The bane of a bumper crop

Every day, around 3 p.m., hundreds of lorries loaded with onions queue up at the new agricultural market complex at Lasalgaon, around 45 km from Nashik, waiting for the afternoon auction to begin.

As a group of traders approach, the farmers drop their produce at their feet, as if to tempt them into bidding high. The traders halt and look over the merchandise. A market committee employee calls out the reserve price: “400!” Eyes roll, unspoken words seem to pass between the traders. Then the bidding starts: “1!” “11!” “13!” “17!” In less than 30 seconds, the auction is over. The farmer gets 17 rupees over the reserve price, Rs.417 per quintal (100 kg). A pittance(small amount,अल्प भाग) at any given time, more so now when compared to prices last year.

A trader-controlled market

No matter how united the farmers are, no matter how hard they fight for a better price, they turn into mute spectators in front of the traders when auction begins. The auction is dictated by the traders with money and considerable political clout. Traders decide the price, farmers accept it without protest.

The market complex has a huge parking space for the lorries. Sometimes there are up to 1,000 vehicles at a time. The otherwise deserted place comes alive twice a day. The first auction of the day starts at around 10 a.m. and the second at 3 p.m. Depending on the number of vehicles, the auction can stretch from an hour to three hours.

Once the rate is fixed, the group of traders moves immediately to the next vehicle. The farmer, left with the price decided by the group, starts collecting the onions he has dropped on the ground. An official from the market committee approaches him with a receipt, bearing the auction rate, trader’s name and farmer’s name. With a receipt in hand and onions in the vehicle, the farmer then proceeds to the godown where the weighing process takes place. As per the rules laid down by the market committee, the farmer must get the payment before the end of the day, which is largely followed.

After the produce is dropped off at a shed in the complex, the traders take control of it. Workers start segregating(separate,अलग) the onions according to the quality and the packaging begins. Vehicles are loaded with the produce to be sent off to cities or to different States. Traders then get into a huddle to firm up the retail price of the produce — adding their profits — with nary a concern for the farmer and the price demanded by him. The operation is bloodless and smooth.

Barely breaking even

While onion is one of the major crops in this belt, farmers also cultivate grapes, soya bean, sugarcane, and ginger. Speaking out against the cartel of traders is not easy when the farmer is dependent largely on the onion crop, as it may result in traders ganging against him (or her) by dropping rates for his produce.

Official data from the Lasalgaon Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) says that this year’s prices — between Rs.500-Rs.800/ql., down from Rs.970-Rs.3,786/ql. — are the lowest in the last five years. This year, Rs.1,020/ql. (in June) was the highest rate given to farmers, compared to Rs.6,326/ql. in 2015-16, and Rs.2,626 in 2014-15.

Growing onions costs between Rs.50,000 and Rs.80,000 per acre, and a cultivated acre yields(give,देना) not more than 100 ql. With this year’s average selling price at Rs.728/ql., an acre’s worth of onions would get the farmer around Rs.72,800. This sees some farmers barely break even; many lose money.

Small wonder that Milind Darade, who owns 13 acres of land, is furious(angry,गुस्सा). “This is the only industry where producers have no right to decide the price of their product,” the onion farmer from Karanjgaon, Nashik district, says. “Isn’t it cruel? Shouldn’t we get angry?” The week before The Hindu caught up with him at the Saikheda sub-market committee, Darade was given a humiliating price for his produce: Rs.5/ql., or 5 paisa/kg. If that was not bad enough, Maharashtra’s Minister for Co-operation, Subhash Deshmukh, said on a live television show that his onions were rotten. “Let me give you some information,” he says indignantly(angrily,गुस्से से), “this is the onion you eat at a restaurant. Just peel off two layers and you would wonder whether it was really rotten.”

Darade has preserved the official paper from the market committee with the offered rate; he has laminated it to ensure it doesn’t get dog-eared. He says that he was so angry that he refused to sell his onions and brought the load, some 10-11 ql., back to his farm to use as fertiliser. But, he says, “When I calmed down, it dawned upon me that I must use it to highlight the plight of onion farmers.”

Supply-demand mismatch

Simplistically put, there was a shortage last year, and this year has seen record onion cultivation. Abundant(plentiful,प्रचुर) supply has brought the prices down. The farmers, though, are used to this kind of fluctuation. They don’t blame the bumper crop and supply-demand equation; they say it’s the traders who are conspiring(plot,साजिश) against them and the government has done little — or the wrong things — to help.

To understand the current crisis for farmers, we need to step back a little.

India has three onion crops a year. Early kharif (the crop sowed in the monsoon) onions come to market between October and December. Onions from the rangda, or late kharif, crop arrive from January to March. The winter or rabi crop is up for sale from April to May. Usually, some parts of the rabi crop are stored for a few months to fill the gap from May to October. Traditionally, prices rise from July to October; official data show that wholesale rates rise by as much as Rs.1,000/ql., even Rs. 1,500, later reflected in the retail market with an increase of Rs.5-Rs.10/kg for consumers.

