A friend of mine came to the US last month on H1. His wife is now 6th month pregnant. And when he asked his employer for medical insurace, they said it was not possible to insurce both of them and offerd medical insurance only for this guy and that too after he gets a job and gets his first month salary. I mean, how mean can any person get. If nothing else, at least can't he think in terms of basic human values. 'mAnavatvam'... it looks like a sadistic pleasure of that employer.
Coming to think of it, I have come across employers who hold back all the rights of the consultants and I have come across who treat their consultants very well. I am not trying to show a stereo type employer. But c'mon.. at least in this trying circumstances, you should try to help the people whose blood you are so keen on sucking out. After all its the consultants who get their a** whipped our working day in and day out .. I know that employer is as important, holding your H1 but.. its when these kind of things happen that it reduces my trust on humans. No one would ask for help if he can help himself.
Is it our tendency to offer help to persons who dont need it ? just to make us feel satisfied that we did offer to help?? is it so hard to help a person in his most helpless state?? is it really so hard to being a social animal.. a human???
Monday, December 11, 2006
Thursday, December 7, 2006
YSR rAjyam - sApamA varamA -part 4
YSR govt has been succesful so far in doing justice to almost all the sectors,namely agriculture and IT. Though its a bit early in the day to find out the corruptions of the present day ministers (reputation of cong preceeds them), an over all look at things around us does seem to be encoraging.
With first half of hte 5 yrs rule gone, it has been not-so-rosy ride for YSR, though its been a bit better for the ppl of AP. Atleast we have not been pushed into another East India company rule. How the governance would be in the next half is what would decide YSR's fate in the next assembly elections. There have been rumours and allegations of YSR's son's interference in govt, which are probably true. VW has gone out of state.. but FabCity is as much a reality.
The only major hiccup that YSR has faced so far in this term is that of Eenadu and its relentless campaing against the govt. But with the help of Undavalli Arun Kumar, this threat has, as of now been a nullified a bit. For the Bobbili mid-term election, Eenadu had launched a vicious attack on Botsa. They had even done, upto a point, charecter assasination. But with the result in favor of Botsa (even though with a slender margin), AP politics are getting more interesting. It remains to be seen who wins in this round. Ramoji Rao et al will never give in so easily and also with Eenadu, the fight will be even more tough. Knowing pretty well that he cant afford to take on both the dailies (Eenadu and Andhra Jyothi), it seems that they have called a truce, however temporary it may be, with Andhra Jyothi. And then there is the Telangana issue. I am pretty much convinced that there wont be any further state bifurcation. A second states reorganization comitte is still to be formed. Though KCR did win the Karimnagar seat with over 2 lakh majority, how many of these votes are for forming Telangana.. no one knows. Winning a seat is a lot different from dividing a state.
Two and half years is a long time... and in politics it can sometimes be eternity. If tdp can pull up its act together, we might eventually have some opposition in the state.. but at this point of time... YSR is the one whom we all repose our trust in.
With first half of hte 5 yrs rule gone, it has been not-so-rosy ride for YSR, though its been a bit better for the ppl of AP. Atleast we have not been pushed into another East India company rule. How the governance would be in the next half is what would decide YSR's fate in the next assembly elections. There have been rumours and allegations of YSR's son's interference in govt, which are probably true. VW has gone out of state.. but FabCity is as much a reality.
The only major hiccup that YSR has faced so far in this term is that of Eenadu and its relentless campaing against the govt. But with the help of Undavalli Arun Kumar, this threat has, as of now been a nullified a bit. For the Bobbili mid-term election, Eenadu had launched a vicious attack on Botsa. They had even done, upto a point, charecter assasination. But with the result in favor of Botsa (even though with a slender margin), AP politics are getting more interesting. It remains to be seen who wins in this round. Ramoji Rao et al will never give in so easily and also with Eenadu, the fight will be even more tough. Knowing pretty well that he cant afford to take on both the dailies (Eenadu and Andhra Jyothi), it seems that they have called a truce, however temporary it may be, with Andhra Jyothi. And then there is the Telangana issue. I am pretty much convinced that there wont be any further state bifurcation. A second states reorganization comitte is still to be formed. Though KCR did win the Karimnagar seat with over 2 lakh majority, how many of these votes are for forming Telangana.. no one knows. Winning a seat is a lot different from dividing a state.
Two and half years is a long time... and in politics it can sometimes be eternity. If tdp can pull up its act together, we might eventually have some opposition in the state.. but at this point of time... YSR is the one whom we all repose our trust in.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
YSR rAjyam - sApamA varamA -part 3
In this part 3 of the article, I want to digress a bit about the Vision 2020 and its demeaning effects that luckily (and hopefully) the people of AP as well as India might have escaped. During CBN's CMship we heard and saw so many ads and advices in regards to what is probably the most touted document during those years.. VISION 2020.
