Daughters of Vidarbha - Whose responsibility ?
While India Makes Record Cotton Exports to United States of America. Who is benefiting from WTO ?
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Daughters of Vidarbha
Daughters of Vidarbha - Whose responsibility ?
While India Makes Record Cotton Exports to United States of America. Who is benefiting from WTO ?
Friday, February 23, 2007
Three Widows
The Tale of Three Indian Widows :
Savita, Sunita and Pratibha are three women from different contexts, background and age groups, yet engulfed by the continuing tragedy that plays out in Maharashtra. The number of widows is growing at a frightening speed in the cotton country. Jaideep Hardikar reports.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/feb/agr-widows.htm
The most senior Indian bureaucrats and politicians, continue to deny any agricultural emergency in Indian rural areas, that calls for their attention.
Some IAS Relief Commissioners, are waxing eloquent on farmer's folly, in pursuing high cost cultivation practices in un irrigated parts of India, while some IAS bureaucrats are issuing mental insanity certificates to suicidal farmers as "sirfira". The Indian story of bureaucratic incompetence is tragi comic.
The Sensex Minister is following the bears and the bulls closely, while the Cricket Minister is celebrating the return to form of Saurav Ganguly in Indian cricket.
Savita, Sunita and Pratibha are three women from different contexts, background and age groups, yet engulfed by the continuing tragedy that plays out in Maharashtra. The number of widows is growing at a frightening speed in the cotton country. Jaideep Hardikar reports.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/feb/agr-widows.htm
The most senior Indian bureaucrats and politicians, continue to deny any agricultural emergency in Indian rural areas, that calls for their attention.
Some IAS Relief Commissioners, are waxing eloquent on farmer's folly, in pursuing high cost cultivation practices in un irrigated parts of India, while some IAS bureaucrats are issuing mental insanity certificates to suicidal farmers as "sirfira". The Indian story of bureaucratic incompetence is tragi comic.
The Sensex Minister is following the bears and the bulls closely, while the Cricket Minister is celebrating the return to form of Saurav Ganguly in Indian cricket.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Collecting Rural Women Narratives
As of now, there are no rural narratives of wives and daughters of suicidal farmers up on the blog :
http://www.zubani.blogspot.com/
Some people have offered to collect some of the narratives. One hopes there can be many more people who begin to collect them, translate them to English, and to other languages, and put them up on the Internet and build up the the Zubani Blog as a resource for all who are concerned and affected.
The process of collecting narratives, is absolutely open and will continue to be so for many years, because one can see no end to more and more such narratives. There is no concept of an editor for these narratives.
Everyone who contributes, is a self moderated editor. We will keep learning from the narratives, and hopefully these narratives will point a way forward for the future of science and technology innovations, sustainability and creativity, in Indian farming and agriculture and indeed rural life, in coming years.
Anyone with basic Internet access, can post the narratives, from anywhere in India. Feel free to experiment, and there is no need to be afraid of anyone on this earth.
Without fearlessness and without openness there is no future. Find your inspiration from these women and daughters, whose husbands have consumed a can of pesticides, and left them alone, to fend for themselves, and everyone will begin to ask questions of themselves.
What are we doing, Where are we going ? Are our actions of any help to those who are living in the villages of India ?
http://www.zubani.blogspot.com/
Some people have offered to collect some of the narratives. One hopes there can be many more people who begin to collect them, translate them to English, and to other languages, and put them up on the Internet and build up the the Zubani Blog as a resource for all who are concerned and affected.
The process of collecting narratives, is absolutely open and will continue to be so for many years, because one can see no end to more and more such narratives. There is no concept of an editor for these narratives.
Everyone who contributes, is a self moderated editor. We will keep learning from the narratives, and hopefully these narratives will point a way forward for the future of science and technology innovations, sustainability and creativity, in Indian farming and agriculture and indeed rural life, in coming years.
Anyone with basic Internet access, can post the narratives, from anywhere in India. Feel free to experiment, and there is no need to be afraid of anyone on this earth.
Without fearlessness and without openness there is no future. Find your inspiration from these women and daughters, whose husbands have consumed a can of pesticides, and left them alone, to fend for themselves, and everyone will begin to ask questions of themselves.
What are we doing, Where are we going ? Are our actions of any help to those who are living in the villages of India ?
Monday, February 12, 2007
Chidambaram Eyes For Sensex Only
It seems Shri Chidambaram, Indian Finance Minister, has made up his mind.
