[chhattisgarh-net] Digest Number 1695

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 05:47:53 -0800

Title: chhattisgarh-net

Messages In This Digest (3 Messages)

Messages

1a.

Re: The sinking ship

Posted by: "rahul" [EMAIL PROTECTED]   aarohini

Sat Nov 29, 2008 8:53 pm (PST)

The US economy went through crises in the late 19th century also and
like in the cases mentioned by you, then too it was not because of the
efficacy of the capitalist economy but due to the intervention of the
US state with tax payer's money that capitalism was saved. This is
what is causing widespread anger among the public in the us who are
demanding that the profligate capitalists be brought to book now that
they are down on their knees and not be given bail outs. However, the
ruling classes obviously have other opinions and they have the army
and the police to back them. The enormous post war accumulation of
capital in wall street has to be seen in the perspective of the quote
from baran given by dipankar. It is the poor people all over the world
who have gone hungry, unclothed, unhoused and suffered fatal illnesses
for the entire post war period and contributed to this unconscionable
capital accumulation which has then been used for speculation by a
greedy few in the name of free marketism. The current meltdown has led
to a shrinking of the whole world economy and there are massive
cutbacks in employment and wages the world over. In china there is a
near revolt situation with huge workers' protests going on in the SEZs
there. We must also not forget that this capital accumulation has been
facilitated primarily by energy gained from crude oil and so a very
despicable politics has been practiced by the USA in the post war
period to keep things in a murderous flux in the west Asian region
which is the main source of this important resource. It began with the
wholly unjust settlement of the European Jews in Palestine and the
creation of an Israeli state there which was then supported
financially and militarily by the US and its NATO allies. Being unable
to fight the US and its proxy Israeli state head on in military combat
the Palestinians then resorted to what has now come to be called
terrorism and the first high profile act of murder of civilian targets
was in 1972 in the Munich Olympics and the latest has been the recent
Mumbai carnage. Capitalism has spawned murder and mayhem of all kinds
and as long as it holds sway through the use of unjust military force
against the starving poor in quest of profits there is bound to be
terrorism of various kinds which then hits ordinary people.
terrorism does not have its roots in any religion it is instead a
perverted response to the mother of all perversions - capitalism!

--- In chhattisgarh-[EMAIL PROTECTED]com, "Alok Sharma"
<alok_ksharma@...> wrote:
>
> They are working on it. Govt, banks, FED, congress everyone's top
> priority. They have moved pretty aggresively on many fronts. And
> they are pretty serious about not doing anything stupid for a quick
> fix like change contract laws or bankrupcy cram-down or bank
> nationalization. They will only fix what needs fixing. Short term
> financing risk of corporates is taken care of, money market funds
> are not seeing redemption requests, bank solvency is much better
> with capital infusion and the default spreads are much tighter,
> mortgage rates are much tighter and loan modifications should help
> people stay in the houses without getting their debt forgiven. And
> they stand ready to do more. 1908, 1914 1930, 1974, 1981, 2000,
> 2008.. this is the seventh time in last hundred years that
> valuations and debt overreached and market had to take a step back
> and fix the excesses. We are probably looking at a 2009 recession
> and then a recovery by late 2009 in most asset prices. Commodities
> might recover even earlier.
>

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Messages in this topic (8)
2a.

Distress in the farms : Story in Frontline

Posted by: "Shubhranshu Choudhary" [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Sat Nov 29, 2008 8:53 pm (PST)

*Distress in the farms *

THE interests of farmers are considered to be at the core of the election
campaign in Chhattisgarh. The principal contenders, the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) and the Congress, have announced special schemes for farmers.
Both parties have promised free electricity for farming and good prices for
rice, the main crop.

The Congress has promised a bonus of Rs.251 on every quintal of paddy
procured by the government, while the BJP has promised Rs.270 a quintal. The
Congress has said a government headed by it will not allow farm land to be
acquired without farmers' consent and pledged to fix a cap on the sale of
agricultural land to "outsiders". The BJP has promised interest free loans
to farmers.

Neither party, however, has anything to say about the suicides by farmers in
the State. The BJP leadership, of course, denies that there is any such
thing in Chhattisgarh. Congress leaders say that farmers in Chhattisgarh
have been committing suicide in large numbers in recent years, but they have
not thought it fit to reach out to the bereaved families or to make it an
election issue. Chief Minister Raman Singh pointed this out to bolster his
argument of denial: "You have so many parties in the opposition... Do you
think that they would have remained silent if there was an actual issue like
this?"

