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Promising freebies
Engaging China
End of a love story |
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Less development, more trouble
The forgotten lantern
Regulating contract farming — Punjab way
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Promising freebies THE Supreme Court has asked the Election Commission to frame guidelines for regulating promises of freebies political parties make in their pre-poll manifestos. Under the existing law making such promises is not a "corrupt practice". There is merit in what the court says: influencing voters with freebies does "shake the root of free and fair elections" and that the manifestos should be brought under the code of conduct. The Election Commission too agrees with the view that offers of TV sets, laptops, mixers and grinders tend to disturb the level-playing field. Both the Supreme Court and the Election Commission have raised important issues but these cannot take practical shape without cooperation from political parties. The EC and the courts have their limitations. Despite their best efforts they have not been able to stop the use of unaccounted money and muscle power in elections by politicians, or for that matter criminalisation of politics. There is an open violation of the unrealistic limit imposed on election expenditure by candidates. State officers made in charge of elections overlook powerful politicians violating the code of conduct because the latter would be deciding their fate on coming to power. It is difficult to differentiate between desirable and undesirable freebies. Is the Nitish Kumar government not within its right to offer free bicycles to girls to enable them to attend school? How about giving subsidised food, free cattle and sheep or cash? What if manifestos are silent but politicians sell dreams verbally or through the media? Their right to explain to voters future policies cannot be ignored. Political parties are ultimately accountable to voters who have to decide whether to back those offering cash, liquor and drugs or those who work for their long-term interest and development of their area, state and country. Politicians know it is wrong to make false promises, resort to populist schemes or implement financially unsustainable welfare policies. But their goal is to grab power regardless of means. Informed public debate and the media alone can force political parties to drop criminals, behave responsibly and follow prudent policies.
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Engaging China
Defence Minister A K Antony’s official visit to China is significant since both India and China have shown willingness and maturity in engaging with each other, even as some issues remain contentious. The minister’s announcement that both the nations would resume joint military exercises shows the will to move on, in spite of hawks on both sides expressing disquiet. Indeed, a Chinese general had warned India not to “stir up” trouble by increasing military deployment in border areas just days before the minister’s visit. However, the Chinese leadership has distanced itself from him. Defence Minister Antony has called on Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and also held talks with his counterpart, Chang Wankuan. Premier Li Keqiang had made India the first stop after he assumed office, signalling the importance Beijing assigns to its relations with India. The change in leadership is rightly seen by New Delhi as an opportunity to build better ties, something that China too seeks. However, both sides know that the unresolved Indo-China border issue has the potential to become a stress point, as the incursion by Chinese troops into the Depsang Valley in April showed. It took a while for the situation to be defused. The border dispute is an old one and there can be no quick fix. Sincerely and painstakingly building trust between the two sides would lay the groundwork for any lasting solution. India and China are already taking some confidence-building measures on the Line of Actual Control. With senior officials from both sides working on the draft of a border defence cooperation agreement, there is an expectation of tangible progress being made in the foreseeable future. The recent high-level exchange of visits between Chinese and Indian leaders shows how continuing attempts to bridge political differences can improve relationships as the two Asian neighbours cooperate by increasing their “strategic communication”. Increasing diplomatic and military ties even as trade prospers is the best way for the two nations to build trust that would also help in sorting out longstanding issues.
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End of a love story THE caste matrix continues to
exercise its hegemony over individuals, families and society. The love story of Divya and Ilavarasan ended the predictable way-tragically, nullifying all claims of humanising society by way of education, equality, prosperity and modernity. A day after Divya declared in the Madras High Court that she had no intention of going back to her husband, whom she had left earlier this month following caste tensions caused by her marriage to the Dalit boy (she belongs to the higher Vanniyar community), her husband allegedly committed suicide. Unable to face social ostracism and sarcasm of his community, her father had committed suicide earlier. The caste conflicts took a political turn in Dharampuri district of Tamil Nadu and the administration had to impose a curfew. All this violence was against the fragile love of two individuals the formidable structure of society felt threatened with. Just a day before she made the statement that allegedly pushed her 19-year-old husband to end his life, Divya had declared her love for him. The turn of events in this case underlines helplessness of individuals before the tentacles of caste hierarchy that spreads from village-level panchayats to the national-level polity. Its power mocks the constitutional rights accorded to Indian citizens. Governments watch helplessly while young men and women become victims of the diktats of khaps in the North and katta panchayats in the South. The governments that spend crores on the welfare of Dalits and on their education and employment also support institutions like khaps and caste-based politics for their own vested interest. Why is the government still in a denial mode? Proof has been given by the National Commission for Women (NCW) that in the current financial year they have received 333 complaints related to honour crimes. There is need to introduce stand-alone legislation to stop caste councils from issuing diktats barring young persons from choosing a life partner of the same gotra or of a different caste/religion.