Though this document has always been in the visibility of us, the people, I doubt if anyone has had the time and patience to go thru this document. This was earlier accessible by the AP Gov website (this link has been removed after the present govt came into power). It was supposed to be the blue print for "Swarnandhra Pradesh".. but if that Vision was indeed achieved, we would have been forever as "Vishadandhra Pradesh". A few of the points of this document are quoted here. I took the liberty of quoting from George Monbiot's website. I have asked for republishing permission and if he objects i will take them out of this blog.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/05/18/this-is-what-we-paid-for/
Posted May 18, 2004
Britain’s foreign aid has been used to bankroll a programme for mass starvation
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 18th May 2004
Tony Blair has lost the election. It’s true he wasn’t standing, but we won’t split hairs. His policies have just been put to the test by an electorate blessed with a viable opposition, and crushed. In throwing him out of their lives, the voters of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh may have destroyed the world’s most dangerous economic experiment.
Chandrababu Naidu, the state’s chief minister, was the West’s favourite Indian. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton both visited him in Hyderabad, the state capital. Time magazine named him South Asian of the Year; the governor of Illinois created a Naidu Day in his honour, and the British government and the World Bank flooded his state with money. They loved him because he did what he was told.
Naidu realised that to sustain power he must surrender it. He knew that as long as he gave the global powers what they wanted, he would receive the money and stature which count for so much in Indian politics. So instead of devising his own programme, he handed the job to the US consultancy company McKinsey.
McKinsey’s scheme, “Vision 2020”, is one of those documents whose summary says one thing and whose contents quite another.(1) It begins, for example, by insisting that education and health care must be made available to everyone. Only later do you discover that the state’s hospitals and universities are to be privatised and funded by “user charges”.(2) It extols small businesses but, way beyond the point at which most people stop reading, reveals that it intends to “eliminate” the laws which defend them,(3) and replace small investors, who “lack motivation”, with “large corporations”.(4) It claims it will “generate employment” in the countryside, and goes on to insist that over 20 million people should be thrown off the land.(5)
Put all these – and the other proposals for privatisation, deregulation and the shrinking of the state – together, and you see that McKinsey has unwittingly developed a blueprint for mass starvation. You dispossess 20 million farmers from the land just as the state is reducing the number of its employees and foreign corporations are “rationalising” the rest of the workforce, and you end up with millions without work or state support. “The State’s people,” McKinsey warns, “will need to be enlightened about the benefits of change.”(6)
McKinsey’s vision was not confined to Naidu’s government. Once he had implemented these policies, Andhra Pradesh “should seize opportunities to lead other states in such reform, becoming, in the process, the benchmark state.”(7) Foreign donors would pay for the experiment, then seek to persuade other parts of the developing world to follow Naidu’s example.
There is something familiar about all this, and McKinsey have been kind enough to jog our memories. Vision 2020 contains 11 glowing references to Chile’s experiment in the 1980s. General Pinochet handed the economic management of his country to a group of neoliberal economists known as the Chicago Boys. They privatised social provision, tore up the laws protecting workers and the environment and handed the economy to multinational companies. The result was a bonanza for big business, and a staggering growth in debt, unemployment, homelessness and malnutrition.(8) The plan was funded by the United States in the hope that it could be rolled out around the world.
Pinochet’s understudy was bankrolled by Britain. In July 2001 Clare Short, then secretary of state for development, finally admitted to parliament that, despite numerous official denials, Britain was funding Vision 2020.(9) Blair’s government has financed the state’s economic reform programme, its privatisation of the power sector and its “centre for good governance” (which means as little governance as possible).(10) Our taxes also fund the “implementation secretariat” for the state’s privatisation programme. The secretariat is run, at Britain’s insistence, by the far-right business lobby group the Adam Smith Institute.(11) The money for all this comes out of Britain’s foreign aid budget.
The results of the programme we have been funding are plain to see. During the hungry season, hundreds of thousands of people in Andhra Pradesh are now kept alive on gruel supplied by charities.(17) Last year hundreds of children died in an encephalitis outbreak because of the shortage of state-run hospitals.(18) The state government’s own figures suggest that 77% of the population has fallen below the poverty line.(19) The measurement criteria are not consistent, but this appears to be a massive rise. In 1993 there was one bus a week taking migrant workers from a depot in Andhra Pradesh to Mumbai. Today there are 34. (20) The dispossessed must reduce themselves to the transplanted coolies of Blair’s new empire.
Luckily, democracy still functions in India. In 1999, Naidu’s party won 29 seats, leaving Congress with five. Last week those results were precisely reversed. We can’t yet vote Tony Blair out of office in Britain, but in Andhra Pradesh they have done the job on our behalf.
www.monbiot.com
References:
These can be found at the above said website.
