[chhattisgarh-net] Digest Number 2040

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:02:07 -0800

Title: chhattisgarh-net

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1.

Free RICE : is it good ?

Posted by: "ashok" ash_...@yahoo.com   ash_ok7

Tue Nov 17, 2009 3:45 am (PST)



The almost free rice, distributed to poors are helping hands to hungry people.. as most of us would think at first moment... Is it so ?

First of all.. be it reservation or be it free rice; there are ppl who are really poor and needy but they don't get it.. and at the same time.. there are ppl who are rich enough but still manage to get it.

If there is free rice, why we still see beggars all around.

The problems of middleman specially Kishan has increased. How ? do you know .. before free rice, also it was tough to get labour for farming works, because most of labours moved towards industry. Still there were few remaining in village who were ready to work in farms. Govt. distributed free rice.. now they also disappeared.

If kishan does not get rice out of its farms.. imagine what is next ...

Govt. shd learn one thing: BEST WAY TO HELP is make the system and the needy person strong enough so that THEY CAN HELP THEMSELF. free goods is not the help in long run.

Vote bank politics always ruins the system...

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2a.

Re: Appeal letter for ANTI-POSCO RALLY : Don't Steal in the name of

Posted by: "Samuel Lakra" samuella...@yahoo.com   samuellakra

Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:32 am (PST)



Â
Rallies are for held to protest the high handed ness of the dictatorial attitude of the government and in support of the rights of the people who have fallen victim or are facing a threat of being forcibly displaced.
Â
What is development for few persons is destruction for many. If one decides not to get displaced, they have every right to protest in a democratic manner they find better and appropriate. There is need for any certificate from Goels as to what they need and what they do not need.
Â
Samuel Lakra.

From: op goel <opg...@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [chhattisgarh-net] Appeal letter for ANTI-POSCO RALLY : Don't Steal in the name of steel

All these rallies are anti development and anti growth. The people who are sponsoring and holding these rallies do not want the backward areas and backward people to become prosperous and be a part of the Indian mainstream.

opgoel

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3.

Rice to Return 100% as Typhoons, Drought Roil Asians

Posted by: "Tobu" alok_ksha...@yahoo.com   alok_ksharma

Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:33 am (PST)



By Supunnabul Suwannakij and Luzi Ann Javier
Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Rice prices have nowhere to go but
up as drought in India and cyclones in the Philippines cripple
harvests, according to the world's biggest importer and the top
exporter.
Rice may double to more than $1,000 a metric ton as dry El
Nino weather shrinks output and the Philippines and India boost
imports, said Sarunyu Jeamsinkul, the deputy managing director
at Asia Golden Rice Ltd. in Thailand, the largest exporting
nation. Prices won't peak until March, said Rex Estoperez, a
spokesman for the National Food Authority of the Philippines,
the biggest importer. The agency issued a record tender for
600,000 tons last week and today called for bids for the same
volume on Dec. 8 to secure grain before prices rise.
Global rice supplies are likely to be tighter than last
year, when food shortages sparked riots from Haiti to Egypt,
said Jeremy Zwinger, president of The Rice Trader, a brokerage
and consulting company in Chico, California. Escalating food
prices threaten to spark unrest in developing nations while
increasing costs for beer brewer Anheuser-Busch Cos., the
biggest U.S. rice buyer, and cereal maker Kellogg Co.
"The demand-supply situation will be extremely tight, with
India coming in the market," said Mamadou Ciss, a rice broker
since 1984 and now chief executive officer of Hermes Investments
Pte Ltd. in Singapore. The Thai benchmark export price will
likely rise at least 20 percent to $650 to $700 a ton in the
next three to five months, he said. "The market can even touch
$2,000 a ton in the middle of 2010," Ciss said.