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I wish I had the nerve not to tip. — Paul Lynde
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Less development, more trouble
Whether
a second cloudburst forecast in Uttarakhand matures or not, this is a time for sober reappraisal of how to manage natural disasters in future. Climate change augurs not less rain or discharge but new weather patterns and related parameters to which we must adapt through better warning and disaster management systems, improved development designs and standards and other defensive measures. Less development as advocated by some could well mean more trouble in future. It has been passionately argued that a rash of roads, buildings, mining, industrialisation and dams, with consequential blasting and deforestation, have destabilised the mountains. Is this so? Limestone and sand mining have been regulated and the rules need to be properly enforced. Industrialisation has mostly occurred in the submontane foothills and not in the higher altitudes that were devastated by the recent floods. Which dam has caused a problem? Indeed, the much criticised Tehri dam proved a blessing in protecting Rishikesh and Haridwar from disaster. Many dams are still projections or in early stages of construction. Quoting bogus numbers can only create baseless scares and fashion grand arguments and policy formulations on baseless assumptions. New dams in upper catchments in Uttarakhand, Himachal and Arunachal are being discouraged on grounds of their fragile and, in the case of the Ganga-Yamuna basin, sacred ecology. Yet, unregulated pilgrimage in terms of numbers and duration has put considerable pressure on these landscapes, as by the Amarnath Yatra. Much road building, construction of hotels, hostels, lodgings, and bus stations, truck movements, repair shops and markets must be attributed to the increasing requirements of yatri traffic. Has prudence been overtaken by piety? Less development would entail greater unemployment, distress migration and poverty, which is an enemy of environmental sustainability. Well-deserved kudos is given to the women-led Chipko movement of the 1970s to save the forests. But where were the men? Lack of local development and employment generation had caused them to seek a living in the plains, resulting in deserted villages, the feminisation of agriculture at the cost of education and health and a remittance economy. Development per se is not wicked. It is the pattern of development and its management that matters. The hills are suited to hill agriculture -- horticulture, herbiculture, floriculture, trekking and tourism. Roads and ropeways can provide connectivity and market access and change land-use patterns by ensuring food security through uninterrupted grain supplies from the plains. The locals would not need to cultivate unsustainable slopes and, given power supply, first stage cooperative agro-processing units could be set up with cold storages in a modern market chain. The opposition to hydro development in Arunachal is also very short-sighted. Assam's fears of adverse downstream impacts are exaggerated and overlook its desperate need for flood cushioning to lift the North Bank in particular from the ravages of annual floods, a depressed, low-risk agriculture, poor infrastructure, low employment opportunities, and ethnic strife that, at bottom, translate into lack of jobs and opportunities for aspiring communities. Few appreciate the urgent need for cheap commercial energy in the hills from micro-hydel and other sources in whose absence villagers pillage the forests for fuel and fodder. Flood fury from cloudbursts, the formation and breaking of debris or glacial dams, and increased sedimentation from enhanced weathering in conditions of climate change constitute natural phenomenon to which adaptive and mitigative remedies must be found. These must be built around scientific flood forecasting, flood routing and warning systems and construction of flood detention structures within and across basins. We have just experienced a terrible human disaster and must be prepared for more such aberrant weather events. The job in hand is to be better prepared for the future rather than trade blame and keep repeating tired environmental slogans that provide cover to sundry vested interests to keep playing games. In the midst of these events, J&K witnessed a great day when the Bannihal rail tunnel was opened with a trial run from Qazigund to Bannihal. The new all-weather tunnel is over 11 km long and 1,500 feet lower than the existing Bannihal road tunnel that is periodically closed on account of snow and landslides. The new tunnel has reduced the distance on this stretch by 17 km, with both fuel and time benefits. The Katra-Bannihal section and Chenab bridge now await completion. The full significance of the new tunnel connection has not registered on strategic thinking and planning. Apart from being a travellers' boon, the new Baramulla-Jammu rail link will by next year politically bond Jammu and Kashmir and end the Valley's seasonal isolation. It will create huge new investment and employment opportunities, taken together with better utilisation of Srinagar's international airport, and availability of more power with the construction and commissioning of more hydro-power projects. Here is opportunity to consider converting the new rail route into an investment corridor with the construction of farm processing, industrial, IT and cold storage hubs en route, open to national and international investment with an inviting land policy, with local safeguards, in place of the present stultifying beggar-myself land regime. The Jammu-Baramulla line could have spurs linking Jammu with Sialkot, Baramulla with Uri and Muzaffarabad, Srinagar with Sonamarg and a Zoji La road-rail tunnel to Kargil and beyond in a 10-15 year framework. The Pandit refugees in Jammu and outside and the wider Kashmiri diaspora that is doing well commercially in every part of India will, with trained J&K youth, find investment and employment opportunities in the proposed rail corridor hubs. Few will have time or the inclination for fatuous jihadi propaganda, let alone seeking "martyrdom" and paradise in another world. This is the time to bring together the best minds in J&K and India to think through these possibilities. Opening up to Pakistan will greatly strengthen the peace process. Islamabad could well become a co-partner in what could be a cross-border enterprise to mutual benefit and enormous gain to the people of J&K on both sides of the divide. Lazy, inhibiting, wasteful one-step-at-a-time sequential action is doomed to failure. Strategy is best when it reinforces success. In