In 2014-15, the onions took a hit following a hailstorm in North Maharashtra which, in turn, affected their storage value. With many rotting, the onions that did make it to market commanded high prices.

Then the drought of the summer just past played a role too; many sugarcane farmers switched to the less thirsty onion this year. “The onion cultivation area in the State has almost doubled in year 2015-16,” says Nanasaheb Patil, Director, National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED). “Farmers hoped that they will get last year’s rate — close to Rs.3,000-Rs.4,000/ql. — which did not happen, as production increased in huge proportions.”

India is the world’s second-largest onion producer (after China) with 26.79 per cent of the planet’s land under onion cultivation and 19.90 per cent of its production. Maharashtra is India’s largest producer, with a 32.45 per cent share of total onion production, and in turn, Nashik district in north Maharashtra accounts for with 41 per cent of the State’s onion harvest. According to the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS), India produced 203.33 lakh metric tonnes (MT, 1,000 kg) of onions in 2015-16, up from 189.28 lakh MT in 2014-15. Lasalgaon, Asia’s biggest onion market, received around 32,680 MT in the previous fiscal year. Five months into this year, it has received 10,874 MT.

To make matters worse for Maharashtra’s farmers, other States — notably Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka — have reported higher onion yields.

Holding on for a better day

Aside from the production glut(overload,भरमार), another important factor was a 40-day strike by traders in July and August, opposing the State government’s decision to free agricultural market committees from government regulations. With no outlet for their rabi onions, farmers had no option but to store them and wait for the strike to end. In addition, thanks to the low prices, some farmers are choosing to not bring their onions to the markets, and instead are storing them away hoping an artificial scarcity(shortage,कमी) later in the year will pay off for them.

This strategy, however, comes with its own dangers: that of the crop rotting or the onions sprouting. Malti Bodke of Bhuse village points to her rotten onions with disgust. “How long can we store them? It’s been almost four months. Once the onions start sprouting, they lose weight, and it becomes difficult to get a higher price.”

The farmers also say that the traders are colluding(plot,षड्यंत्र) to cheat them. “It’s a cartel of traders which decides the rates and once the market reopened, they ensured prices didn’t cross Rs.1,000/ql.,” says Rajaram Fafale, from Maralgoi village.

The strike gets blame for the glut. But did trade actually stop? Officials and traders seem to want consumers to believe that, but farmers say it never really stopped. Darade says that opportunistic traders discreetly(carefully,सावधानी से) approached farmers and “quoted lowest possible rates. Farmers, thinking it was better to sell, even at a low price, rather than keep them and let them rot, did sell”.

Three years ago, when the farmers were getting Rs.4,500-Rs.5,000/ql., retail onion prices reached Rs.90/kg., which resulted in protests from the then-opposition parties, as well as consumer organisations, in Delhi, Mumbai and other major cities, accusing the United Progressive Alliance government of failing to protect consumers.

The government’s first step was to increase the Minimum Export Price (MEP) to $1,150/MT. This made it difficult for Indian exporters to compete in international markets; whatever stock was available was diverted to the domestic market, which brought prices down. By March 2014, when the late kharif crop got to market, prices had dropped to less than Rs.1,000/ql. in the wholesale market, and consumers got theirs at Rs.20-Rs.25/kg.

This may have played out well for consumers, but has had other consequences(result,परिणाम) for the industry. “There is absolutely no consistency in our approach towards onion exports,” says NAFED’s Patil. A look at MEPs between December 2010 and December 2015 bears him out: the figure has fluctuated wildly, dropping to $0 in May 2012, and with a high of $1,150 in November 2013. “It only enrages our customers overseas,” says Patil. “They are left with absolutely no guarantee of quantity and price of onions exported from India. These customers have instead chosen Pakistan, China and Iran, and we have lost guaranteed markets.”

Patil says that the government’s decision to placate(calm,शांत) enraged(angry,नाराज़) urban customers has lost it both its farmers’ support and its overseas markets. The onion, he says, is no longer an agricultural commodity, it has become a political symbol.

An MSP for onions?

Assuming the government has to balance the needs of consumers with those of producers, what else could it have done to ensure that farmers get some return on their labour?

The National Horticulture Research & Development Foundation (NHRDF) keeps track of potential harvests by collecting information on each district. This year, despite being aware of the possibility of a bumper crop, the government appears to have failed to take any measures to protect farmers. The NHRDF’s estimates say the rabi onions should be selling at around Rs.818/ql., which is significantly higher than what farmers are managing to get. If the government chose to use its Price Stabilisation Fund, it could subsidise the crop, paying, say, Rs.500/ql.

What the State government has announced this week by way of relief — Rs.100 per quintal, up to a maximum of 200 quintals, or a maximum of Rs.20,000 — has, to put it mildly, failed to enthuse farmers. Every farmer The Hindu spoke to called the measure not just inadequate(insufficient,अपर्याप्त) but practically a mockery of their plight.

