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| Tuesday, February 13, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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No saving
grace this Pak
judiciary in the dock Surajkund
tragedy
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The
question of India’s food security A
thousand Gujarats in the making!
Wastelands
are not really waste
Punjab
slowing down as engine of growth
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RAILWAY
MINISTER Mamata Banerjee is in a rebellious mood and will defy the Prime Minister and his council of economic advisers. She will not raise passenger fare, at least not for second class travellers. Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha is only too willing to embrace one key recommendation — cut interest rate on small savings and provident fund deposits. And both are wrong. Interest cut is dressed up as the most potent medicine for stepping up investment, generating employment and dragging India into the long-awaited era of wealth creation. So everyone will prosper and why should a small set of people who have parked their savings in the humble national savings certificate or public provident fund protest? They should, not because their income will shrink, but because the government is exploiting their vulnerability. They have no other avenue of good returns what with gold and land losing their value and stock market and mutual fund on a roller-coaster ride. The oft trotted out argument that with tax benefits the real interest rate works out to a healthy 14 per cent is hogwash. With inflation climbing to 8 per cent or more, even by this calculation the effective interest rate comes to just about 5 per cent or slightly more. It has been a long-standing position of the rate-cutting lobby that banks are forced to pay high interest on deposits and charge a higher rate on advances. So bring down the rate to start a wholly healthy cycle of cheaper capital. There is a fatal flaw in this. Past experience does not support this case. When interest came down from 12 per cent to 11 per cent, banks did not, just did not, reduce their rate on borrowing correspondingly. Even after the RBI slashed the bank rate by one percentage point. The link between small savings interest rate and bank lending is nebulous. Two, the administration cost of Indian banks is a prohibitive 3 per cent and if it is shrunk to, say, 1 per cent as is the norm in advanced countries, bank loans will become cheaper without hurting the humble saver. Now that many banks have shed their manpower flab, it should not be difficult. The Finance Minister should opt for cutting expenditure and not for posing financial problems for the hard-pressed middle class citizens. An administered interest rate flies in the face of the much touted policy of liberalisation. The government should allow market forces to decide the rate of interest, instead of officially decreeing it. In the past it has failed and even now it will fail. It has been an economic nostrum for years that interest rate is high because government borrowing is high. When the Union Government is in the market to tap more than Rs 1,10,000 crore to meet its revenue expenditure, interest rate can only go up. Mr Sinha should concentrate on borrowing less and not paying less to those who have helped the country record a robust savings rate of around 25 per cent. It is not polite to attack someone who has subscribed to the country’s larger interest. He should instead go after the big sharks. MNCs owe something like Rs 1500 crore in unpaid income tax and penalty; bad bank loans add up to Rs 80,000 crore or thereabouts. Income tax exemptions cost the government thousands of crores and Mr Sinha should plug these. There is a report that withdrawal from provident fund will be taxed as income at 30 per cent. It will be insensitive to treat as fresh income an employee’s past income saved for future needs. It shows a basic attitude and that is deeply worrying. |
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THERE
is no Pakistani institution whose sanctity is intact. Not even the judiciary, currently mired in a controversy. While most rulers used it to get their wishes fulfilled, Mr Nawaz Sharif crossed all limits. That he could not get his powerful adversary hanged, as his mentor Gen Zia-ul-Haq did, is a different matter. But he did everything he could to destroy the judiciary. After becoming the Prime Minister for a second time he locked horns with the then Chief Justice of Pakistan and got him removed with the help of pliable judges. He humiliated the top judicial authority after a battle of wits with President Farooq Leghari, who too had to go unceremoniously. It was not Mr Sharif's problem if his actions precipitated serious constitutional and political crises. He tolerated no one who came in his way of establishing himself as the Ameer-ul-Momineen, in the fashion of the Khalifa of Islam's early days. After the President and the Chief Justice came the turn of Ms Benazir Bhutto, the only person who could upset his plans. Mr Sharif got Ms Bhutto disqualified from assuming any public office for seven years and sentenced her to five years imprisonment. How he was helped by the judge concerned, Justice Mohammad Qayyum and the Lahore High Court Chief