As you can see from the above article, the vision of 2020 would have reduced us all to beggars by the time 2020 ushers in. If this is not enough evidence, read on for some more "documented" facts and figures...
http://www.indiaresource.org/issues/agbiotech/2003/blindedbydevelopment.html
The crux of the Vision 20/20 strategy for development is the modernisation of the food systems of Andhra Pradesh through consolidating farms, mechanising agriculture, increasing fertiliser and pesticide use, building roads and transport systems and introducing genetically modified crops such as vitamin A enriched rice and BT cotton. The government officials and corporations have managed to convince large development agencies (with their outdated belief that corporate agriculture can alleviate poverty through a trickle-down effect) that the poor will benefit. A DFID(Department for International Development, British Govt) spokesman was quoted by Straits Times as saying, "Vision 20/20 is going ahead. Our aim is to take farmers out of the poverty they and their families have been in for centuries. The only way to do so is by modernisation, commercial consolidation of farms and the introduction of up to date farming methods, including the use of pesticides and machines and GM crops".
What DIFD forgot to do is to discuss it with the people who will be affected. The majority of the 70 million population of Andhra Pradesh is engaged in small scale farming, primarily for subsistence and local markets. 80 percent of these farmers are women who work small 2-5 acres plots using organic, traditional methods, a wide diversity of seed and few external inputs.
Recently, the International Institute for Environment and Development, along with the University of Hyderabad and other bodies, organised a grassroots consultative process called a 'citizens jury', in which the Vision 20/20 programme was analysed and unanimously rejected by small farmers.
The jury's main objection to Vision 20/20 is that the proposed reduction of farmers making their living from the land would fall from 70 to 40 percent of the population. This would result in 20 million farmers losing their land and livelihoods. The farmers of Andhra Pradesh are very skilled and knowledgeable about their traditional methods of farming, but they are not trained in any other occupations and are mostly low-caste and illiterate. Some will be able to find work as contract labourers, factory workers, or servants, but many more will end up migrating to urban slums to join in the desperate scramble for employment and survival.
Andhra Pradesh farmers traditionally save their seed from year to year. The crops they grow vary according to the types of land, the seasons and rainfall. Many require no irrigation. GM seed would put money in the hands of the corporations. Not only would farmers have to buy the seed, the crops would require inputs that farmers would have to buy. If GM did increase the yield of a crop, it would only be for export and not for the needs of the people.
To say that we have been saved from the imminent poverty and destruction of life as we see it by the people of AP is an understatement. Whatever might have been the reasons that they choose to over throw the previous regime, they need to be hailed. And that this govt is at least trying to return the semblance of respect which our beloved 'rAitanna' deserves, makes me applaud YSR.
(to be concluded in the next part)
Though this document has always been in the visibility of us, the people, I doubt if anyone has had the time and patience to go thru this document. This was earlier accessible by the AP Gov website (this link has been removed after the present govt came into power). It was supposed to be the blue print for "Swarnandhra Pradesh".. but if that Vision was indeed achieved, we would have been forever as "Vishadandhra Pradesh". A few of the points of this document are quoted here. I took the liberty of quoting from George Monbiot's website. I have asked for republishing permission and if he objects i will take them out of this blog.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/05/18/this-is-what-we-paid-for/
Posted May 18, 2004
Britain’s foreign aid has been used to bankroll a programme for mass starvation
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 18th May 2004
Tony Blair has lost the election. It’s true he wasn’t standing, but we won’t split hairs. His policies have just been put to the test by an electorate blessed with a viable opposition, and crushed. In throwing him out of their lives, the voters of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh may have destroyed the world’s most dangerous economic experiment.
Chandrababu Naidu, the state’s chief minister, was the West’s favourite Indian. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton both visited him in Hyderabad, the state capital. Time magazine named him South Asian of the Year; the governor of Illinois created a Naidu Day in his honour, and the British government and the World Bank flooded his state with money. They loved him because he did what he was told.
Naidu realised that to sustain power he must surrender it. He knew that as long as he gave the global powers what they wanted, he would receive the money and stature which count for so much in Indian politics. So instead of devising his own programme, he handed the job to the US consultancy company McKinsey.