Fafale, who sold 10 ql. at Lasalgaon for Rs. 220/ql., or Rs 2.2/kg., greeted the news with scorn. “Now I will get one rupee more. What a relief!” he says sarcastically. “We aren’t begging in front of the government. What we are asking is our right. How does this government conclude that this much of money is sufficient as financial aid? Who advises them? Have they bothered to check the ground reality?”

One of the major demands the farmers have is for the government to introduce a Minimum Support Price (MSP) for onions, as it has for sugarcane. “Why don’t the officers understand that we are not independent and traders enjoy a free run here?” says Darade. “Unless an MSP is announced, we cannot be sure of a certain minimum profit. Why this neglect?”

Western Maharashtra, the State’s sugar belt, has seen, in recent times, sugarcane farmers agitating(incite,उत्तेजित for an increased MSP. It became an electoral issue in 2014 when the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) suffered major defeats in the Assembly polls in the region considered a bastion for both.

The Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS; its name means ‘organisation for farmers’ self-respect’), led by Raju Shetti, which was in the thick of the agitation, is now part of the State government and Shetti is an MP. While the SSS has stage limited protests in the State’s onion belt demanding an MSP, it has not been able to take the protests to a wider audience. With the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena regime, as with the previous Congress-NCP rule, the MSP for onions issue is far from being solved.

In the village of Bhuse, Ramdas Bodke, 65, is philosophical. “I have seen many seasons and farming has never been easy. We know how to tackle nature. What do we do with man-made problems? We farmers feed the world, but now we wonder whether we will have food cooked at home.” He lapses into silence for a minute, and then his tone turns bitter: “Did the government discuss its proposal to hike MLA salaries for even a day? The government takes an instant decision to increase the salary of MLAs, but it takes a long time to decide about farmers. This is injustice. But there is no one to give justice to farmers.”

As for the urban consumers and their agitations, farmers mince no words when the topic comes up for discussion. Turning towards me, one of them asks, “You get agitated when prices skyrocket, but have you ever wondered what happens when prices hit rock bottom? Why don’t you come out on the streets demanding a fair price for us?”

courtesy:the hindu

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No proof required: Blind men in search of inflation

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.For the last few years, the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has provided advice to the RBI on the setting of policy (repo) rates. Very soon, perhaps as soon as the October 4 meeting of the RBI, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will be formed, and rather than an advisory role, it will make policy. In other words, rather than the governor taking in inputs from the TAC, and others, he will now be part of a six-member committee that takes decisions on policy rates.

Three of the six members of the MPC are to be chosen from outside the RBI. By definition, the five external members of the TAC are strong contenders for the three available slots in the MPC. But does the record of the TAC suggest that they are fit to take on MPC membership? Possibly not. (An important caveat(warning,चेतावनी): This is a summary conclusion. It might well be the case that some members of the TAC were not as thoughtless as the majority, the minutes of the TAC do not mention names.)

Monetary policy, with or without the MPC, is meant to be forward-looking and anticipatory. Unfortunately, the record of the TAC, as gleaned from their latest — and last — August 9 recommendation, is anything but forward-looking. What has also been noteworthy about the TAC is that it most likely echoed what it thought were the “wishes” of the RBI. To be sure, individual members may have differed from the majority, but the majority has been nothing but “His Masters Voice” (youngsters, look up what HMV was).

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A perusal(study,अध्ययन) of the TAC “recommendations” emphasises the fact that it has been broadly clueless about the determinants of inflation in India, and therefore, not well informed about the determinants of policy rates. Their summary statement for the August 9 policy meeting is informative (TAC Report on the RBI website, August 30, para 3, page 1). For example, the TAC concluded that:

“The monsoon has also been normal so far, although the targeted pulses production — pulses being a major driver of food inflation — will also likely be driven by higher minimum support prices in this sector.” (emphasis added).

The TAC contention(dispute,विवाद) that minimum support prices (MSP) for pulses will influence higher production is somewhat ill-informed. The MSP for pulses has been set approximately eight per cent higher for the 2016-17 agricultural season than the previous year — at a level of around Rs 55 per kg. The prevailing(popular,प्रचलित) retail market price for pulses, so far in 2016, has averaged almost four times this level (at Rs. 200/kg).

However, a good monsoon this year is likely to send the retail price tumbling to close this huge “hoarders” gap between the farm-gate and retail price. What should be of concern to the TAC is retail (CPI) inflation for pulses — and this is likely to be significantly lower than last year, that is, pulse prices will help reduce inflation in 2016, contrary to the belief of TAC that MSPs for pulses will be inflationary. In other words, the TAC is looking at the “wrong” side of the elephant.

TAC again: “Members felt that increased upside risks to the five per cent CPI inflation target in Q4 of 2016-17 remain, specifically, from rising consumption demand — both private (because of a consumption-led recovery) and public (one rank one pension, seventh CPC (Central Pay Commission ) — and cost-push shocks in the form of a steady rise in crude prices.”