Justice, has been revealed now by the then Deputy Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Mr Abdur Rahim. He has submitted to President Rafiq Tarar a tape of a conversation between Mr Justice Qayyum and Mr Sharif's Law Minister, Mr Khalid Anwar. But Ms Bhutto is no saint, nor is the present ruling military supremo, Gen Pervez Musharraf. There have been reports of the two secretly finalising a deal to protect each other's interests. The PPP leader is in the process of clearing the ground for her safe landing in Pakistan from the UAE (Dubai) where she has been living in self-imposed exile. And General Musharraf is worried about his fate after the formation of an elected government next year, as expected according to a Supreme Court ruling. Incidentally, all this is happening when Ms Bhutto's review petition in the apex court is going to be heard on February 26. What has transpired between her and the ruling General may not be known immediately. But if the tape controversy leads to a judicial verdict in her favour, there are bound to be uncomfortable interpretations for all— the judiciary, the PPP leader and the self-appointed Chief Executive. |
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THE Surajkund tragedy which claimed three lives on Sunday like most disasters in India was simply waiting to happen. Those responsible for the upkeep of the facilities at the fun park at the Surajkund Craft Mela will, of course, be tried for gross negligence. However, the larger issue which we as responsible citizens need to address is our collective lack of concern for safety in whatever we do. However, whenever a tragedy occurs "we" demand strict action against all of "them" for the mishap. No headway in improving the safety standards of the goods and services we offer or use can be made unless we start holding only ourselves responsible for the accidents they [the goods and services] may cause. We should realise that like charity even safe habits begin at home. Just start looking around. A million accidents are simply waiting to happen. Take for instance the potential to cause accidents hidden in the "kundi" connections, the overloaded rickshaws taking children to school, the bus whose doors do not lock properly, the electric press which is connected to the socket with the help of matchsticks, the tractor trolley, the buses and the trucks which do not have a brake or tail lights, the boulders placed dangerously on the central verge on the national highways. These are just random examples of our collective indifference to making safety a habit. The Bhopal gas tragedy could have been avoided had the maintenance staff done periodic dummy runs to check the safety of the deadly methyl isocyanate plant. A popular resort near Parwanoo has been in the eye of controversies twice for the poor maintenance of the cable car resulting in mishaps. But if experts were to examine the safety of the facility, they may find the cable cars still unsafe for use. The Dabwali fire claimed the lives of over 400 school children. A random survey would reveal that most
shamianas and pandals are still made of the same inflammable material which turned a happy occasion for children and parents into a tragedy which Dabwali should never forget. Yes, India is a country where an accident is waiting to happen even at what we presume to be the safest place of all — our home. |
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The question of India’s food security IF we care about true food security in a nation wherein live one-sixth of the human race, many of whom in poverty and penury, an efficient and effective mechanism to access food to all people at all times at affordable prices in an essential pre-requisite. Such an access is also crucial for alleviating the pangs and privations of poverty, which is the pet subject of governments and institutions all over the world. In the twin context of national food security and poverty alleviation, the two most important priorities in India, it is time we took a close and critical look at the “efficiency and efficacy” of the public distribution system (PDS) which has been operating as the food accessing mechanism in the country for several decades. Proponents of the rationing system and its successor, the PDS, claim that these two measures have played an important role in attaining higher levels of household food security and “completely eliminating threats of famines from the face of the country”. It would, therefore, be certainly in the fitness of things that its evolution, working and efficacy are examined in some detail. It was the World War’s compulsions that forced the then British government to introduce the first structured public distribution of cereals in India through the rationing system — sale of a fixed quantity of ration (rice or wheat) to entitled families (ration card holders) in specified cities/towns. Starting from Bombay in 1939, the rationing system extended to 771 cities/towns by 1946. Some rural areas, suffering from chronic shortage, were also covered. The Department of Food under the Government of India was created in 1942 to coordinate this arrangement. When the war ended, India, like many other countries, abolished the rationing system in 1943. In the face of renewed inflationary pressures in the economy immediately after