Subject the ICAR to social adutdit!
By farmers bodies!
Even high ceremonial speeches must shed cliches
and get to the more earthy and ground level realities!

There was this ceremony to lay the foundation stone for the ICAR auditorium in the name of C.Subramaniam. And another to commemorate Annasheb P.Shinde, the two who presided over the Krisih Bhavan and did much good work that saw the Green Revolution to change Indian’s agriculture. All this is well-said, many times before.
The point we want to highlight here is the sort of speeches we have come to hear on such occasions. More so, when it comes to agriculture, we see still a sort of tendency and even plain ignorance and even sheer callousness towards the reality and even speaking the truth.

We live no more in times where people would take our public speeches and more so, our public postures especially when it comes from high Constitutional office holders any more seriously.

This is very critical a time when people are taken for rides by ruthless operators whose another name is politicians!

We see the high Constitutional office holders are no more inspiring the people and we see the holders of such high offices also don’t live up to the expectations of the people.
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PSBs badly managed! Inefficient, wasteful of customers’ time and resources!

You can’t but revamp the co-operative credit institutions if you are serious about saving the farmers! Serving the farmers’ long-term interest!

The Finance Minister must revamp a whole lot of banking and financial institutions!
The debt waiver scheme is okey but not the end of the road. It is not even the beginning of the road towards what the Indian government must be doing in order to reach out to the farmers.

The PSB banks first are not the right vehicle to help the farmers. Already their track record is not that encouraging. They never bothered to stick to any targets in priority sector lending. The Prime Minister never once in his lifetime seemed to had any interest in the agri sector. That we have to keep in mind why he ,as the Prime Minister, before that as Finance Minister and even before that as the Governor of Reserve Bank of India had done anything the country would care to remember, as far as reforming the banking sector.

Many of the great schemes and dreams have remained on paper. The creation of a National Agriculture Bank, National Agricultural Co-operative Bank. The great many veteran co-operators have all been sidelined in the new scheme of things. There is not even any mention of the role of the co-operative institutions in the agriculture credit delivery scheme or the debt waiver.

We visited one PSB bank recently and found the regional office busy with the visit of the Executive Director from Mumbai for what? To supervise the preparation of the debt waiver list!

Yes, the Finance Minister then followed the same route. The Finance Minister came to Bangalore, to visit the Vijaya Bank and the Canara Bank and what he did? He also scrutinised the debt waiver list!

Is this the job of the Finance Minister of the country? And see what the FM had understood of the way to go about implementing the debt waiver scheme.
He relies on the PSBs alone, it seems.

Already experts like Raghuram Rajan and other finance experts have expressed the view that the way the debt waiver scheme is implemented would not encourage a positive impact but would only lead to further credit default culture.

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Almost more than double the size of food grains!

What is the secret of the high Chinese farm production and productivity? We have so many experts and so many travellers to China. They must bring back some useful insights into the Chinese farming development strategy.

It looks there is a heavily subsidised farming practice, there seems to large scale farms and also a great deal of large-scale operations, being procurement, logistics and the payment of subsidies.

Chinese agricultural authority has expressed confidence in the summer harvest has almost been finished at the end of the month. Major grain production areas are poised to sustain a bumper harvest for the fifth year in succession. Summer crops in China are mostly rice and wheat and these two crops constitute about 23 per cent of the country’s annual grain harvest. The grain production in that country has been growing in a systematic way and for the past four consecutive years it has recorded 501.5 million tonnes in 2007, almost the level of the country’s annual consumption.

In India we talk of self-sufficiency in food production. This goal is reached in China; it seems easily, every year for the past few years.

So, the world would heave a sense of relief at the China’s food production success, as the world food crisis is mainly a crisis triggered by the major countries like China and India with huge populations. So, China’s this year’s farming success has led to a sense of relief in the international community.
Food safety is now a national goal, as in many countries, also in India. But how the current year’s Indian bumper harvest also gives some hope that the world food crisis would be managed by the world community, given the record harvests in China and India.

What is China’s agricultural policy impetus for grain production?
Our agri experts must somewhat explain this to the Indian farmers and others in the policy drawing entourage.

If we are to understand the Chinese jargon, the subsidies for the grain procurement seems to have been raised from 2 per cent to 7 per cent in some major grain producing regions in order to facilitate the easy procurement and reach the targets.
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Thirty seven countries in the world have seen food riots and social unrest!
The urban poor have been hard hit, a new historic experience!

All time high prices rice, wheat and dairy products!

The price of rice had doubled in one year, the other crops, wheat, soya bean and sugar and dairy products have seen large increases.

The Rome-based FAO has organised a world summit of leaders to tackle the world-wide rise in food prices.

Certainly, this is an unprecedented crisis that might put the lives of millions of poor, in poor countries to threats of starvation, malnutrition and must be able to address the problems of the poor dying in hunger. Certainly there will be calla for food aid, pledging funds for such an aid and also to set international guidelines for cultivation of crops for biofuels which some have blamed for diverting land from food crops to biofuel crops and also to find new ways to boost food production.