McKinsey’s scheme, “Vision 2020”, is one of those documents whose summary says one thing and whose contents quite another.(1) It begins, for example, by insisting that education and health care must be made available to everyone. Only later do you discover that the state’s hospitals and universities are to be privatised and funded by “user charges”.(2) It extols small businesses but, way beyond the point at which most people stop reading, reveals that it intends to “eliminate” the laws which defend them,(3) and replace small investors, who “lack motivation”, with “large corporations”.(4) It claims it will “generate employment” in the countryside, and goes on to insist that over 20 million people should be thrown off the land.(5)
Put all these – and the other proposals for privatisation, deregulation and the shrinking of the state – together, and you see that McKinsey has unwittingly developed a blueprint for mass starvation. You dispossess 20 million farmers from the land just as the state is reducing the number of its employees and foreign corporations are “rationalising” the rest of the workforce, and you end up with millions without work or state support. “The State’s people,” McKinsey warns, “will need to be enlightened about the benefits of change.”(6)
McKinsey’s vision was not confined to Naidu’s government. Once he had implemented these policies, Andhra Pradesh “should seize opportunities to lead other states in such reform, becoming, in the process, the benchmark state.”(7) Foreign donors would pay for the experiment, then seek to persuade other parts of the developing world to follow Naidu’s example.
There is something familiar about all this, and McKinsey have been kind enough to jog our memories. Vision 2020 contains 11 glowing references to Chile’s experiment in the 1980s. General Pinochet handed the economic management of his country to a group of neoliberal economists known as the Chicago Boys. They privatised social provision, tore up the laws protecting workers and the environment and handed the economy to multinational companies. The result was a bonanza for big business, and a staggering growth in debt, unemployment, homelessness and malnutrition.(8) The plan was funded by the United States in the hope that it could be rolled out around the world.
Pinochet’s understudy was bankrolled by Britain. In July 2001 Clare Short, then secretary of state for development, finally admitted to parliament that, despite numerous official denials, Britain was funding Vision 2020.(9) Blair’s government has financed the state’s economic reform programme, its privatisation of the power sector and its “centre for good governance” (which means as little governance as possible).(10) Our taxes also fund the “implementation secretariat” for the state’s privatisation programme. The secretariat is run, at Britain’s insistence, by the far-right business lobby group the Adam Smith Institute.(11) The money for all this comes out of Britain’s foreign aid budget.
The results of the programme we have been funding are plain to see. During the hungry season, hundreds of thousands of people in Andhra Pradesh are now kept alive on gruel supplied by charities.(17) Last year hundreds of children died in an encephalitis outbreak because of the shortage of state-run hospitals.(18) The state government’s own figures suggest that 77% of the population has fallen below the poverty line.(19) The measurement criteria are not consistent, but this appears to be a massive rise. In 1993 there was one bus a week taking migrant workers from a depot in Andhra Pradesh to Mumbai. Today there are 34. (20) The dispossessed must reduce themselves to the transplanted coolies of Blair’s new empire.
Luckily, democracy still functions in India. In 1999, Naidu’s party won 29 seats, leaving Congress with five. Last week those results were precisely reversed. We can’t yet vote Tony Blair out of office in Britain, but in Andhra Pradesh they have done the job on our behalf.
www.monbiot.com
References:
These can be found at the above said website.
As you can see from the above article, the vision of 2020 would have reduced us all to beggars by the time 2020 ushers in. If this is not enough evidence, read on for some more "documented" facts and figures...
http://www.indiaresource.org/issues/agbiotech/2003/blindedbydevelopment.html
The crux of the Vision 20/20 strategy for development is the modernisation of the food systems of Andhra Pradesh through consolidating farms, mechanising agriculture, increasing fertiliser and pesticide use, building roads and transport systems and introducing genetically modified crops such as vitamin A enriched rice and BT cotton. The government officials and corporations have managed to convince large development agencies (with their outdated belief that corporate agriculture can alleviate poverty through a trickle-down effect) that the poor will benefit. A DFID(Department for International Development, British Govt) spokesman was quoted by Straits Times as saying, "Vision 20/20 is going ahead. Our aim is to take farmers out of the poverty they and their families have been in for centuries. The only way to do so is by modernisation, commercial consolidation of farms and the introduction of up to date farming methods, including the use of pesticides and machines and GM crops".
What DIFD forgot to do is to discuss it with the people who will be affected. The majority of the 70 million population of Andhra Pradesh is engaged in small scale farming, primarily for subsistence and local markets. 80 percent of these farmers are women who work small 2-5 acres plots using organic, traditional methods, a wide diversity of seed and few external inputs.
Recently, the International Institute for Environment and Development, along with the University of Hyderabad and other bodies, organised a grassroots consultative process called a 'citizens jury', in which the Vision 20/20 programme was analysed and unanimously rejected by small farmers.
The jury's main objection to Vision 20/20 is that the proposed reduction of farmers making their living from the land would fall from 70 to 40 percent of the population. This would result in 20 million farmers losing their land and livelihoods. The farmers of Andhra Pradesh are very skilled and knowledgeable about their traditional methods of farming, but they are not trained in any other occupations and are mostly low-caste and illiterate. Some will be able to find work as contract labourers, factory workers, or servants, but many more will end up migrating to urban slums to join in the desperate scramble for employment and survival.