Delhi, a modestly bold decision has been taken to liberate the CBI from official clutches and in deciding to legislate the Food Security Bill through an ordinance after persistent parliamentary obstruction by the Opposition, which cannot now plead violation of "democratic norms". More disconcerting is the reported official opposition to extending RTI to political parties regarding electoral funding and accounts. Why should slush funds be protected and electoral financing, the font of national corruption, not be cleaned? Thieves banding together does not confer democratic virtue on fraud such as that confessed by Gopinath Munde (BJP) and Ashok Chavan (Congress). Finally, the CBI's charge sheet in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case in Gujarat sounds another knell for Narendra Modi. The BJP is fear-stricken at the increasing exposure of Modi's culpability in the post-Godhra killings in 2002, then ably assisted by L.K. Advani, Union Home Minister. Parrikar, the BJP chief minister of Goa, has called the Goa pogrom a "clear-cut administrative failure" and "bad governance". What
next? www.bgvreghese.com
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The forgotten lantern Sitting
in a pensive mood one day, I recollected a short story which I read when I was in a primary school seventy years ago. It ran thus: A blind old man was going with a lantern in one hand and a lathi (long stick) in the other. A person coming from the opposite direction stopped him and asked, "Old man, of what avail is this lantern to you when you cannot see". The old man replied politely, "Sir, this lantern is certainly of no use to me. It is meant for people like you who may happen to collide with me in the dark". There are no takers for the advisory of the old man today. Such stories have lost their relevance and meaning. They have become obsolete and outdated. They have been substituted by rhymes such as "Baba Black Sheep", "Jack and Jill" and "Humpty Dumpty". Moral education is an integral part of school curriculum today. It is a compulsory subject from class 1 to c1ass12. Books are prescribed and examinations are held. Even guides and help books are available. It is compulsory to pass in this subject. What a mockery! A drama. A perfunctory exercise. Nothing is gained beyond a certificate at the end of school education. The purpose of education which Hazlitt had laid so beautifully in the following words is damned: "Education is that which remains in us after we have forgotten what we read in
the books." Today nothing remains in the mind of students for more than a semester or more than a year. When I return from morning walk and the sun has risen sufficiently, I see brickbats, stones and banana skins lying in the midst of the road. Nobody tells the tiny tots to pick up the banana skins and throw them in the nearby dust bin or push the same to one side of the road. Nobody tells them to help the invalid, the infirm and the aged in crossing the road. Traffic rules are followed more in their breach than in their observance. If a driver gives a dipper or indicator, the traffic coming from the other direction hardly responds. Nobody bothers for the pedestrians, not to talk of the aged, women and children. In foreign countries you will find all traffic coming to a halt near a zebra crossing and slowing down near a hospital and a school. Enough of it. Today the old man's lantern is nothing more than the election symbol of a political party. It is seen once in five years and that too is without a flame. It is forgotten that a lantern is a metaphor for light, attention, awakening and awareness and that it can be used to show others the
way.
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Regulating contract farming — Punjab way
IT is the time for marketing reforms, including in agriculture, in India. One of the major agricultural reform exercises is amending the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act at the state level where progress is mixed. Some states are still not doing it, while others are doing it partially and some going beyond the mandate like Punjab. Not many are aware that in April 2013 the Punjab Assembly passed a Bill on the subject which has led to the enactment of the Punjab Contract Farming Act, 2013. It should be noted that Punjab has still not amended the APMC Act despite the fact that it was the first state to undertake and promote contract farming in the 1990s and then during the last decade for bringing about diversification in the crop production sector. Direct purchases from farmers and the setting up of private wholesale markets to give a choice to farmers to sell wherever and whoever they would like to, are two major aspects of the model APMC Act, besides the legalisation of contract farming. The recent Act of Punjab deals only with contract farming and the other two reforms are still pending as they are to do with amendments to the APMC Act though contract farming also did not need separate legislation as many other states, including neighbouring Haryana, have legalised contract farming by amending the APMC Act. Therefore, it is important to understand why Punjab took the route of separate legislation on this aspect instead of doing all the required reforms in the APMC Act and the implications of this Act for various stakeholders. Reasons for a separate Act
The major reason for Punjab going for a separate Act on contract farming can be found in the political economy of the state's agribusiness sector wherein farming and trading interests are at loggerheads in protecting their interests. There has been a constant battle on direct payments to farmers for their produce by buying agencies between the two lobbies and the issue has been hanging fire for the last one decade. Whereas the farmer lobby would like to have direct payments, the arthiya lobby opposes it tooth and nail. This is so as direct payments hit the business of interlocking of credit, input and output markets run by arthiyas where a parchi (slip) system prevails for lending in kind to farmers and recovery of payments at the time of sale of produce. Direct purchases (when permitted with the APMC Act amendment) will reduce volumes in APMC mandis and, therefore, arthiyas' and traders' hold on farmer produce and the private wholesale markets (again under APMC Act amendment) will create competition for these arthiyas/traders operating from APMC mandis and the Mandi Board itself. This is perhaps the reason that instead of amending the APMC Act, which would involve allowing direct purchases and setting up of private wholesale markets and, therefore upset the applecart of the arthiyas and the Mandi Board itself, the separate Act route has been taken.
