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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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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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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Forestry and medicinal crops depts
Can generate agriculture prosperity!

If Nabard mandate is redrawn and SHGs and microfinance are put under a Cabinet Minister! State level agri finance corporations a must!
New subsidies to new generation farm enterprises can usher in economic prosperity in the villages!

New insurance cover for the agro-micro enterprises could trigger off a new   dispersed entrepreneurial revolution!
Fine journalist language can wait. Hyped schemes can wait. Election-time populism can wait.

What can’t wait is the continued misery of the farmers. Their mounting debts. Their hopelessness where can hope and a new path can be charted.
Our current crop of leaders in Delhi is an unrepresentative lot. More so the ministers holding important portfolios. Most of them are holding the brief for the regional allies like the DMK. See the very composition of the DMK ministers, for instance. They are there not for attending to their portfolios. But to keep the crucial, money-earning and funds generating ministries within the DMK fold and thereby help the parent party and its leader to bargain and in fact gain in more ways than one!

That is why every crucial dept is not delivering.
See the very critical portfolio, agriculture, food and consumer items. This is held by the supposedly very powerful and also very ambitious Sharad Pawar. There is the widespread perception and a great deal of skepticism whether this particular gentleman is giving his full attention to the charges under him. He is seen more the minister for Indian cricket. At best, all he seems to have done and this what sticks in the public mind is that he turned the agri ministry for the first time a food  importing ministry! There are people to praise him even for this service! And of course he is seen as a patron of the sugar industry lobby and he gets funds to save this industry, heavily subsidised is this industry in the state of Maharashtra where Sharad Pawar is more admired, respected and even feared than even the incumbent Chief Minister Mr.Vilasrao Deshmukh.
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Without agri sector being part of it?
PM confesses it is a “peculiar puzzle”!

The next general elections will be won or lost on farmer’s issues?
The PM is clueless and might not care for!

Yes, the next elections are looming large on everyone’s mind. The 54th National Development Council meeting saw enough to doubt whether the PM is speaking for himself or for the Congress party or what else.

He was speaking like an academic, he dwelt with on the US slowdown, the likely impact on the Indian economy which many predicting to grow not more than 8 per cent. Goldman Sachs, a heavyweight international authority on economic prospects in the world says so in a research report. The same view is expressed by many, like IMF and others.

The US is in a financial crisis (subprime crisis) and might even get into a recession, many fear.

In such a depressing scenario, the PM, supposed to be an economic expert says certain things, that to say the least, is very disappointing. He is the Prime Minister, heading a coalition whose partners are already pulling in opposite directions and clearly worried over the  exact nature of their partners in the very-soon-to be held elections!

The CPI (M) with 61 MPs is the most worried. They have bruised their image badly and are openly apprehensive about their prospects even in W.Bengal where their own allies, RSP and Forward Bloc might part ways. The DMK in the South with just 16 MPs and yet with so much mischief value might pose several problems for the Congress.

Of course, the victory of Narendra Modi and his postures as he expressed his views charring the PM’s 11th Plan allocations to the minorities as a challenge to BJP minority-bashing as an election issue. The BJP is already with L.K.Advani elevated as the Prime Ministerial candidate and with Modi in place and with the current mood for changes in the light of the CPI (M), DMK posturing, there is an anti-incumbency wave.

The PM’s much-touted track record in economic management can be faulted on several grounds. Even now, on the eve of the next elections, the man talks of a 10 per cent growth! When the country is yet to demonstrate its actual growth, beyond 8 per cent! How the PM is cut off from the current reality? From the current mood of the nation!
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World economic slow-down affects Indian growth

Food prices on the rise world over and so our food self-sufficiency goal at risk
Climate changes can impact India’s agriculture prospects and we need a new agriculture strategy

These are now the world scenario as far as India’s agriculture prospects are concerned.

Yes, as for the economic growth rate for India to be maintained, there are now certain realistic constraints. Constraints no ministers or the Prime Minister as the top brain or the Planning Commission boss as the top economic  expert or anyone who is worth listening to or capable of articulating the ground level realities are not just talking out. Not even talking about!

Yes, the third front of Chandrababu Naidu, Mulayam Singh Yadav and the others are serious politicians who have to articulate their view and they have to come into the tightly located Indian political space! There is no space, it looks as of now for a third force. But the present two-party alliances, one led by the Congress is in the limelight for the simple reason there is going to be soon a general election. So, the Congress led UPA seems stable. But it is not. The CPI (M) had over-played its hand on the nuclear deal, a deal for which Manmohan pledged his head and his honour! In fact, the deal won’t be an election issue nor the Congress would care for saving Manmohan who is not an election winner at any rate! So, the UPA might or might not come in its full strength.

The Congress stands to lose if it carries all its present allies. The CPI (M) would be a drag. Nothing would fetch the Congress in W.Bengal. In Bengal itself the Left unity is in crisis, the RSP and the Forward bloc might not calculate their advantages, nor is the CPI any shape. So, for the Congress to tag on with the CPI (M) would be suicidal. Again, in TN, to align with the DMK is also suicidal. The DMK had become a bully, plain and simple. It wants all power to itself, not willing to share power for which only the election results showed the DMK in a minority status. Besides this insult, the Congress had conceded too much of its prestige and territory to the DMK’s rather aggressive pursuit of grabbing every major ministry. Also, now it started humiliating the Congress over the LTTE and also over Sethu project, neither of which showed the Congress in any advantageous position. In fact, these events only showed the Congress in a pathetic and helpless situation.

So, a new alliance with the film start Vijayakant is very much favoured by the Congress sympathisers as well as the general public as shown by the 7 per cent popular vote that went to the film actor’s party, without much party infrastructure as such.

The DMK with its latest show of strength through another extravaganza of a so-called youth conference, it is nothing but an attempt by the DMK supreme to overawe his opponents as well as to subdue the Congress to once again to fall in line.

This bait Sonia Gandhi must understand and resist in time.
The Congress woes are too many.
Even if it manages to form a coalition, it is still a big problem to draw up a credible manifesto.
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