Andhra Pradesh farmers traditionally save their seed from year to year. The crops they grow vary according to the types of land, the seasons and rainfall. Many require no irrigation. GM seed would put money in the hands of the corporations. Not only would farmers have to buy the seed, the crops would require inputs that farmers would have to buy. If GM did increase the yield of a crop, it would only be for export and not for the needs of the people.
To say that we have been saved from the imminent poverty and destruction of life as we see it by the people of AP is an understatement. Whatever might have been the reasons that they choose to over throw the previous regime, they need to be hailed. And that this govt is at least trying to return the semblance of respect which our beloved 'rAitanna' deserves, makes me applaud YSR.
(to be concluded in the next part)
Monday, December 4, 2006
YSR rAjyam - sApamA varamA -part 2
The fact that during the two and half years of YSR govt, the state of AP has invested about Rs 19740 crore in agriculture sector thats the hallmark of this govt. During his election campaing he had said that he wanted to invest Rs 46,000 crore in all and half way thru the years he has spent about half of his budget allocated towards agriculture. Maybe this is the reason that he is rated as the best CM in India. Coming to think about it, CBN was also rated the best CM in fact was called the CEO of AP... But after the 9+ yrs of mis-rule (mainly talking abt Agriculture here) I am very much skeptical about the progress being made in the villages. But after going thru an enormous amount of literature these many months, i have a feeling that maybe this is really true.
Here I quote extensively from various sources..
Outlook
Bringing the spotlight back to agriculture is, in fact, what has made YSR's chief ministership exemplary. Making irrigation a priority, his government allocated it Rs 3,350 crore in 2004-05, Rs 6,350 crore in the next fiscal, and Rs 10,040 crore for '06-07. It plans to spend Rs 46,000 crore in all. In a state where no new irrigation project was taken up for a decade, YSR has taken up 26 medium and major projects, of which eight are scheduled to be completed in two years. "Even my cabinet colleagues expressed doubts on how I'd mobilise the funds, but I stood firm," he says. Thanks to that, AP is a farmers' domain yet again.
And YSR's government is claiming all the credit. Says finance minister K. Rosaiah: "Of course, it helped that nature blessed us with bountiful rain, but it is the Congress which has helped make agriculture a remunerative profession again." He notes how states like Maharashtra and Punjab have been unable to provide free power, but YSR continues with his seven-hour free power supply to farmers. Further, his waiver of Rs 1,287 crore of power dues has done its bit to curb distress suicides. Farmer lending through the cooperative sector too has tripled to Rs 2,000 crore.
Another area YSR wielded his magic wand in is Bt cotton, cultivated statewide. Monsanto Mahyco Biotec Ltd, the main player supplying these genetically modified seeds, was charging Rs 1,850 for 450-gm packets, of which Rs 1,250 was royalty alone. This when it charges Rs 45 as royalty per sachet in China and Rs 108 in the US. Each acre needs up to two sachets. Monsanto's high rates led to numerous companies selling spurious seeds, at a third of Monsanto's rate: Rs 600 per sachet. The lure proved to be fatal: it was the main reason behind farmer suicides in 2003-04.
This January, the YSR government filed a pil on behalf of the farmers and saw to it that MNCs like Monsanto were indicted by the MRTPC for violation of anti-trust laws in the country and for adopting restrictive trade practices and charging unreasonable royalty. Then, on May 11, MRTPC granted an injunction against the companies, directing them to charge reasonable royalty. Now, the price of Bt cotton seeds cannot exceed Rs 900 for a packet. The belated move has helped check farmer suicides considerably although farmers caught in the debt trap continue to take their lives.
The Congress government, though, is far from antagonistic to what Naidu genuinely initiated. He has built on the growth Naidu generated in the IT sector—if Rosaiah is to be believed, the growth in IT & ITES has been 68 per cent. MNCs too continue to find Hyderabad a cheaper alternative to Bangalore. Industrial power tariff was slashed by 4.1 per cent in 2005-06, and by another 3.8 per cent in '06-07. Coupled with the promotion of SEZs linked to the ports at Visakhapatnam, Kakinada and Krishnapatnam, industrial houses are being drawn to Andhra Pradesh.
The Indiramma scheme is another instrument through which the CM has tried to improve the lot of the poor by building houses for them. "We've built 12 lakh houses in two years and 60 lakh more will be built in the coming years," says YSR. "What's more, we don't talk of SC, BC or forward caste here. If after 50 years of Independence, a family does not have a house, there can be nothing more tragic, caste notwithstanding."
Indian Express.. Nov 23, http://www.indianexpress.com/story/17136.html
YAVATMAL, ADILABAD, NOVEMBER 22: The distance from Yavatmal in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha to Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh is barely 100 km — one river and two bridges is all that one needs to cross from one town in India’s richest cotton belt to another. But it’s almost a million miles apart.
