe of “amoral” politicians, the mandarins-turned ideology-neutral politicians class (or coterie?)can only tell!

The quality of the men and women elected as MPs seems to be anything to give us an insight into the minds of leaders like Sonia Gandhi or L.K.Advani and even other Opposition bigwigs like Lalu Yadav and M.Karunanidhi, among the most seemingly loyal supporters of the UPA. Sonia Gandhi doesn’t seem to have a clue to the larger picture. How India and Indian polity can be served and improved better. Her so-called points men and women, like Ambika Soni and R.K.Dhawan, the two caught the pre headlines briefly, gave us an indication, as of course lightweights like Jairam Ramesh as to how poor the Congress party has become lately.

There is no mass base whatever for the Congress numbers, it seems. Even the good enough Doctor, the Prime Minister, is now finding himself a liability to the party with the mid-term polls very much nearing alarmingly closer.

The Prime Minister hasn’t created a crisis but he has also not got anywhere after the signing of the Indo-nuclear deal.

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This time, it is Indo-US agriculture deal! Sharad Pawar owes an explanation to the nation!

You all know the Indo-US nuclear deal! But this one you don’t know this Indo-US deal!
In what appears to be a sort of high nuclear secret deal, this one is actually about another Indo-US agriculture deal! But this is not so called clearly and transparently! It is called in a somewhat foolishly, yes, foolish for the Indians to be driven into calling their deal in such a funny way, it is code-named as “Indo-US Agriculture Knowledge Initiative”! It is neither knowledge nor an initiative at all. It is what the public feared for long as a backdoor entry, as the public suspect, of the big multinational American companies, see the list of the partners in this so-called “knowledge initiative”, the much maligned Monsanto, Wal-Mart and one unheard of name, Archer Daniel Midlands who are all on the board of this new outfit. Then, on the Indian side?

See the ITC and Masanai farms. ITC sells cigarettes for years and had almost ruined the public health. Tobacco and tobacco products are   banned worldwide but here in India this company continues to make huge profits at the cost of the public health and well-being of people. And under some other pretence this company is brought on board. Masani farms? What makes it qualify to join this “knowledge initiative”?

Only Mr.Sharad Pawar, the Union Agri minister must explain to the people. The minister visited the USA last year to further the work of the Indo-US deal in agriculture. The minister held discussions with his counterpart in the USA, Michael Johanns, Senator Saxby Chambliss, chairman of the Senate committee on Agriculture and the eminent agri scientist and Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaugh. Except Borlaugh, the others are unknown quantities and their intentions might not be entirely for advancing the welfare of the Indian farmers, unless proved otherwise.

The point is that this deal aims; let us be open-minded to find out new ways to improve agriculture productivity in India. That is fine and welcome. Towards this end this deal aims to do research to evolve drought and salt-resistant rice strains. Fine.

But then there are other aspects. The names of the MNCs on the board of this deal raise lots of unwarranted suspicions? Yes, we think so.

The MNCs have already done lot of damage the world over by their business practices. Monsanto is a pariah in the country already inviting lots of criticism for its over-priced bt cotton seeds. Wal-Mart has some unethical business practices. It had to close shop in South Korea. Even in the USA it’s buying of agri/food products and selling, it is the biggest retail giant in the world, has raised many questions of ethics and fair business practices.

And why on earth, you couldn’t find any other publicly-known name like Amul or some other agri-food company in India to represent India on the board?

Sharad Pawar is a senior leader and a man with a track record for doing much public service. His own Baramati belt is an example. With all such background, he must be doing things with tremendous public goodwill.

His own Vasanathdada Sugar Institute in Pune, it is said, is said to have undertaken GM sugarcane research with Swiss biotech co. Syngenta. Fine. But as a minister it is his duty to undertake public education and cultivate public opinion on this sensitive sector’s foray into Indian agriculture and that too with American MNCs into these commercially profit-making ventures.

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