This quote provides us with some clue to the thinking in the TAC. Worldwide, disinflation is the new phenomenon, and has been so for at least the last decade. Many economists and policymakers have realised that output gaps no longer explain inflation. If they did, then why did India have double digit inflation from 2008 to 2013 with ever slowing demand? So “rising consumption demand” will not be an important factor in future (or current) inflation. Just look at the lowest two years — there was accelerating GDP growth and declining inflation rates.

What about the contention of the TAC that the pay commission will lead to higher inflation? In the last decade we had the pay commission, and observed high inflation; in the previous decade, we had the pay commission and obtained low inflation. So? It would have been more honest if the TAC had said that we don’t know much about the determinants of inflation, and are too lazy to find out, rather than arrive at wrong conclusions from models that do not make sense now (if they ever did).

Undeterred, the TAC moves from one wrong conclusion to another. “Cost push shocks in the form of steady rise in crude prices”. One had hoped for a little bit of humility here — whoever the TAC might be, they are not oil price experts. On August 8, 2016, the oil price was around $44. A month later, it is exactly the same. More importantly, what evidence is there that a rise in crude prices leads to cost push inflation?

Perhaps the memory of TAC experts goes back to October 1973, when a quadrupling of oil prices ushered in worldwide inflation. But their memory stops at 1980. In the 1990s, the average price of crude was $20/barrel. In 1998, the average price was a low $14.4. Since then, oil prices went up ten-fold, reaching a peak level of $ 140 barrel in June 2008.

What happened to world inflation post-1998? It continuously fell. The new near 40-year-old reality of crude oil and world inflation is that there is virtually no relationship between the two. So can the TAC oil experts stop looking for one?

The TAC noise continues. Sample this — four of the five TAC members were of the view that “CPI and CPI-food inflation have seen a recent uptick and certain other price indicators continue to be sticky; elevated food inflation has second round effects on headline inflation if it is persistently(continuously,लगातार)  above double digits”.
When was food inflation last above double digits — how many months ago? In the last two years, the highest food inflation level was eight per cent (July 2016); the average (sustained) food price level has been nearly half the double-digit level (5.5 per cent). So can the TAC not confuse itself with second round effects if it can’t even observe the bare facts pertaining to the first round?

We all make mistakes, but so many mistakes in one TAC report is noteworthy and perturbing(worrisome,चिंताजनक). It is to be hoped that when the MPC is constituted, and meets, the new members are unlikely to lazily assess and forecast inflation as the TAC seems to have done.

courtesy:indian express
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The great GDP fudge

“I am puzzled by the new GDP growth numbers. This is mystifying because these numbers, especially the acceleration, are at odds with other features of the macro economy. Import of goods declined. typically growth booms are accompanied by surges in imports not declines… similarly, real gross capital formation declined”. This was the chief economic advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian in an interview to the Business Standard on February 3, 2015. Lest you be fooled into believing that the CEA was being intellectually honest about the state of the current economy, he was actually talking about the revised GDP number for the year 2013-14, when UPA 2 was in power.

After the new GDP series was rolled out under the current government, it revealed that India’s GDP growth in 2013-14 was 6.9 per cent compared to the reported 5 per cent, as per the old methodology. A 6.9 per cent GDP growth in 2013-14 would have meant that India was the second fastest growing large economy in the world, after China. But the CEA expressed bewilderment(mystification,हैरानी) at that number because he said this was in dissonance(dispute,मतभेद) with the actual macro-economic reality. He explained meticulously(clearly,बारीकी से) how other economic parameters such as imports, gross capital formation etc are truer indicators of GDP growth and dismissed the view that India’s GDP could have grown as fast in 2013-14.

Fast forward to September 2016. India’s imports have fallen for 20 straight months. In April 2016, India’s imports touched a six-year low. Exports are still at 2011 levels, down significantly from the 2013 peak. Industrial production which creates real jobs in the economy is actually shrinking(smaller,सिकुड़ना). Gross fixed capital formation has fallen. What does the same CEA have to say this time about the same macro-economic indicators — “It signals improvement in underlying real economy, holds out hope for the corporate sector”.

In a poorly disguised attempt at face-saving, the CEA has waxed eloquent(fluent,सुवक्ता) about how most commentators have misinterpreted the latest GDP numbers showing 7.1 per cent growth, driven almost entirely by government spending (IE, September 8). He says “Nearly all commentary has focused on decline in constant price GVA and GDP. But real story lies in nominal magnitudes”. This is the first time that we are being asked to judge the economy’s health by nominal GDP and not real GDP, that is GDP adjusted for inflation. In a hair-splitting effort, he argues we should focus on nominal growth, then argues that the nominal growth should not be assumed to be solely due to increase in prices but also an increase in quantity but does not explain if that was the case, then why not just use real growth directly.

Instead, he makes a convoluted(complex,जटिल) point about corporate revenues growing faster than interest costs which could boost the currently anemic(weak,कमज़ोर) credit growth, going forward. He then lays out a string of conditions — if monsoons boost agriculture growth, if falling exports have bottomed out, if the construction sector can perk up due to “reforms” — then we can be cautiously optimistic about GDP growth.