Independence, “accentuated by the already prevailing high global prices of foodgrains at the end of the war (which were around four times higher than the pre-war prices)” the Government of India had to reintroduce rationing in 1950. India retained public distribution of foodgrains as a deliberate social policy, when it embarked on the path of a planned economic development in 1951. It was, in fact, an important component of the policy of growth with equity. In the First Five-Year-Plan, the system, which was essentially urban based till then, was extended to all such rural areas as suffered from chronic food shortages. It was also decided to have two variations of the system statutory rationing, areas, where foodgrains were delivered only through the ration shops; and non-statutory rationing areas, where such shops would only supplement the open market. The system, however, continued to remain an essentially urban-oriented activity. Towards the end of the First Five-Year Plan (1956) rationing had started losing its relevance due to the comfortable foodgrains availability. However, true to its cyclic nature, food production dropped in 1958, when the Second Five-Year-Plan had just commenced. This forced the government to restart the procurement of foodgrains and cereals and impose a control on the trading of foodgrains. It was also decided to re-introduce the PDS. In addition to foodgrains, other essential commodities like sugar, cooking coal and kerosene were also added to the commodity basket of the PDS. There was a rapid increase in the ration shops (renamed as Fair Price Shops — FPSs) and their number went up from 18,000 in 1957 to 51,000 in 1961. The quantity distributed through the PDS also increased with the availability of grains through PL-480. Thus, by the end of the Second Five-Year-Plan, the PDS had transformed from mere rationing to that of a “social safety system”, making available foodgrains and other essential commodities at a “fair price”. The objective was to improve the access of households to foodgrains, thereby keeping a check on speculative tendencies in the market. The concept of buffer stocks was also incorporated in the overall food policy, although no buffer worth the name was required to be created in view of easy and smooth availability of PL-480 grains. The creation of the Food Corporation of India and the establishment of the Agricultural Prices Commission in 1965 consolidated the position of the PDS. The government was now committed to announcing a minimum support price for wheat and paddy, and procuring quantities that could not fetch even such minimum prices in the market. The foodgrains thus procured were to be utilised for maintaining distribution through the PDS with a portion used to create and maintain buffer stocks. In case the buffer fell short of maintaining the minimum levels required under the PDS, the government would resort to imports to make up the difference. All through the ups and downs of Indian agriculture, the PDS was sustained as a deliberate social policy of the government with the following objectives: providing foodgrains and other essential items to vulnerable sections of society at reasonable (subsidised) prices; having a moderating influence on the open market prices of cereals, the distribution of which constitutes a fairly big share of the total marketable surplus; and ensuring equity in the matter of distribution of essential commodities. In short the PDS and, therefore, food security had also become a “gamble in the monsoon”. Two or more successive years of good production would ease the open market prices, leaving no incentive for farmers and traders to hold back stocks and thereby result in good procurement, reduction in off-take and building up of buffer stocks. Similarly, two or more successive years of poor production will harden open market prices, give rise to speculative tendencies, reduce procurement, increase the demand on the PDS resulting in heavy off-take and lowering of stocks. Though the PDS had become the nation’s food security system, functioning for more that four decades now, there has been no worthwhile and dispassionate review of the system with reference to the twin talisman — genuine food security and poverty alleviation. Nevertheless, a “ministry level evaluation” of the PDS carried out in 1991 had brought out the “merits and demerits” of the system as it has been operating. The greatest achievement of the PDS was claimed to be “preventing any more famines in India”. Overcoming the 1987 drought considered the worst in the century, with dignity and effectiveness, has been held as the PDS’s biggest success. Building up of a buffer in the preceding years provided the wherewithal for the PDS as well as the Food for Work type of programmes that helped in abating famine. But for carefully worked-out support prices with a structure to guarantee these, the farmer would not have been encouraged to produce more and more foodgrains. As per this evaluation report, “without the FCI and other procuring agencies ready at thousands of purchase centres to step in and purchase grains if the producer was not getting a higher price than the government announced procurement price, the private trade could never have handled the huge quantities that come to market at the harvest time, and prices would