While Yavatmal tops the list for farmers’ suicides with 222 this year, Adilabad has had only two. In 2003-04, when Andhra reported as many as 4000 suicides, Adilabad had recorded 300 coming down to 17 last year.
That’s why this journey holds valuable lessons for policy-makers battling to break the debt-death cycle in Vidarbha. And nothing illustrates the difference better than Polambari, a scheme launched by the Andhra government a year ago. Under this, “field schools” for farmers are conducted by trained officers. And more than what they teach, it’s just their presence that, farmers say, is key to the turn-around. Along with a range of related policy interventions (see box).
In sharp contrast, in all the six districts of Vidarbha — where average landholding of 7 acres is similar to the pattern in Adilabad — almost half of all Agriculture Research Officer positions are vacant. Even those who are employed are virtually invisible: staff have neither the funds nor the willingness to travel to the fields leaving farmers to the mercy of aggressive marketing by seed companies, moneylenders and with zero advice on pests, disease or new farm techniques.
In fact, the Rs 4.5 crore sanctioned to strengthen such agriculture extension services, under the Prime Minister’s relief package, is yet to be utilized.
To understand the difference this makes, consider this: Andhra farmers were notorious for their indiscriminate use of pesticide —spending as much as Rs 10,000 per acre, spraying as much as 10-15 times, not only increasing cost several fold but also reducing soil productivity.
This year, the cotton crop is good and most farmers are making a neat profit. If nature played a role, there was nurture as well. Thanks to classes at the field schools, pesticide control has been hammered into a new precept.
The results are visible: Adilabad’s pesticide sale, of mainly Monochrotophos and Endosulfan, has come down from 70 tonnes a year to 18 tonnes. One reason is Bt cotton which now covers 100% of the total cotton fields in Andhra Pradesh (only 60% of the Vidarbha crop is Bt and its yield this year has been less than expected). But key to Andhra’s solution is the close, regular interaction between farmers and state extension officers.
Take Adilabad’s Rampur village early one morning this week. About 30 farmers gather around Agriculture Officer V Veeraiah who is all set with books, charts, papers and crayons to explain how to cut costs in the nine months his students have to tends to cotton fields.
They have chosen a two-acre field as a classroom, on one acre he demonstrates how certain techniques can be employed to reduce costs without compromising yields. The other acre is left as a control group, for conventional farming to compare and contrast.
“The basic aim is to save friendly insects who do the job of killing other pests,” Veeraiah tells the farmers as he shows them how to use simple kits to test level of nutrients in the soil and identify which ones need to be supplemented.
Veeraiah also helps the farmer change certain age-old practices like applying phosphoric fertilizer later and not during the time of sowing. He shows them how to apply Monochrotophos only on the stem with a brush for sucking pests, not on the entire plant. This, he explains, causes the least damage to the environment and does not kill insects like the praying mantis which actually eat some of the dangerous pests. He even gets farmers to take turns drawing sketches of the pests and identifying each in the local language.
The “classroom” field belongs to young farmer Srinivas Reddy who owns seven acres. He proudly claims he is making a neat profit of Rs 35,000 per acre this year. The first pickings are done and have been sold in the Adilabad mandi, incidentally the largest in Asia.
Among Veeraiah’s students is fresher Dayakar Reddy who admits he was initially sceptical but now swears by these classes. His costs are down to Rs 2,800 per acre minus the picking cost, which is a third of what it is in neighbouring Yavatmal.
Veeraiah admits that more such schools are needed, he can only select two villages in his mandal for the entire season lasting 14 weeks. The rest, he depends on word of mouth. Next year, the best farmers from the present batch will travel to other villages to spread the word. Maybe some of them — or their lessons, at least — can take that 100-km journey to Yavatmal.
What Adilabad is doing right
• Improved Extension services that ensure constant interaction between farmers and officers
• Concerted crackdown on moneylenders
• Farmers already compensated for damage caused by heavy rains in August
• Subsidy on micronutrients like magnesium and zinc
• Increased cropping of soyabean by 30% to break the monocrop cycle of cotton
(to be contd)
Here I quote extensively from various sources..
Outlook
Bringing the spotlight back to agriculture is, in fact, what has made YSR's chief ministership exemplary. Making irrigation a priority, his government allocated it Rs 3,350 crore in 2004-05, Rs 6,350 crore in the next fiscal, and Rs 10,040 crore for '06-07. It plans to spend Rs 46,000 crore in all. In a state where no new irrigation project was taken up for a decade, YSR has taken up 26 medium and major projects, of which eight are scheduled to be completed in two years. "Even my cabinet colleagues expressed doubts on how I'd mobilise the funds, but I stood firm," he says. Thanks to that, AP is a farmers' domain yet again.