Technical mumbo-jumbo and caveats(warning,चेतावनी) aside, he essentially surmises(guess,अनुमान) that we should be ecstatic(happy,खुश) that nominal GDP growth is now in double digits. One really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel if one had to go back to the basics of nominal and real GDP growth and take solace(relief,सांत्वना) in a nominal double-digit growth, albeit with cute quotes about “nominal being real” and “real being nominal”, this time.

All this hiding behind economic theory misses the simple point — using exactly the same yardstick that the same CEA applied in passing judgment about India’s 2013-14 GDP growth calculated under the same methodology. India’s current state of the economy is in utter(absolute,निरा) disarray(disorder,अव्यवस्था). While we all endorse the Bernard Shaw quip that “if all economists were laid end to end, they would never reach a conclusion”, this one is about the same economist in the same position reading the same set of numbers but taking two diametrically opposite views. If the CEA had a well-argued position on his reservations about India’s 2013-14 GDP growth, then how can he be optimistic about the state of the current economy using exactly the same macro-economic parameters?

We have been repeatedly witness to this dangerous trait of the current government and its inhabitants becoming delusional with their own rhetoric(oratory,वाक्पटुता). We saw that with the government’s claim of savings of Rs 15,000 crore in the LPG subsidy scheme due to Aadhaar based Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT), which, again, the CEA endorsed healthily through similar articles in the English press. It turned out, as the CAG pointed out last month, that a meagre Rs 1,764 crore (approximately 10 per cent) of the subsidy savings was due to DBT and the remaining 90 per cent of the savings was due to the fall in global oil prices. The government and its CEA were simplydisingenuous(dishonest,बेईमान)and resorted to such misleading claims to falsely justify their decision to table the Aadhaar bill as a money bill and pummel it through Parliament. The current claims of the CEA about the health of the economy are similarly misleading.

I have known Arvind Subramanian to be a fine and fearless economist for almost three decades. I have myself tried in the past to lure(entice,लुभाना)him back but the timing was not ripe for him. He has never been an apologist for anything dubious(doubtful,संदिग्थ). My piece of unsolicited(unasked,अनचाही) advice to him: Spin is a powerful tool in both cricket and politics but not in economics. Leave it to those who have made a brilliant career out of it — such as his senior minister.

courtesy:indian express

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From Plate to Plough: Connecting the drops

Till June end this year, the government was worried about how to cope with back-to-back drought. But by the second half of August, the scene changed dramatically and several states were in the spate of floods. In Bihar, more than five million people have been affected and 6,50,000 displaced from their homes; in Assam 1.8 million people were affected with 2,40,000 displaced, and in UP 8,70,000 were affected. Floods also occurred in areas that were earlier not considered flood prone, such as the cities of Jaipur, Jodhpur and the southern districts of arid Rajasthan. Even in Madhya Pradesh, 300,000 people were affected.

There is a growing concern that floods cause large-scale damage to crops, cattle, property and even human lives, and this trend is increasing over time. As per the estimates of the Central Water Commission (CWC), the cumulative damage from floods during the period 2000-2013, converted at 2014-15 constant prices, stood at a whopping Rs 2,63,848 crore. While in 2003 alone the damage was Rs 23,045 crore, the same escalated(increase,बढ़कर)to Rs 46,802 crore in the 2009 floods (both at 2014-15 prices).

Most of the floods in India occur in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Barak basin as the distance between the world’s highest peaks in the Himalayas and the outlet at the Bay of Bengal is short and the contributing tributaries like Kosi, Gandak, Ghaghara and others disgorge large volumes and devastate(destroy,विनाश) the fertile plains of eastern Uttar Pradesh, northern Bihar, West Bengal and Assam. For these states, flood control is a developmental as well as humanitarian issue. The options are limited but need to be given a fair trial with adequate(enough,पर्याप्त) resources.

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The key question, therefore, is: How best can the problem of floods and droughts be addressed so that the losses are minimal and the system becomes more resilient? In this context, one important point that needs to be noted is that India gets “too much” water (about 75 per cent of annual precipitation) during 120 days of the monsoon season (June to September) and “too little” for the remaining 245 days. This skewed water availability has to be managed and regulated for its consumption throughout the year. No wonder, leaders of independent India quickly embarked(entered,प्रवेश) upon a number of large multi-purpose river valley projects such as Bhakra-Nangal, Hirakud, Nagarjuna Sagar, Rihand etc to store water for smoothening its supplies throughout the year. But, unfortunately, they lost interest in further developing such river valley projects very soon, partly due to changed priorities towards heavy industrialisation since 1956 and partly due to widespread inefficiencies and corruption in large irrigation projects. Later on, the issue of resettlement of displaced people became a rallying point for many NGOs to oppose these projects, leading to drying up of funds from the World Bank.