Duration of contract
Under the new Act, the state government will declare control over the purchase, sale, storage, and processing of agricultural produce to be covered under contract farming. The buyer has to register with the local registering authority by paying a fee as specified in the bye-laws. A company as per the Act means public limited company under the Companies Act. The duration of a contract can be one crop season to three years and 108 crops are notified under the Act. The buyer will have to submit reports of the contract transactions to the registering authority as well as the commission. Contract farmed produce can be sold in the APMC market, or at the farm itself or as specified in the agreement. The net weight of the packing unit has to be as per the APMC Act and the buyer will have to make arrangements for packing and weighing of the produce in advance of delivery, and give a receipt (slip) to a farmer as proof of the delivery of produce. There can be no rejection of produce after the delivery to the buyer. Payments will be made by cheque/Demand Draft or Electronic Clearing System (ECS) on the spot at the time of delivery, otherwise with interest for delay up to 30 days, failing which the Contract Farming Commission can recover it as land revenue with interest. If there is a deliberate delay by the buyer in payment, the bought produce can be seized by the commission. Crop loss or damage will be recovered from the buyer if it supplied inputs and extension as per the commission's decision. Only temporary structures on a farmer's land for the duration of the contract can be put up by the buyer and if these are not removed immediately after the expiry of the contract duration, these will become the property of the producer. No recoveries of any dues or penalties can be made from the producer by way of sale or mortgage of his/her contracted land. This provision is in line with the model APMC Act and removes the perceived fears about contracting companies staking claims on contract growers' land. The district collector will be responsible for contract farming dispute resolution and give a decision within 30 days, and no civil court can entertain such cases. Decisions of the commission will be like a decree of a court. A contracting party can appeal after payment of 50% of dues of the disputed amount. Buyers can be fined up to one month in prison or/and Rs. 1-10 lakh for a violation of the Act and @ Rs. 500 per day for a violation of the first conviction, and the farmer is liable to one month jail and/or a Rs. 5,000 fine for a violation of the Act and @ Rs. 100 per day for a violation of the first conviction. It is interesting to note that the provisions of the Act are very different from the provisions for contract farming in APMC Acts of other states. For example, the Gujarat and Haryana amended APMC Acts have bank guarantees from buyers/contracting agencies (5-15% of the value of the contracted produce respectively in the two states) to protect farmer interest in case of company/buyer. The Haryana Act even prescribes that, wherever applicable, the contract price will not be less than the Minimum Support Price of the crop. In Gujarat only processors and exporters are eligible to purchase the commodity from the farmer grown under contract farming. The Gujarat Act also specifies that market fee will not be charged more than once for a given produce within the state and it will be 50% of the normal for contracting agencies and nil in tribal areas of the state for contract farming agencies. The Gujarat Act also allows contracts for up to five years and even beyond with mutual agreement. In both the states the State Agricultural Marketing Board is the arbitrator for contract farming disputes.
Missing links
There are many missing elements in the Punjab Act. The state is promoting agro forestry as part of its diversification plan but how can three-year contracts work in agro-forestry? This is a major lacuna which needs to be corrected. Surprisingly, the Act notified crops also include gur, shakkar and khandsari which are never contract produced generally as they are value-added products from sugarcane. Another important crop being contract produced in the state -- baby corn -- is missing from the list as is garlic. It seems the list of crops has been obtained from the state agricultural marketing board which it has notified under the APMC Act. But, all crops on this list need not be produced under contract farming. A separate list needs to be prepared to make it relevant. The writer is the Chairperson, Centre for Management in Agriculture (CMA), IIM,
Ahmedabad.
Salient features of the Punjab Act on contract farming
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