have crashed, making all the efforts and investment of farmers go waste”. On the flipside, however, the ministry-level evaluation pointed out several shortcomings in the functioning of the PDS as it was structured and managed. These include the urban and pro-rich bias of the system and its ineffectiveness in reaching the poor. Another major drawback of the PDS has been its lack of effective contribution towards household food security. It was also admitted that the PDS is not cost-effective and its operations are too costly due to “wasteful” movements of grains and high storage losses. Another valid deficiency of the PDS was its marginal impact, as far as income transfer to poor households is concerned. In a study based on the National Samples Survey’s 42nd round (NSSO, 1990), it has been found that “the value of the subsidy is so little even for those households who make all their purchases of grains and cereals from ration shops. For the bottom 20 per cent of the rural population, the subsidy is no more than Rs 2.08 per capita per 30 days. With the average family size of six, the subsidy per family is just a paltry Rs 12.50 per month.” Regarding the functioning of the FCI, the evaluation was candid enough to admit “among the troika of its functions — procurement, storage and food security — FCI, while accomplishing the first two, has not been successful in its third function.” Despite such major flaws in the PDS, official circles adopted the typical insensitive, presumptuous and self-conceited approach and declared that, “the system has, however, come to stay, notwithstanding its
shortcomings, because millions of India’s poor derive direct or indirect benefits from the very existence of this system”. All they suggested was some tinkering here and there. These tinkerings were made in 1991-92 through a crash programme designated “Revamped PDS” (in short RPDS) which had components such as opening of several new Fair Price Shops (FPSs) to improve physical access of beneficiaries; mounting of special campaigns by the state governments to cancel the bogus entitlement cards and to issue new cards to households found to be without them; progressively bringing more and more FPS under the system doorstep delivery of PDS commodities; setting up vigilance committees of local people with substantial representation of women for each FPS at the village level and also at higher levels; improving the supply chain by constructing or hiring small intermediary godowns; and introducing additional commodities through FPS, in these areas. These “tinkering” were claimed as success and a Ministry of Civil Supplies report in 1993 had this to say, “An analysis of the implementation of the RPDS has shown that during 1992-93, per capita allocation in RPDS areas was higher than other areas. Whereas actual distribution against allocation was only 73 per cent in other areas it was 91 per cent in RPDS areas. State were also moving towards the norms of 20 kg/family/month. The positive trend tat emerges from the analysis is that PDS, which was predominantly urban till the mid-1980s, has now been effectively targeted for the traditionally deficit areas covered by RPDS.” The writer, a keen student of economics, is a retied IAS officer. (To be concluded) |
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A thousand Gujarats in the making! AFTER the damage is done, it is customary to find a villain and lay all the blame at his door. In the case of the Gujarat devastation, this identification exercise has been completed quickly: the unscrupulous builders brought upon the misery, with the government as an accomplice. The way the real-estate developers flouted all norms and the government gave approval to these shockingly inadequate structures indeed proved instrumental in claiming thousands of lives when high-rise buildings crashed like ninepins. But to focus all the collective ire on them would amount to missing the wood for the trees. The real culprit is the brazen contempt for safety that almost all of us display as a society. For once, let us put our hand on the heart and do a bit of soul-searching. Have even those of us who built our own houses included adequate earthquake-safety safeguards? Mind you, these are not necessary in Gujarat alone. Delhi and Shimla are as much at risk as, say, Ahmedabad. The fact of the matter is that hardly anyone has taken the necessary precaution. And leave alone the threat from earthquakes, even routine fire-safety measures are routinely flouted. Let us admit it: We cut too many corners day in and day out just to save a few pennies. When someone else does so, it is a crime. When we ourselves do it, it is street-smartness. The height of it is that we feel proud of our “achievements”. The “chachaji” or “mamaji” who knows the “art” of inserting the plugs of a heater and an iron and a fridge in just one socket with the help of matchsticks is the “hero” of the family. What about a device for cutting the power supply in case of an emergency? Chhaddo ji, these items are a waste of money! Such flouting of safety norms is so widespread that it has come to be accepted as the done thing. In fact, we find strength in numbers. If you have several other people defying the norms, you can hustle the government into closing its eyes. Just look at the way street protests start