As a result, in 2015, India’s per capita water storage capacity through dams was abysmally(depressing,निराशाजनक) low at 194 cubic metre (m3). In contrast, China’s per capita water storage capacity was three times that of India at 590 m3 (2013). Amongst other BRICS countries, Brazil was at 3,370 m3, Russia at 5,587 m3 , and South Africa at 569 m3, all in 2015 (FAO). Further, USA was at 2,254 m3 and Australia at 3,395 m3 (see chart). So, it is amply(sufficiently,पर्याप्तता) clear that India is way below in storing water when it falls in abundance(excessive,बहुतायत), resulting in floods during monsoons and deficiency of water later. This also lowers cropping intensity (less than 140), meaning less than 40 per cent of India’s farm land is double cropped.

So, what are the policy options now? Nitish Kumar, in his meeting with the prime minister on the flood situation in Bihar, asked for de-silting of the Ganga and removal of the Farakka barrage, as it was causing accumulation of silt flowing from the Himalayan rivers and making the flood situation in Bihar grim. He had a point, but this seems to be only a partial and temporary solution.

The more lasting solution lies in a “buffer stocking of water” during the monsoon months and releasing it during lean seasons. This “buffer stocking of water” can be done over ground through dams, or underground, by recharging aquifers. Recent studies by the World Bank indicate that about 18 per cent of the peak flood volumes can be safely stored in the existing and planned dams along the Indo-Nepal border. A holistic approach at basin level, encompassing credible resettlement policy for displaced people, and supported by pro-active hydro-diplomacy amongst riparian(onshore,तटवर्ती) countries can render(give,देना) rich dividends.

The time is also ripe to crank up the Ganges Water Machine through Underground Taming of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI), where surplus flood water is directed to aquifers through well-designed structures placed in ponds and other depression areas and evacuated through large-scale pump irrigation during the dry season. Flood control strategies also need to include the use of smart geo-spatial techniques for flood forecasting and construction and strengthening of embankments at critical locations. The Modi government is also talking of inter-linking of rivers. A beginning can be made at intra-state level, particularly within Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

Further, on the demand side, there is a need to promote flood-tolerant “scuba rice”, sugarcane, jute and high-value aquatic crops in this region; access to affordable crop, livestock and asset insurance products; and education and preparedness to live with the floods. Finally, with increasing urbanisation, agriculture will have to shed its current share of 78 per cent in water to, say, 70 per cent by 2030. This calls for focus on “more crop per drop”. Research indicates that rainfed areas covering pulses, oilseeds and nutri-cereals can give high productivity if they get even two irrigations.

Cascading(flow,व्यापक) check dams, drips and sprinkler irrigation can help. PM’s Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) talks of all this, but with paltry(small.तुच्छ) resources (Rs 5,767 crore), one wonders how many years one will have to wait to see the objectives of “har khet ko paani” being met.

 courtesy:indian express

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Chronicles in unlearning

When organisations of the Sangh Parivar periodically rail against “Macaulay’s children” and propose a review of the hold of western knowledge systems over Indian education, it should be widely welcomed. After all, indigenous(native,स्वदेशी) knowledge, as preliterate communities in India, for instance, have begun to point out, and as those who know our rich literary traditions have shown, have been monstrously ignored in the education system we have inherited. Why then does this announcement produce disquiet?

This is because the overall context of such pronouncements is one that is markedly anti-intellectual. Before this is decried(condemn,निंदा) as a baseless charge, let me provide some examples. Earlier this year, several “academics” denounced the overall editorship of the Murty Classical Library series under Professor Sheldon Pollock because he was not sufficiently “imbued with a sense of respect and empathy for the greatness of Indian civilisation.” Neither Prof. Pollock’s formidable(fierce,दुर्जेय) knowledge of Sanskrit and other Indian languages nor his acknowledged stature as an academic could pass the litmus test of a worshipful loyalty to “Indian civilisation” as the foundational ground of all pursuits of knowledge. Were the signatories of the petition alarmed that Buddhist women poets have been allowed to be heard in that series? That Sufi singers have found new audiences? That Akbar’s life and times are being read by more than medieval historians?

A ‘cultural revolution’

Of late, many distinguished intellectuals have been replaced by dubious(doubtful,संदिग्ध) dabblers(lovers,शौक़ीन) as chiefs in premier institutions of higher education and research across the country.

It would be a lazy error to read this as a mere change of guard, of places once ruled by some version of the luxuriantly varied Indian Left falling under the rule of the monotonous(dull,नीरस) Right. No doubt, English-speaking intellectuals owing allegiance(loyalty,निष्ठा) to one or another stripe of the Left/Congress enjoyed disproportionate power for decades, particularly in Delhi institutions, but normally no one doubted their intellectual abilities. The same cannot be said of the new appointees, who are taking major Indian institutions in directions that are not necessarily dedicated to the production and promotion of knowledge.

The home-grown “cultural revolution” that is under way is increasingly encouraging only obedience. The distinction between former leaders and the new heads lies not only in formal academic credentials; they must be placed within the larger framework of “national intellectual warming” that too loudly expresses doubt and distrust about intellectual life as we know it.