And YSR's government is claiming all the credit. Says finance minister K. Rosaiah: "Of course, it helped that nature blessed us with bountiful rain, but it is the Congress which has helped make agriculture a remunerative profession again." He notes how states like Maharashtra and Punjab have been unable to provide free power, but YSR continues with his seven-hour free power supply to farmers. Further, his waiver of Rs 1,287 crore of power dues has done its bit to curb distress suicides. Farmer lending through the cooperative sector too has tripled to Rs 2,000 crore.
Another area YSR wielded his magic wand in is Bt cotton, cultivated statewide. Monsanto Mahyco Biotec Ltd, the main player supplying these genetically modified seeds, was charging Rs 1,850 for 450-gm packets, of which Rs 1,250 was royalty alone. This when it charges Rs 45 as royalty per sachet in China and Rs 108 in the US. Each acre needs up to two sachets. Monsanto's high rates led to numerous companies selling spurious seeds, at a third of Monsanto's rate: Rs 600 per sachet. The lure proved to be fatal: it was the main reason behind farmer suicides in 2003-04.
This January, the YSR government filed a pil on behalf of the farmers and saw to it that MNCs like Monsanto were indicted by the MRTPC for violation of anti-trust laws in the country and for adopting restrictive trade practices and charging unreasonable royalty. Then, on May 11, MRTPC granted an injunction against the companies, directing them to charge reasonable royalty. Now, the price of Bt cotton seeds cannot exceed Rs 900 for a packet. The belated move has helped check farmer suicides considerably although farmers caught in the debt trap continue to take their lives.
The Congress government, though, is far from antagonistic to what Naidu genuinely initiated. He has built on the growth Naidu generated in the IT sector—if Rosaiah is to be believed, the growth in IT & ITES has been 68 per cent. MNCs too continue to find Hyderabad a cheaper alternative to Bangalore. Industrial power tariff was slashed by 4.1 per cent in 2005-06, and by another 3.8 per cent in '06-07. Coupled with the promotion of SEZs linked to the ports at Visakhapatnam, Kakinada and Krishnapatnam, industrial houses are being drawn to Andhra Pradesh.
The Indiramma scheme is another instrument through which the CM has tried to improve the lot of the poor by building houses for them. "We've built 12 lakh houses in two years and 60 lakh more will be built in the coming years," says YSR. "What's more, we don't talk of SC, BC or forward caste here. If after 50 years of Independence, a family does not have a house, there can be nothing more tragic, caste notwithstanding."
Indian Express.. Nov 23, http://www.indianexpress.com/story/17136.html
YAVATMAL, ADILABAD, NOVEMBER 22: The distance from Yavatmal in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha to Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh is barely 100 km — one river and two bridges is all that one needs to cross from one town in India’s richest cotton belt to another. But it’s almost a million miles apart.
While Yavatmal tops the list for farmers’ suicides with 222 this year, Adilabad has had only two. In 2003-04, when Andhra reported as many as 4000 suicides, Adilabad had recorded 300 coming down to 17 last year.
That’s why this journey holds valuable lessons for policy-makers battling to break the debt-death cycle in Vidarbha. And nothing illustrates the difference better than Polambari, a scheme launched by the Andhra government a year ago. Under this, “field schools” for farmers are conducted by trained officers. And more than what they teach, it’s just their presence that, farmers say, is key to the turn-around. Along with a range of related policy interventions (see box).
In sharp contrast, in all the six districts of Vidarbha — where average landholding of 7 acres is similar to the pattern in Adilabad — almost half of all Agriculture Research Officer positions are vacant. Even those who are employed are virtually invisible: staff have neither the funds nor the willingness to travel to the fields leaving farmers to the mercy of aggressive marketing by seed companies, moneylenders and with zero advice on pests, disease or new farm techniques.
In fact, the Rs 4.5 crore sanctioned to strengthen such agriculture extension services, under the Prime Minister’s relief package, is yet to be utilized.
To understand the difference this makes, consider this: Andhra farmers were notorious for their indiscriminate use of pesticide —spending as much as Rs 10,000 per acre, spraying as much as 10-15 times, not only increasing cost several fold but also reducing soil productivity.
This year, the cotton crop is good and most farmers are making a neat profit. If nature played a role, there was nurture as well. Thanks to classes at the field schools, pesticide control has been hammered into a new precept.
The results are visible: Adilabad’s pesticide sale, of mainly Monochrotophos and Endosulfan, has come down from 70 tonnes a year to 18 tonnes. One reason is Bt cotton which now covers 100% of the total cotton fields in Andhra Pradesh (only 60% of the Vidarbha crop is Bt and its yield this year has been less than expected). But key to Andhra’s solution is the close, regular interaction between farmers and state extension officers.
Take Adilabad’s Rampur village early one morning this week. About 30 farmers gather around Agriculture Officer V Veeraiah who is all set with books, charts, papers and crayons to explain how to cut costs in the nine months his students have to tends to cotton fields.