against the officials who try to remove “kundi” connections. There are enough politicians to jump into the fray against such “anti-people, repressive” policies of the government targeting the poor janata. By its very definition, a democracy is about bowing to the majority. The system works on the premise that the majority will obey rules and the lawbreakers who are in minority will be made to fall in line. But when the majority starts going wayward, the leaders too start following instead of leading. This unlikely scenario has already become a grim reality. Those who think that rules are for fools are in a brute majority. Even laws which are for their own safety are adhered to — if at all — only for forms sake. Wearing a helmet is considered sissy. Ironically, the same brave man cries blue murder when he is rushed to a hospital after an accident and does not get immediate attention because there are other “macho” men like him in the overcrowded emergency ward already. All those who are baying for the blood of the Gujarat government for dereliction of duty are continuing to brazenly emulate the same mistake in their personal lives. How many households can boast of even a first-aid kit in readiness? The Punjab and Haryana High Court recently passed an order making it compulsory for front-seat passengers of four-wheelers to wear seat belts. See what has happened? Seat belts which are hardly better than black ribbons are being sold everywhere on the roadside so that you can hoodwink the enforcement personnel. Two-wheeler drivers have been doing something similar for years. They have a miner’s helmet or a fragile one, only to keep the cops at bay. In most cases these are worn on the head only when the “khaki intruder” is in sight. Otherwise, these are merrily slung on one’s arm. Public memory is admittedly short, but it does not have to match that of a goldfish which is said to remember a lesson for only a few seconds. We beat our breast vigorously during a crisis and go back to the old ways moments later. Remember the Mandi Dabwali pandal fire tragedy? Thousands of our countrymen obviously don’t, otherwise, how is that we attend various functions in “pandals” made up of highly inflammable material without worrying a moment How is that no citizen’s forum takes cinema halls to task for not having adequate fire fighting equipment despite Uphaar? Like it or not, we have earned notoriety because of this irresponsible attitude. Some time ago, on seeing a shoddy electric connection, Prince Phillip of England had remarked jocularly that it seemed to be the handiwork of an Indian mechanic. We were outraged and our national pride was hurt so much that we forced him to apologise. Yes, he should not have made such “indiscreet remark”. At the same time we should not be working hard to live up to his assessment. Unfortunately, we do. Even in a highly educated city like Chandigarh, safety consciousness is not much at display. There was much criticism of the administration when it erected steel barricades on Madhya Marg. It was accused of “dividing the city into two with this iron monstrosity”. That dissuaded the officials from going ahead with barricading elsewhere. The result? The median on other roads has been broken down at a thousand places and cyclists and scooterists intrude into the fast moving traffic from the wrong direction unmindful of the grave risk that it poses to others as well as themselves. If an accident takes place, well, you can always blame the “speed devils”. Such examples can be cited in each and every walk of life. The point I am trying to make is that before expecting the builders and the government to mend their ways, we have to change our own mindset. The parents of a child sending their ward to school in a rickshaw already crammed with 10 children are as much at fault as the officials who do not curb the practice. The wake up call that was Gujarat, could not have been more loud and horrendous. If it does not shatter our slumber, nothing will! |
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Trends and pointers INDIA remote sensing satellite have revealed that not all lands classified as wasteland are really waste. “Analysis of satellite imageries have shown that 45 million out of the 64 million hectares of the so-called wasteland can be brought into some type of agriculture”, Space commission Chairman Krishnaswami Kasturirangan has said. He said the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has also started using satellite data for issuing “drought bulletins” like weather bulletins to warn in advance the administration in 175 districts that are drought prone. Kasturirangan said based on initial success in Orissa and Punjab, ISRO and the Ministry of Agriculture have developed a system for forecasting crop yields. This year, the system will be used to predict yield of wheat and rice in 17 states, the ISRO chief said. According to Kasturirangan space technology combined with other technologies could help increase crop productivity from the present two tonnes per hectare. Giving another example, Kasturirangan said that ISRO’s satellites have mapped the salt affected and water logged areas in the country. Combining the imageries with ground based data, ISRO has identified 440,000 potential locations in the country where ground water can be found.