A senior Minister has openly called for an isolation of those he identifies as “intellectual terrorists”, internal enemies of the state who may critique the actions of governments and their armies. A good sign of the new hostility(enmity,शत्रुता) was the breathtaking declaration, in a pamphlet issued by the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad unit to welcome new students, that departments of social sciences and humanities, whether in the Indian Institutes of Technology or in other universities, are the source of all agitators and should therefore be closely surveilled.

Now, for the first time in the last two centuries, we are witnessing a virulent(poisonous,विषैला) form of anti-intellectualism which will leave a lasting impact on the future of a wide range of activities from filmmaking and art to other forms of knowledge-production. The visions that have been spelled out for programmes of research and for educational institutions put a low premium on open-ended,rigorous(strict,सख्त), creative intellectual activity of any kind.

Some recent examples will suffice(enough,पर्याप्त), but they can be multiplied. The newsletters of the Indian Council of Historical Research are generously peppered with photographs of the current Chairperson and his pious(holy,पवित्र) homilies on a wide range of subjects. Here is a sampling of what appears more like a moralising discourse in a temple courtyard: “Our ancient literature vouchsafes(decorate,विभूषित) that Indian social institutions enjoy solid cultural base reinforced(strengthen,सुद्रढ़) by Dharma unlike modern intellectual propositions. As argued today, social institutions like marriage, family, community, tribe, society and state should not be understood as contractual… the Vedic marriage system is qualitatively different from the marriages of other religious belief systems or modern social marriages or live-in relationships where both enter into a conditional agreement unless they bind themselves for life.”

Generally, what does the Chairman see as the purpose of historical knowledge? “To shape the character of the people and in turn the nation.” Here we have a rather frank admission of what higher educational and research must be made to foster(encourage,प्रोत्साहित): nationalism of the kind dictated by the ruling party. No wonder, asProf. Kumkum Roy has shown in her analysis of Rajasthan textbooks, Gandhi doesn’t get killed at all; he merely disappears from the book.

Obedience was on full display in some universities during the celebration of India’s Independence. Enjoined by the Ministry of Human Resource Development to record their “compliance”, the heads of premier educational institutions showed zeal at rangoli as well as national song renditions, as if to atone for the possibility of the university otherwise living up to its duty of encouraging critical thinking.

In other more predictable quarters, the attack on intellectuals has been reduced to unadorned(plain,सादा) abuse, as in the Organiser’s recent “review” of the book co-authored by Professor Romila Thapar on nationalism. When the “review” denounces the book’s “stinky logic of provincialising(narrowness,संकीर्णता) the otherwise wide-ranging cultural nationalism or Hindutva”, we realise that even intelligibility has become a dispensable virtue in such excoriating(scratch,रगड़ना) attacks.

Some robust memories

This is very bleak(colourless,बेरंग) scenario. Still, we are left with some robust(strong,मजबूत) memories of how institutions could think under inspired leaders. In the 1990s, early years yet of the National Law School University in Bengaluru, Professor Madhava Menon invited human rights lawyer Nandita Haksar and feminist legal scholars Flavia Agnes and Ratna Kapoor to teach and conduct research. He recognised, in short, the intellectual importance of engaging with those whose views he may have cordially(willingly,मन से) disliked, even opposed.

A more recent instance was that of the former Vice Chancellor of JNU, Prof. Sudhir Sopory, a celebrated biologist who respectfully followed not just the rules, but the norms that govern the university. He showed the greatest respect for disciplines, methods, and perspectives he knew not much about. In a farewell that endeared him to the teaching community, he declared his desire to return as a student of the School of Arts and Aesthetics at JNU, a relatively new and flourishing department. No greater compliment could be paid to the intellectual culture of the institution.

The current insistence on obedience, and the impoverished ideas of nationalism which university spaces are beginning to propagate, have already dented the intellectual agendas of such spaces. By turning universities and institutions of learning into places of unquestioning worship, we run the risk of being brought to our knees, in more ways than one.

courtesy:the hindu

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The Margarita mirror

The 17th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) will be held between September 13-18 in Margarita, Venezuela. Heads of government of 120 member states will descend(get down,उतरना) on this Venezuelan island, which sits at the edge of the Caribbean Sea. NAM was formed in 1961, at the initiative of Egypt, India and Yugoslavia. It is telling that of these three, one no longer exists (Yugoslavia), one no longer has the kind of magnetic sway(influence,बोलबाला) it had in the 1950s and 1960s (Egypt), and the third seems disinclined(unwilling,अनिच्छुक) to favour the idea of non-alignment (India).

Indeed, India will not be represented by its head of government — Prime Minister Narendra Modi — but by its Vice President. Only once before has the Indian Prime Minister not been to the NAM Summit, and that was in 1979 when caretaker Prime Minister Charan Singh did not go to Havana (Cuba). Is NAM now irrelevant, so much so that India’s head of government no longer feels the need to attend its meetings?