He and the Congress, have no time for even listening to the complaints of the suicidal cotton farmers of Vidarbha, much less, addressing the issue of the siphoning of agricultural surplus from Indian villages.
Now the question is whether this neglect of Indian farmers by the central Congress government, will have any political impact on the image, of Shrimati Sonia Gandhi amongst rural voters or not. In the short run it certainly will not. The mood of the voters shows that she is still considered the rahanuma of the Indian villages.
Kishor Tiwari of Vidarbha JanAndolan Samiti is returning empty handed to Vidarbha after not even being considered for a meeting with Shri Chidambaram. Apparently, Shri Chidambaram is busier attracting European pension funds to invest in Indian stock markets rather than responding to the mental health of farmers in the cotton belts of India.
He does have a point too though. After all India needs to emulate China in a very short time and this is the economic model being vigourously pursued by the Oxbridge economists in charge of economic policy making. Moreover, he feels he really does not have any role to play in addressing the situation of Indian farmers and the rising debt levels.
Yes, of course, when Shri Sharad Pawar is looking after the Agriculture Ministry and taking care of the sugar farmers, why should Shri Chidambaram feel the need to open his mouth. His remit is the IRS bureaucracy, the stock markets and providing funds for 6 lanes highways to run from the southern ports to the rural hinterland in the north. He has to merely point out the figures of investment in rural infrastructure and leave the rest to Shri Pawar to take care of.
Shri Sharad Pawar is of course busy trying to reconcile the impossible conflict, in his dual role as Agriculture Minister of India and seeing if Indian farmers are able to sell their produce in the market, and buying food for urban consumers in southern India at the cheapest prices, in his role as a Food Minister of India. He surely has a tough job and when one considers that he also has the unenviable tasks of justifying the high levels of pesticides in the milk that Indian mothers have to feed to their children, and backing the return to form of Saurav Ganguly in Indian cricket, one cannot but feel that such immense responsibilities are being thrust at him. How will he cope with all of these roles ?
At least someone must rise to the ocassion and come to the rescue of Shri Sharad Pawar as he juggles between his various important roles in the central government.
And who else will it be if not the suicidal farmers of Vidarbha ?
Maybe the farmers of Vidarbha, have to repay many debts of past lives, to Shri Sharad Pawar and they have to do it in this lifetime.
So who is going to foot the electoral bill in the next elections ? Yes this will surely begin to cause sleepless nights for some of the people in Congress circles who are well connected with the rural mood.
He and the Congress, have no time for even listening to the complaints of the suicidal cotton farmers of Vidarbha, much less, addressing the issue of the siphoning of agricultural surplus from Indian villages.
Now the question is whether this neglect of Indian farmers by the central Congress government, will have any political impact on the image, of Shrimati Sonia Gandhi amongst rural voters or not. In the short run it certainly will not. The mood of the voters shows that she is still considered the rahanuma of the Indian villages.
Kishor Tiwari of Vidarbha JanAndolan Samiti is returning empty handed to Vidarbha after not even being considered for a meeting with Shri Chidambaram. Apparently, Shri Chidambaram is busier attracting European pension funds to invest in Indian stock markets rather than responding to the mental health of farmers in the cotton belts of India.
He does have a point too though. After all India needs to emulate China in a very short time and this is the economic model being vigourously pursued by the Oxbridge economists in charge of economic policy making. Moreover, he feels he really does not have any role to play in addressing the situation of Indian farmers and the rising debt levels.
Yes, of course, when Shri Sharad Pawar is looking after the Agriculture Ministry and taking care of the sugar farmers, why should Shri Chidambaram feel the need to open his mouth. His remit is the IRS bureaucracy, the stock markets and providing funds for 6 lanes highways to run from the southern ports to the rural hinterland in the north. He has to merely point out the figures of investment in rural infrastructure and leave the rest to Shri Pawar to take care of.
Shri Sharad Pawar is of course busy trying to reconcile the impossible conflict, in his dual role as Agriculture Minister of India and seeing if Indian farmers are able to sell their produce in the market, and buying food for urban consumers in southern India at the cheapest prices, in his role as a Food Minister of India. He surely has a tough job and when one considers that he also has the unenviable tasks of justifying the high levels of pesticides in the milk that Indian mothers have to feed to their children, and backing the return to form of Saurav Ganguly in Indian cricket, one cannot but feel that such immense responsibilities are being thrust at him. How will he cope with all of these roles ?
At least someone must rise to the ocassion and come to the rescue of Shri Sharad Pawar as he juggles between his various important roles in the central government.