Thirty seven countries in the world, including Egypt, Camarroon, Niger and Haiti saw food riots on a wide scale. Food riots are seen now as bigger threat to international stability and peace than even terrorism! Such is the unprecedented food price rise, say observers and experts are divided as to what solutions to put forward to bring about a sort of normalcy to human life.
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Jyoti Basu criticises Sonia Gandhi!
Will Prakash Karat lad behind?

He takes on the Maoist rebels for the woes of West Bengal!
Do these persons understand rural India? Rural realities?

Zilla Parishads are a must to end the British days-type exploitation
and oppression of the people by the government machinery.

Change the names of the Collectors and tahsildars!
Abolish the tahsildar offices!

Peoples must be delivered services at their doorsteps!
We have to recognise the need for more number of institutional safeguards for enlarging the autonomy and freedoms of the people at the grass roots.

We have just to see how much people still suffer whenever they go to a local hospital or a local revenue office. Not to speak of the number of institutions that operates at the district and talk levels.

There are first the old British day legacies, the district collector and his subordinates, the district revenue officer(DRO),the revenue divisional officer(RDO, the tahsildars and the village-level revenue collecting humble but still very powerful fellows.
The life for the villagers is still very cumbersome, they have to contend everyday with the local government officials.

Add to the old British legacy officialdom, the newly created panchayat raj institutions, the 33 per cent reservation to women and the quota of seats for the SC/ST candidates in the panchayat.

Speaking from our local direct knowledge and experience from Tamil Nadu, supposed to be an advanced state in terms of education, health and even the level of socio-economic advances, we see still today some of the worst types of British days’ exploitation of the common man.
Even if we take the local taluk office, we see the worst type of exploitation. There is always a crowd of people waiting for sundry jobs, from the very poor and the weak to the supposed very powerful and influential local party heavyweights.

he DMK took power, the situation was the worst. The tahsildar considered he the very source of all power.

After some 40 years of the DMK/ADMK rule, what is the situation?
Yes, there has been progress in many areas. Yet, as per our latest experiences and encounters, we see there is still a pathetic side to the grass roots democracy. Corruption is the very root of the situation! Nothing moves without bribes and bribes take various forms!

Yes, the tahsildar is the very root of this high degree of arbitrary power. Power to deny justice at the whim of a very low level official who is still holding to his undefined limits to his power.

No registration of land documents can take place without what is locally called “patta book”. This title for the land is denied owing to some very ingenious reasons. Land document registration can’t take place and there is almost a standstill at the local levels. The sight of green towel wearing local farmer’s leaders and activists only adds poignancy to the tragedy.

The village officer’s posts were abolished by the late MGR in a fit of anger one fine day. But then he couldn’t foresee the monster’s true dimensions! Yes, the DMK was also the first to abolish the much-touted Revenue Board! But the regional party is not a great party with any serious ideology. So, its economic and administrative acumen was thin and the result is that the much oppressive colonial day practices the regimes couldn’t reform or recast.
So, there is this continuing oppression.

One sad legacy of the panchayat raj is that except in Karnataka, we see the panchayat raj is again has come to mean, as in West Bengal or Kerala, either the dominance of the local party fellows or as in TN there is still the oppression of the revenue dept on the panchayat raj and the result is that the power is still concentrated at the state-level secretariat. With the result, we see even the minimum powers have to exercise only from the state headquarters.

The block development official also had become a cog in the machine of the district collector who under the current realities is a much harassed official, hard pressed for time, to receive the visiting local ministers and others and hardly has any time to concentrate on the development of the district’s various development targets.
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What Mr.Sharad Pawar is doing?
Where the PM’s expertise?

Do these gentlemen and the hon’ble lady or ladies care for the poor and the rural people?
Now, everyone in the government and outside knows that there is a food-prices-driven inflation and there is an element of helplessness and a lot of desparation. Rightly so.
So long there was this fairly high growth rate and Mr.Chidambaram stuck to his one-track policy reform. Promote everything and everybody, be it Reliance or the Tatars who do this dirty job of growing the economy by buying companies or bringing in new investments and where there is an open filed and you enter there and make the most of it.

That is how the so–called 9 per cent growth was achieved. Put in simply, it was the growth that saw almost an unregulated monopoly capitalism having its field day. If you are not a doctrinaire socialist or an equity-morality-driven purist, then it is okey, this 9 per cent growth and India as a success story!

Now, the growth rate had dipped somewhat to 8 plus and inflation is raging still, Mr.Chidambaram’s economics had fallen flat and the honble “Doc” is also invisible lately, now caught in the T.R.Baalu mess and the maze of the DMK threat perceptions!
Yes, this is economics and politics for you!
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And then, what to do?

Call in a corporate icon like Captain Gopinath to streamline the foodgrains management and rationalise the price of essential commodities!

There is a 40-month high inflation at 7 and above per cent. There is a great deal of tension in the government. The Cabinet is divided as to what to do. The Prime Minister’s own reputation is now put to test.