From Brijuni to Baku

In July 1956, Egypt’s Gamel Abdel Nasser, India’s Jawaharlal Nehru and Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito met at the island retreat of Brijuni on the Adriatic Sea to discuss the state of the world. The previous year, in Bandung (Indonesia), newly independents states of Africa and Asia gathered to inaugurate a new approach to inter-state relations: non-alignment. Fresh out of the darkness of colonial rule, these new states, they felt, should not be sucked into alignments with the West or the East. These camps would suborn the independence of the new states, drawing them into military obligations and economic entanglements(complexities,उलझने). But sovereign foreign policies could not be sustained by these individual states. They needed to shelter together, to forge an alternative, to fight to build a peaceful world order where the obligations of the UN Charter could be met.

In 1961, Tito hosted the first NAM meeting in Belgrade, where 29 states gathered to lay out this new order. Their bravura(skills,कुशलता) was sneered at in Washington, where the government suggested that non-alignment was merely capitulation(surrender,संधिपत्र) to the Soviet Union. The Soviets, meanwhile, saw an opportunity in the NAM, where a newly free Cuba, with close ties to the Soviets, had begun to assert its leadership despite its tiny(small,छोटा) size. NAM announced that it would push for an alternative economic order and that it would campaign against the arms race that had put the fear of nuclear annihilation(destruction,विनाश) across the planet. These were halcyon(slow,धीर) days for NAM, asserting its moral authority against war and poverty.

Over the course of the past 60 years, the NAM has seen an erosion of its authority. The Third World debt crisis of the 1980s crushed the economic ambitions of these NAM states. By the time NAM gathered in Delhi in 1983, it was a shadow of its origins. In NAM they had wished the centuries away, but now, awash(flooded,भरा) in debt, they had to settle for the present. The Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. bombed Panama and Iraq, and history seemed to end with American ascendency(dominance,प्रभुत्व). Proud nations queued up to curry favour with Washington, settle accounts at the International Monetary Fund and begin to sniff their noses at platforms such as NAM.

By the early 1990s, several important powers of NAM began to back away (Argentina left in 1991). Yugoslavia crumbled, with war tearing apart its promise. India went to the IMF and gestured to the U.S. that its days of non-alignment had gradually(slowly,धीरे धीरे) come to a close. Over the past few years, countries with a more skeptical(doubtful,संशयवाद) attitude towards American power have held the mantle of NAM — South Africa (1998), Malaysia (2003), Cuba (2006), Iran (2012) and now Venezuela (Egypt, which presided over NAM from 2009, was convulsed in the Arab Spring during its presidency). NAM oscillated(shake,डगमगाना) between suspicion of U.S. motives and attempts to regenerate the economic engines of its members. The next president of NAM after Venezuela will be Azerbaijan, which is a newcomer to NAM and one that does not have a presence on the world stage.

Turmoil in Venezuela

Venezuela has been eager to make this NAM summit a success, a showcase for the resilience of its social revolution. Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro argues against the view that the ‘NAM has lost its raison d’être(purpose,उद्देश्य) upon the end of the Cold War’. Indeed, he suggests, using language that is resonant of the earlier NAM and alien to the Modi government, “we are convinced that neo-colonial dominance can be seen nowadays in both an aggressive and brutal manner”. Mr. Maduro points to the wars of aggression and the deep social and economic inequalities that plague the planet. The emergence of multi-polarity, he stresses, needs to be shaped by the Global South, whose instrument is NAM. Venezuela’s socialist government does indeed face steep challenges. Steve Ellner, who teaches at the Universidad de Oriente, identifies the three issues as “declining oil prices, economic war, and the exchange rate distortions(deform,विकृति)”. The decline in oil prices has certainly struck this oil-exporting state. This crisis has been magnified by an economic war by the business elites in Venezuela who have on several occasions sought to overthrow this government. Poor policy decisions by the government to handle inflation and currency manipulation have further weakened its hand. When Mr. Maduro travelled to Margarita Island, where the summit will be held, a crowd banging pots and pans jeered at him. Mr. Maduro and the socialist movement are fighting to regain the trust of the people against both genuine problems facing the government and exaggerations(overstatement,अतिशयोक्ति) from the U.S.-backed opposition.

NAM will be one of the largest gatherings in Venezuela in recent years. It is hoped by the government in Caracas that this would help the country by shoring up an alternative bloc to the West. But such an alternative will require a visionary leadership. What should be the contours(outline,रूपरेखा) of the emerging multipolar world? How would the new poles tackle the difficult problem of poverty and joblessness? It is not sufficient to point fingers at the West. An alternative has to be developed. At the 1973 NAM meeting in Algiers, the member states laid out the New International Economic Order (NIEO), a charter for a different way to manage political disagreements and trade across states. The NIEO proposed a new path. It had an electric effect, but it died in the rubble of the debt crisis. A new charter for a 21st century NAM is needed. If the NAM is to be relevant, it needs to develop such a visionary document.

courtesy:the hindu

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