And who else will it be if not the suicidal farmers of Vidarbha ?
Maybe the farmers of Vidarbha, have to repay many debts of past lives, to Shri Sharad Pawar and they have to do it in this lifetime.
So who is going to foot the electoral bill in the next elections ? Yes this will surely begin to cause sleepless nights for some of the people in Congress circles who are well connected with the rural mood.
Why Zubani ? Indian rural narratives of women
The idea for this blog came up in the course of some discussions regarding what women - the wives and the daughters - of the farmers, who are committing suicides, in the cotton belt of India of Vidarbha, Maharashtra, are thinking.
Priya of Samanvaya, Chennai has been involved with a campaign of email updates regarding the farmer suicides in Maharashtra.
In the course of the discussions, we wondered, that if and when, the dust of arguments, rhetoric, politics settles down, who is facing the world with blank uncomprehending eyes ?
No proud farmer of rural India deliberately wants to be a delinquent debtor. No Indian farmer wants to die without repaying all his accumulated debts.
However he has been pushed into disasters due to a failure of economic policy.
The Indian economic policies with respect to agriculture, are nothing other than a disguised exit policy and a tool for sucking surplus for subsidizing industry.
For large masses of Indian farming populations, the present and the future is bleak.
Even though India is a democracy, the Indian farmer, and rural populations, fail to find a voice in policy making, as New Delhi and Mumbai, pursue a course of economic restructuring of epic proportions, driven by the desire to benefit from globalization and the need to respond to the threat from China, US, Europe.
Large scale economic restructuring is unleashing large social displacement and rural distress.
The farmer of course - the husbands and the fathers - who committed suicide by drinking a can of pesticides, and was able to manage to relieve himself of the mental burden of financial debt and the daily verbal torture of debtors, and money lenders.
But it is the rural women of India who are unable to comprehend that Indian economic policies are making agriculture unviable for the farmer who is solely dependant on rural incomes.
It is these women of India, reduced to a sorry state, from divine Shakthi and the Rani of Jhansi invocations, who are left alone in the wake of these powerful market forces and economic policies of Indian urban led growth policies without social security.
It is the women, the daughters and the wives, who will pay the price of the debacle of Indian farming and disguised exit policy.
This is an attempt to collect some of the rural narratives of some such women, the powerless Shakthi, who does not have the power to slap the errant people in the face, as shown in the TV soaps, that are the staple of Indian middle class and upper classes, solely preoccupied by the return to form of Saurav Ganguly, the get rich quick questions of Shah Rukh Khan and the unending rise of the Indian sensex.
Priya of Samanvaya, Chennai has been involved with a campaign of email updates regarding the farmer suicides in Maharashtra.
In the course of the discussions, we wondered, that if and when, the dust of arguments, rhetoric, politics settles down, who is facing the world with blank uncomprehending eyes ?
No proud farmer of rural India deliberately wants to be a delinquent debtor. No Indian farmer wants to die without repaying all his accumulated debts.
However he has been pushed into disasters due to a failure of economic policy.
The Indian economic policies with respect to agriculture, are nothing other than a disguised exit policy and a tool for sucking surplus for subsidizing industry.
For large masses of Indian farming populations, the present and the future is bleak.
Even though India is a democracy, the Indian farmer, and rural populations, fail to find a voice in policy making, as New Delhi and Mumbai, pursue a course of economic restructuring of epic proportions, driven by the desire to benefit from globalization and the need to respond to the threat from China, US, Europe.
Large scale economic restructuring is unleashing large social displacement and rural distress.
The farmer of course - the husbands and the fathers - who committed suicide by drinking a can of pesticides, and was able to manage to relieve himself of the mental burden of financial debt and the daily verbal torture of debtors, and money lenders.
But it is the rural women of India who are unable to comprehend that Indian economic policies are making agriculture unviable for the farmer who is solely dependant on rural incomes.
It is these women of India, reduced to a sorry state, from divine Shakthi and the Rani of Jhansi invocations, who are left alone in the wake of these powerful market forces and economic policies of Indian urban led growth policies without social security.
It is the women, the daughters and the wives, who will pay the price of the debacle of Indian farming and disguised exit policy.
This is an attempt to collect some of the rural narratives of some such women, the powerless Shakthi, who does not have the power to slap the errant people in the face, as shown in the TV soaps, that are the staple of Indian middle class and upper classes, solely preoccupied by the return to form of Saurav Ganguly, the get rich quick questions of Shah Rukh Khan and the unending rise of the Indian sensex.
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