On the one hand the PM is  being weakened from inside the government. With Arjun Singh raising the chorus “Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Minister candidate”, the Opposition wi8th L.K.Advani, pitching himself with the distinction of the Opposition’s candidate for the next PM’s post, there is some understandable confusion and even demoralisation, if we can say so, in the government ranks.

Surely, Sonia Gandhi’s motives would also be put to test, as she knows well what Arjun Singh said was unworthy of a senior Cabinet colleague and also the ever-obliging Pranab Mukerjee’s endorsement adds another dimension to the demoralisation trend that is clearly noticeable in the Government.

As it is, the way the collation partners, given the Sharad Pawar and DMK chief like characters who are gunning from the sidelines, for scoring points and also making their positions stronger, it is time Sonia Gandhi must act. She must surely act, first, to gently remove, if possible, Arjun Singh from the Cabinet and otherwise, she has to call in Arjun Singh and warn him in no uncertain terms that this is not the time to embarrass the Prime Minister and weaken the government.

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Appoint Nandan Nilekani as Prime Minister’s special adviser!

Call Dr.Devi Shetty of Narayan Hirudalaya to make telemedicine part of the primary health centres!

Revamp the public services in the Indian villages!

Revenue depts. are the age-old institutions. Panchayat raj is with us for so many years.

Rural health services are   in total decline and utterly disappointing.
The average villager’s life is not rosy at all, so many developments, so many socio-economic changes and the poor quality if living in the villages is one major reason for the present exodus from the villages to the urban centres.  The result?

Villages give the look of ghost  haunts.

Electricity, drinking water supply ,sanitation, medical services, take any other imaginable services, they are becoming prey to large scale neglect, large scale corruption and so many social evils have now taken hold thanks to the populist government.

There is a well-established network of liquor sales outlets in TN, may be the same is true in other states, there are so many freebies, free payments for educated unemployed youth and also for old age  women and we are not sure about the status of older men!

But what is common is the poor quality of these services. The basic services of drinking water and electricity supply are yet to be solved satisfactorily.

Sanitation looks like a mirage.  Every village is an open latrine! Garbage would welcome you at the entrance to every village.

This is the scenario in the Southern states. One can imagine the status of villages in the Northern states.
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Who talks of land reforms these days? Not even the Communists who were once associated with this piece of legal fiction! Yes, land reforms have become a piece of legal fiction only. The reality is otherwise!

Today, the trend is land-grabbing! Today, you can grab as much private and public land as you can, as your money power or muscle power enables you!

That is the sad reality!
In most states, there are no land reforms related courts functioning. The land owners, the poor and unfortunate land owners who inherited their landed properties from their ancestors had seen their lands grabbed by tenants and in reality by unscrupulous elements in society.

Who doesn’t know that in Kerala in 1959,when the late EMS Namboodiripad was the Chief Minister he promulgated an ordinance that one fine morning rendered so many land owners paupers in a minute! In Palghat district, we know for sure that many decent families became paupers and also we know that many of the most unscrupulous elements who were cultivating the lands as tenants and who didn’t pay for ages suddenly found themselves with unexpected property owners!

So, that is one reason when Nandigram erupted on the national scene and when the public consciousness was awakened by the ruthlessness of the CPI(M) cadres in West Bengal no one came to the rescue of the Buddadeb government. Only if you make a trip through the Bengal countryside, you will realise what the comrades had done in the name of Karl Marx and Lenin, not to speak of in the name of Stalin!

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Where were your scientists?  When you held the Science Congress?
What is the contribution of scientists to agriculture, rural development?
Scientists don’t show interest in country’s problems!

Scientists don’t contribute to agriculture, biotechnology, seeds and environment and climate change etc?
Science Congress President
Spoke in the face of the Prime Minister!
“Don’t take away precious fertile lands under your SEZz policy?”
“How do we produce enough food for self-sufficiency?”

The 95th Science Congress was held in Visakhapatnam and the attendance was poor. Out of 41 science labs under the CSIR, the heads of only two came! This when their boss, the science minister and the Prime Minister were present!
No scientists from the atomic energy and space establishment gave the Congress a sort of boycott! Its also were a bare minimum.

Most heavyweight scientists, including the PM’s science adviser C.N.R.Rao and his colleagues didn’t turn up!

Only M.S.Swaminathan with his contingent of his NGO was present and hogged the show.

The theme was as hyped as ever. What else but the same old sustainable development. This was held without the environment ministry scientists turning up at the Congress attended by the PM and his science minister!
There are eight scientific secretaries. But only one, namely, T.Ramasami came.
Pushpa N.Bhargava, the founder -director of the Hyderabad based Centre for Cellular Biology said “Without scientists in numbers whether you can describe this as  science Congress! “Dr.Madhavan Nair, the ISRO chairman was present in the first two days because he is supposed to take over as the next year’s president.

The entire body of the ICAR, or the agri universities scientists seem to have not seen, as there was no news about any serious deliberations about the agriculture crisis in the country.

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