PTI Catching criminals
from teeth Beware criminals! Now erasing your fingerprints alone will not help, will have to fix-up your teeth and bite marks too as identification of individuals from teeth makes promising advances in the field of forensic science. Police, all over the world, has to deal with a large number of rape cases, and systematic examination of teeth and bite marks found in several such cases is of great help, P.K. Chattopadhyay from the Department of Forensic science, Punjabi University, Patiala, told PTI. The examination not only helps in determining the age and sex but also the specific individual from whom the teeth may have originated, he said. “Racemization,” a very important and recent development, has proved to be a landmark in this field, Chattopadhyay said adding that age of the culprit could be determined very accurately by this method with a negligible error margin (+ - three months). The technique currently in use only in Japan and Germany has the potential to replace the traditional method which took into account the eruption and falling sequence of the teeth. Teeth are characterised by the presence of enamel, dentine and the pulp cavity. Scrappings from the pulp cavity can be used for determining the species origin by specialised techniques like Gel-diffusion and Gross-over electrophoresis, he said. Pulp cavity scrappings can also be used for determining the sex and a number of genetically determined polymorphic characters such as blood groups, enzyme types and DNA profiles which are not only useful in elimination purposes but also in actual identification of a specific individual conclusively, Chattopadhyay added. He said the technique used fairly extensively in the Western countries has failed to pick up in India because of the huge investment associated with it. Moreover lack of interest in the technology in our country coupled with incompetence has also hindered its development, he added.
PTI World record in
espresso consumption Cappuccino, espresso, late — the whole world knows the names by now, but Italians still know and love them best. A new survey shows that more than 70 million cups of espresso are gulped down in Italy’s 110,000 coffee bars each day — about 600 shots per person a year, or the highest espresso consumption in the world. Four out of five Italians say a morning trip to their local coffee bar is a necessity, the survey of 700 aficionados showed. Men between 35 and 54 are the most dedicated drinkers. Of the various styles of coffee, most Italians (74 per cent) prefer straight-up espresso, 10 per cent opt for macchiato (with a hint of milk), and eight per cent go for ristretto — a very small, strong jolt of caffeine that is not for the fainthearted. Cappuccino, the default choice of wannabe-Italians the world over, hardly figures in its homeland where diehards don’t even consider it a proper coffee.
Reuters Fat bunny has operation
to find love A British rabbit, so fat she couldn’t clean herself and could hardly move, has had an operation to give her a new lease of life and even help her find love. Tallulah, a two-year-old lop-eared doe, had a tummy tuck operation after her owner passed her on to the Bunny Burrows refuge in Richmond, Yorkshire, in northern England. “She had been overeating and was living in a very small cage so she could not get much exercise,’’ Gwen Butler, owner of Bunny Burrows, told the Times newspaper. “She is from a rather lazy breed and consequently got very fat indeed.’’ Vet Frances Harcourt-Brown carried out the operation to remove an “alarming amount of fat’’ from Tallulah, who is now looking forward to happier times. “She looks great again and is living happily with a suitor called Aladdin,’’ Butler said.
Reuters |
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News analysis PUNJAB, as an engine of growth, is showing signs of fatigue and beginning to slow down. Unless overhauled it may shut down sooner than expected. This is the message that emanates from the fourth Punjab science congress that concluded its two-day session at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, on Saturday. For a state rooted to rural economy and solely dependent upon agriculture, the warning bells have been repeatedly rung by agricultural administrators and scientists, economists, sociologists and farmers. But has the sound reached the ears of policy-makers, politicians and bureaucrats? The question is not how well known is the Punjab Academy of Sciences that hosted the congress in association with the Society for Advancement of Academics, Sports and Cultural Activities of the College of Basic Sciences and Humanities at PAU. The question is how to keep Punjab running, as an engine of development, growth and hope. The congress is not alone in ringing the alarm bells for the future of agriculture in the country in general and Punjab in particular. Parliament, the BJP National Executive, the Indian Science Congress, Agro-tech (a show of the CII held in Chandigarh), a seminar-cum workshop on future problems and prospects of Punjab agriculture (a brain storming session held at the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh) and many more fora have sounded similar warnings in the recent past. The bottom line uncertainty is the rule in Punjab, once a leader and state occupying a predominant position in the country in terms of living standards and per capita income, ever ready to reach out. Today, it is facing serious problems at home: a comatose economy and administration, a paranoid political executive and an inert Opposition. The presentations at the congress that had “Science and technology in economic development of Punjab: vision-2020” as its theme, gave enough