But the data with the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) and the State
Police Department's record tell a different story. According to the NCRB
report of 2006, 1,483 farmers committed suicide in the State in that year.
That is, four cases of suicide a day.

The NCRB put the number of farmer suicide cases in Chhattisgarh as the
fourth highest in the country, behind only Maharashtra (4,453) Andhra
Pradesh (2,607) and Karnataka (1,720). Even in terms of the Farmer Suicide
Rate (FSR), which is calculated in terms of the number of suicide cases for
every one lakh farmers, Chhattisgarh's figures are high. The FSR put Kerala
in the top spot with 142.9 cases for every one lakh farmers. Karnataka was
second with 36.4 and Chhattisgarh was third with 33.7.

The government has no use for these figures. "Nearly 80 per cent of
Chhattisgarh's population belongs to the agricultural community and many
farmers among this large population may have committed suicide owing to
personal reasons, but they have not done so on account of debt or other
economic constraints," Raman Singh told *Frontline*.

However, a tabulation of the Chhattisgarh Police on farmer suicides between
January 2004 and June 2008 (a copy of which is in the possession of *
Frontline*) for the district of Raipur shows that in this period as many as
63 farmers committed suicide because of poverty and debt. The most striking
entry relates to farmers who committed suicide after "losing mental
balance": as many as 526 such deaths took place in the past five years.
There were also 567 cases of suicide by farmers who could not cope with
"distressing illnesses". The Chief Minister refused to comment when his
attention was drawn to what these entries indicated.

*Frontline* visited two bereaved families in Mahasamund district. The heads
of both families, Ganesh Sahu of Kurubhatta village and Santosh Nishad of
Gorali village, committed suicide several months ago. In both cases, police
records attributed the suicide to "distress on account of poverty and debt".
Both the families said they had not received any compensation from the
government.

Purushottam Sahu, father of 36-year-old Ganesh, said that officers from the
block development office or the Agriculture Department had not cared to
visit them. He said his son had a debt of approximately Rs.1,50,000 and it
was becoming increasingly clear that he would not be able to pay it back.
"Over the years, input costs of farming have risen by leaps and bounds, and
the returns are getting smaller. There is no intervention from the
government to provide assistance in the form of loans, fertilizers or
labour. The situation does indeed upset mental balance. Almost all the
farmers who are listed as having committed suicide owing to mental imbalance
must have suffered from financial constraints," Purushottam said. The family
has given up farming and leased out the land in return for 35
*boras*(sacks) of paddy a year. One sack of paddy fetches about
Rs.700.

Daulal Chandrakar of the district unit of the Kisan Congress had tried to
draw attention to the plight of farmers in the district. According to him,
the district has the highest FSR in Chhattisgarh at 83 cases of suicide in a
year for every one lakh farmers. He told *Frontline* that he had sent all
the details to the State Congress headquarters, but nothing happened.

Arvind Netam, a senior Congress leader from a tribal community, admitted
that the State leadership had received all the details from time to time but
said that the party was not able to take up the issue because of
difficulties in coordination. Netam's reference to "coordination
difficulties" might be a reflection of the factionalism that plagues the
Congress. With the principal opposition party riven by internal dissensions
and the ruling party in denial mode, there does not seem to be much hope of
immediate relief for the farmers.

*Venkitesh Ramakrishnan*

*http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20081205252403100.htm
*
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Messages in this topic (2)
2b.

Re: Distress in the farms : Story in Frontline

Posted by: "rahul" [EMAIL PROTECTED]   aarohini

Sun Nov 30, 2008 3:27 am (PST)

well done shubhranshu your efforts seem to be making some impact even though it is much less than what is needed given the serioiusness of the agricultural crisis. free electricity and higher support prices are not sustainable solutions to the problem. what is needed is a thorough overhaul in the way agriculture is being done in this country. we have had people like bhaskar save's viewpoint on this being publicised in this forum but unfortunately the powers that be are not prepared to turn their back on the failed green revolution.

