AGRICULTURE NEEDS MORE HOLISTIC REFORMS

“While, like last year, I seek the blessings of Lord Indra to bestow on us timely and bountiful monsoons, I would pray to Goddess Lakshmi as well. I think it is a good strategy to diversify one’s risks,” are the words of the ex-finance minister (and now President) Mr. Pranab Mukherjee during his budget speech for the year 2011-12. The statement is symbolic of the unfortunate ways in which our ministers have been keener on invoking Gods and Goddesses rather than depending on science and technology and straight forward ground level solutions to come to the rescue of India’s dwindling agriculture sector, which employs around 50% of India’s workforce, but is decreasing in its contribution to the GDP year aft er year. “As per latest estimates released by Central Statistics Office (CSO) the share of agricultural products/Agriculture and Allied Sectors in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country was 51.9 per cent in 1950-51, which has now come down to 13.7 per cent in 2012-13 at 2004-05 prices...” This statement of Minister of State for Agriculture Tariq Anwar last month in a reply to a query in the Rajya Sabha shows the pathetic downfall of a once glowing sector. Even in absolute terms, India’s foodgrain production declined to 250.14 million tonnes in 2012-13 from 259.32 tonnes in 2011-2012.

What continues rising in this sector is just the number of farmer suicides, which reached a shameful figure of 15,440 in 2012, close to 50 farmer suicides every single day of the year, as per the National Crime Records Bureau. The government itself admits that since 1995, more than 300,000 farmers have committed suicide.

Leaving aside our pseudo-intellectual ministers, it’s more important to understand the real problems of agriculture. At the farm level, the usual suspects are clearly the ones that are addressed the least. The acreage in India has been around 140 million hectares, but with the number of farmers increasing, the divisions in land have resulted in decrease in productivity and diminishing economies of scale, what to say about reduced financing options and killing debt traps. Apart from this, lack of irrigation, warehousing/cold-storage facilities, and an almost non-existent technology support from the government also are critical issues for farmers, pushing them towards destitution.
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HATS OFF TO SHAH RUKH KHAN FOR STANDING HIS GROUND! IT’S NOW TIME TO END THIS HOOLIGANISM ONCE AND FOR ALL AND MAKE MUMBAI A UNION TERRITORY!

SRK is great! Not just because he is such a star, but because he genuinely is the most amazing person and has such a logical and sound brain. And now the entire nation idolizes this man all the more because he has become a symbol of sheer courage as well! And I think all it required was someone like him to stand up coolly and say, “This is not right, I’ve done nothing wrong and I won’t apologise.” When he was saying this, one could almost see the schoolboy rebel in him – not ready to cow down to an illogical man trying to act as the school headmaster. I am writing this editorial immediately after coming back from a show on NDTV 24x7, which was on the topic, “Is Sena the real power in Mumbai?” I was one of the speakers. It was sad to see Uddhav Thackeray, who was another speaker in that show, sticking to a stance that cannot be defended by any sense of logic. When questioned on the show by the NDTV anchor on his tendentious comments against SRK, Uddhav’s reply was that one should ask th

It’s important for Anna to become more flexible and respectful towards the democratic process, to give a bigger thrust to his movement

I was too young then to really remember it all; but I have heard from many people that the mass protests generated by the arrest of Anna Hazare are similar to the uprising called Total Revolution led by the late Jaiprakash Narayan in the early 1970s. In fact, it was the Total Revolution and the chaos that followed – and a historic blunder by Indira Gandhi – that led to the imposition of the Emergency in India in 1975. Many people are comparing today’s situation to the Emergency days. The people of India are so fed up and so disgusted with corruption and our rotten and corrupt system that the wave of protests we see is hardly surprising. I have often publicly called India not a democracy but a demonocracy where crooked politicians and their criminal cohorts are openly plundering the nation; well aware that a dysfunctional judicial system will allow them to get away. In almost all cases, they have actually got away and have hence acquired the arrogance and swagger of pirates who know

Don’t see “Slumdog Millionaire”. It sucks!

A phony poseur that has been made only to mock India for the viewing pleasure of the First World!! The emperor’s new clothes! That’s “Slumdog Millionaire” for you… Five minutes into this celebrated patchwork of illogical clichés and you are struck by the jarring dialogues. The cumbersome delivery in a language which doesn’t come naturally to most of the actors sounds like someone scratching on walls with one’s finger nails; it ruins the possibility of a connection… Had this film been made by an Indian director, it would’ve been trashed as a rotting old hat, which literally stands out only because of its stench, but since the man making it happens to be from the West, we’re all left celebrating the emperor’s new clothes. The film borrows an undoubtedly interesting narrative style – from films like “City of God” – but then uses it to weave in a collection of clichés from the Third World’s underbelly for the viewing pleasure of a First World audience. The real slumdog in the movie is not

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