empirical evidence, statistical data and research studies, surveys and reports to hammer home the point that Punjab, over a period of time, has decoupled from rural development. There is criminal neglect of general education and the teaching of science in schools and colleges. The infrastructure in educational institutions is either underdeveloped or non-existent in the rural sector. The state has a failing health delivery system. Its agriculture is stagnating and marketing, storage and post-harvest handling is woefully poor and neglected. Social tensions and indebtedness are growing and so is frustration due to unemployment. The same message was conveyed by similar conferences: Punjab as an engine of growth now spurts and sputters. As one plods through the recommendations of the congress and other fora to pull Punjab out of the quagmire, one finds a kind of sameness running through them on issues, topics and problems and even suggested solutions. The common denominator is the same: sustaining agriculture and sustenance of the agriculturist. The references are to off-the-shelf cheap technology (bio-technology, information technology) for small and marginal farmers; preserving natural resources (soil and water), ecology, bio-diversity and building a plant germ-plasm bank; checking pollution by synthetic chemicals (fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides, etc, often leading to pesticide poisoning or even suicides by farmers); diversification (breaking the wheat-rice pattern); and growing commercial crops. The other issues are continued government intervention (minimum support price and assured market), reduction in post-harvest losses, scientific storage, transportation and effective distribution (role of the FCI and the public distribution system) and matching quantity with quality (agro-processing) to make farm foods acceptable in the international market in view of the World Trade Organisation. The accepted hypothesis: it is not a problem of surplus. People below the poverty line are unable to buy food. The suggestion is to couple science and technology with social scientists and economists’ analysis to accrue financial and food benefits to individuals. The negative influence of “the Green Revolution” — higher consumption of liquor and related problems of health and family feuds and the ill-effects of migratory labour are some other aspects that have added to the slowing of the engine of growth that “was” Punjab. There is a ring of familiarity and repetitiveness about the problems and solutions required to service the engine. What is missing is where to begin tinkering with the machine and who should do it first and fast. It has to be an “integrated servicing,” devoid of electoral compulsions but full of political compunction. Everyone talks of food security and the need to rejuvenate agriculture by higher investment, bio-technology and producing genetically modified foods and crops —Frankenfood, as people opposed to this describe them. The world has been gifted the “golden rice”: grains of hope by Ingo Potrykus, a scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. His rice grains have vitamin A that will take care of the problems of blindness in children and hunger. Translating recommendations into reality remains. Nearer home, in Punjab, the struggle is still on small, basic issues: how to restore the fertility of the soil, save declining watertable, give remunerative returns to small peasants burdened with debt, how to provide education, nutrition and health to their
children. The state is still to draw up plans to safeguard agricultural land being eaten up by urbanisation. The crux of what is stated by scientists, economists and the World Economic and Social Survey-2000 report by the UN is: agriculture will remain centre-stage in any development and economic planning, particularly so in developing countries. Unless the population increase is drastically cut, radical agrarian reforms introduced and investment stepped up in the farm sector by the government and corporates, Punjab as an engine of growth will shut down soon. It is time the powers that be took cognizance of the message(s) put out by such congresses and conferences. |
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In the luminous sheath (of intelligence),
the deepest core of man, dwells Brahman-stainless, indivisible, pure. He is the light of all that shines. That is what the knowers of the self realise. — Mundaka Upanishad, II.2.9 ***** The Atman is neither born nor does it die. Coming into being and ceasing to be do not take place in It. Unborn, eternal, constant and ancient, it is not killed when the body is slain. — The Bhagavadgita, II.2.9. ***** He by whom the heavenly region has been made firm and the earth has been made steadfast; by whom the luminous space is upported; who has measured all the worlds in the vast atmosphere; to that All-blissful Divinity we offer our humble worship. — Rig Veda, 10.121.5. ***** Let the mind have cosmic perspectives, Let the heart be devoid of evil, Let thought be pure and the body active in good deeds. These are the four ideals of life Which Kartikeya wants Every one to love and follow. — Maharishi
Kartikeya (d.September 24, 1953). Dhirendra Brahmachari, Yoga: Yogic sukshma Vyayama. ***** O perturbed, always moving and doubtful minds, now shun courageless religion and atheism. Throw out all sorts of doubts. All the creeds are your creation. The sun may prove to be a plate of mercury, the earth may become vacuum, the Vedas may be dubbed as personal, but you cannot be anything else but God. You cannot be anything else. — Impossibilities Challenged, 114. |
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