They have chosen a two-acre field as a classroom, on one acre he demonstrates how certain techniques can be employed to reduce costs without compromising yields. The other acre is left as a control group, for conventional farming to compare and contrast.
“The basic aim is to save friendly insects who do the job of killing other pests,” Veeraiah tells the farmers as he shows them how to use simple kits to test level of nutrients in the soil and identify which ones need to be supplemented.
Veeraiah also helps the farmer change certain age-old practices like applying phosphoric fertilizer later and not during the time of sowing. He shows them how to apply Monochrotophos only on the stem with a brush for sucking pests, not on the entire plant. This, he explains, causes the least damage to the environment and does not kill insects like the praying mantis which actually eat some of the dangerous pests. He even gets farmers to take turns drawing sketches of the pests and identifying each in the local language.
The “classroom” field belongs to young farmer Srinivas Reddy who owns seven acres. He proudly claims he is making a neat profit of Rs 35,000 per acre this year. The first pickings are done and have been sold in the Adilabad mandi, incidentally the largest in Asia.
Among Veeraiah’s students is fresher Dayakar Reddy who admits he was initially sceptical but now swears by these classes. His costs are down to Rs 2,800 per acre minus the picking cost, which is a third of what it is in neighbouring Yavatmal.
Veeraiah admits that more such schools are needed, he can only select two villages in his mandal for the entire season lasting 14 weeks. The rest, he depends on word of mouth. Next year, the best farmers from the present batch will travel to other villages to spread the word. Maybe some of them — or their lessons, at least — can take that 100-km journey to Yavatmal.
What Adilabad is doing right
• Improved Extension services that ensure constant interaction between farmers and officers
• Concerted crackdown on moneylenders
• Farmers already compensated for damage caused by heavy rains in August
• Subsidy on micronutrients like magnesium and zinc
• Increased cropping of soyabean by 30% to break the monocrop cycle of cotton
(to be contd)
Sunday, December 3, 2006
YSR rAjyam - sApamA varamA -part 1
I blogsite lO first post emi rAddamA ani AlochinchA.. kAni chAlA rOjulnunDi I vishaym gurinchi anukunTUnna.
After CBN's (ChandraBabu Naidu) rule extending for 9+ years.. there were infinite farmer suicides. And we were hearing day in day out that CBN was transforming our dear own farmer's paradise of AP into Hightech state. Day in day out we were listening to the crap thrown at us by the govt, by the press, by magazines all over India and the world as to the effect CBN was having on the betterment of AP. Day in day out we were hypnotized to such an extent that for the whole of 9 years we forgot that more than 80% of our Andhra population lived in the villages. We forgot that "agriculture" was the most important export of our people. We forgot that not so long ago our state was called the "rice bowl" of India. We forgot that our people cultivated one of the best cotton grown. And therein started the second greatest mistake done by the CBN govt.
Now to the first one. All along we were projecting AP vis-a-vis Hyderbad as "the destination" for IT. And CBN was all along asking the farmers to grow not rice but other "money crops". The change to money crops usually takes a long time and our famers are not accustomed to growing other kind of crops in such fertile lands. And we lost the title of being the rice bowl. And our famers were reduced to taking begging bowl. And then there is the Bt cotton issue. While the whole world was paying Rs 45 (USA) and Rs 150 (China) for the seeds, we in AP thanks to the govt of AP, were paying a whopping Rs 1800 for the same seeds.
(to be contd)..
After CBN's (ChandraBabu Naidu) rule extending for 9+ years.. there were infinite farmer suicides. And we were hearing day in day out that CBN was transforming our dear own farmer's paradise of AP into Hightech state. Day in day out we were listening to the crap thrown at us by the govt, by the press, by magazines all over India and the world as to the effect CBN was having on the betterment of AP. Day in day out we were hypnotized to such an extent that for the whole of 9 years we forgot that more than 80% of our Andhra population lived in the villages. We forgot that "agriculture" was the most important export of our people. We forgot that not so long ago our state was called the "rice bowl" of India. We forgot that our people cultivated one of the best cotton grown. And therein started the second greatest mistake done by the CBN govt.
Now to the first one. All along we were projecting AP vis-a-vis Hyderbad as "the destination" for IT. And CBN was all along asking the farmers to grow not rice but other "money crops". The change to money crops usually takes a long time and our famers are not accustomed to growing other kind of crops in such fertile lands. And we lost the title of being the rice bowl. And our famers were reduced to taking begging bowl. And then there is the Bt cotton issue. While the whole world was paying Rs 45 (USA) and Rs 150 (China) for the seeds, we in AP thanks to the govt of AP, were paying a whopping Rs 1800 for the same seeds.
(to be contd)..
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