Rahul Banerjee

74,Krishnodayanagar,Khandwa naka,Indore,Madhya Pradesh, India-452001

Cell no: +919926791773

webpage: http://rahulbanerjee.notlong.com

blog: http://anar-kali.blogspot.com

--- On Sun, 30/11/08, Shubhranshu Choudhary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Shubhranshu Choudhary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [chhattisgarh-net] Distress in the farms : Story in Frontline
To: chhattisgarh-[EMAIL PROTECTED]com
Date: Sunday, 30 November, 2008, 9:37 AM

Distress in the farms

THE interests of farmers are considered to be at the core of the election
campaign in Chhattisgarh. The principal contenders, the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) and the Congress, have announced special schemes for farmers. Both parties
have promised free electricity for farming and good prices for rice, the main
crop.
The Congress has promised a bonus of Rs.251 on every quintal of paddy
procured by the government, while the BJP has promised Rs.270 a quintal. The
Congress has said a government headed by it will not allow farm land to be
acquired without farmers' consent and pledged to fix a cap on the sale of
agricultural land to "outsiders". The BJP has promised interest free loans to
farmers.
Neither party, however, has anything to say about the suicides by farmers in
the State. The BJP leadership, of course, denies that there is any such thing in
Chhattisgarh. Congress leaders say that farmers in Chhattisgarh have been
committing suicide in large numbers in recent years, but they have not thought
it fit to reach out to the bereaved families or to make it an election issue.
Chief Minister Raman Singh pointed this out to bolster his argument of denial:
"You have so many parties in the opposition.. . Do you think that they would have
remained silent if there was an actual issue like this?"
But the data with the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) and the State
Police Department's record tell a different story. According to the NCRB report
of 2006, 1,483 farmers committed suicide in the State in that year. That is,
four cases of suicide a day.
The NCRB put the number of farmer suicide cases in Chhattisgarh as the fourth
highest in the country, behind only Maharashtra (4,453) Andhra Pradesh (2,607)
and Karnataka (1,720). Even in terms of the Farmer Suicide Rate (FSR), which is
calculated in terms of the number of suicide cases for every one lakh farmers,
Chhattisgarh' s figures are high. The FSR put Kerala in the top spot with 142.9
cases for every one lakh farmers. Karnataka was second with 36.4 and
Chhattisgarh was third with 33.7.
The government has no use for these figures. "Nearly 80 per cent of
Chhattisgarh' s population belongs to the agricultural community and many farmers
among this large population may have committed suicide owing to personal
reasons, but they have not done so on account of debt or other economic
constraints, " Raman Singh told Frontline.
However, a tabulation of the Chhattisgarh Police on farmer suicides between
January 2004 and June 2008 (a copy of which is in the possession of
Frontline) for the district of Raipur shows that in this period as many
as 63 farmers committed suicide because of poverty and debt. The most striking
entry relates to farmers who committed suicide after "losing mental balance": as
many as 526 such deaths took place in the past five years. There were also 567
cases of suicide by farmers who could not cope with "distressing illnesses". The
Chief Minister refused to comment when his attention was drawn to what these
entries indicated.
Frontline visited two bereaved families in Mahasamund district. The
heads of both families, Ganesh Sahu of Kurubhatta village and Santosh Nishad of
Gorali village, committed suicide several months ago. In both cases, police
records attributed the suicide to "distress on account of poverty and debt".
Both the families said they had not received any compensation from the
government.
Purushottam Sahu, father of 36-year-old Ganesh, said that officers from the
block development office or the Agriculture Department had not cared to visit
them. He said his son had a debt of approximately Rs.1,50,000 and it was
becoming increasingly clear that he would not be able to pay it back. "Over the
years, input costs of farming have risen by leaps and bounds, and the returns
are getting smaller. There is no intervention from the government to provide
assistance in the form of loans, fertilizers or labour. The situation does
indeed upset mental balance. Almost all the farmers who are listed as having
committed suicide owing to mental imbalance must have suffered from financial
constraints, " Purushottam said. The family has given up farming and leased out
the land in return for 35 boras (sacks) of paddy a year. One sack of
paddy fetches about Rs.700.
Daulal Chandrakar of the district unit of the Kisan Congress had tried to
draw attention to the plight of farmers in the district. According to him, the
district has the highest FSR in Chhattisgarh at 83 cases of suicide in a year
for every one lakh farmers. He told Frontline that he had sent all the
details to the State Congress headquarters, but nothing happened.
Arvind Netam, a senior Congress leader from a tribal community, admitted that
the State leadership had received all the details from time to time but said
that the party was not able to take up the issue because of difficulties in
coordination. Netam's reference to "coordination difficulties" might be a
reflection of the factionalism that plagues the Congress. With the principal
opposition party riven by internal dissensions and the ruling party in denial
mode, there does not seem to be much hope of immediate relief for the
farmers.
Venkitesh Ramakrishnanhttp://www.frontlin eonnet.com/ stories/20081205 252403100. htm












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