Chicago Rally

The Thai price may soar to last year's record of $1,038 a
ton, according to the highest estimate in a survey last week of
10 importers, exporters and analysts in Vietnam, Thailand,
India, Singapore and Pakistan. The median estimate was $700 and
the lowest $600, compared with $542 today.
On the Chicago Board of Trade, home to futures for long-
grain rough rice, prices jumped about 35 percent from this
year's low of $11.195 per 100 pounds on March 16. Futures
reached a record $25.07 in April 2008 as concern about supply
shortages prompted India and Vietnam to cut exports.
Rice for January delivery rose 1.5 percent to $15.08 per
100 pounds in electronic trading on the Chicago Board of Trade
at 1:50 p.m. Paris time.

Crops Destroyed

India, the second-most-populous nation, may become a net
importer for the first time in two decades. The nation's weakest
monsoon since 1972 will cut domestic output 15 percent to 84
million tons in the marketing year that began Oct. 1, according
to the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization.
Consumption will be 89 million tons, according to Concepcion
Calpe, a senior economist at the FAO.
The Philippines is accelerating imports for 2010 supplies
after two storms destroyed about 1.3 million tons of rice.
State-run National Food Authority plans to buy at least 1.45
million tons by December, including the scheduled purchases of a
total 1.2 million tons in two record tenders on Dec. 1 and Dec.
8, Romeo Jimenez, director of the state food buyer, said today.
Rice's looming rally contrasts with sagging prices for
other agricultural commodities. Wheat futures are down 7.5
percent this year in Chicago after global output jumped to a
record. As of Nov. 13, corn is little changed this year as
farmers in the U.S., the world's biggest producer, neared
completion of their second-largest crop ever.

`Rice Crisis'

"There is a strong possibility we'll see a rice crisis
next year as India faces drought, and Indonesia may feel the
pinch of El Nino weather," Asia Golden Rice's Sarunyu said in
an interview Nov. 9. Prices may top $1,000 a ton should the Thai
government decide to maintain its stockpiles rather than export
them, he said.
An El Nino weather pattern is brewing, with sea surface
temperatures at least 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit)
above average across much of the central and east-central
equatorial Pacific Ocean in the four weeks ended Nov. 7,
according to a Nov. 9 report by the U.S. Climate Prediction
Center.
The FAO is holding a world summit on food security starting
in Rome today. Food prices in 31 poor countries remain
"stubbornly high," the organization's Director General Jacques
Diouf said in Rome on Nov. 11, and more than 1 billion people
suffer from hunger.
The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks cereals, sugar,
meat, oils and dairy, gained for a third month to 158 in
October. The index peaked at 213.5 in June 2008 before plunging
to 139 in February amid the global economic crisis.

`Ripe' Fundamentals

Rice production has lagged behind demand in four of the
past eight years, and rising consumption is expected to erode
global stockpiles by 41 percent to 85.9 million tons in the
2009-10 marketing year, down from a record 146.7 million tons in
2001-02, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"If we start having problems -- weather problems,
production problems -- the price of rice is going to skyrocket
over the next decade," Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings,
said in an interview Oct. 12. "When it happens, I don't know.
But I know that the fundamentals are ripe." Rogers, based in
Singapore, predicted the start of the commodities rally in 1999
and is the author of books including "Investment Biker."
Farmers are struggling to squeeze more crops from each acre
while demand increases with a growing world population. Limited
growth in per-acre yields is "a major reason for the imbalance
between long-term demand and supply," according to the Laguna,
Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute. Average
annual yield growth slowed to 1.4 percent from 1990 to 2005,
down from 2.14 percent during the previous two decades, it said.

Food Riots

In March 2008, global food prices soared 57 percent from
the previous year, the UN reported. Around 40 people died in
riots in Cameroon and at least seven were killed in Haiti as
violence erupted over food shortages. The FAO reported food-
related violence in Burkina Faso, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast,
Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal. In the U.S., Costco
Wholesale Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club limited
bulk rice sales.
Global rice harvests will drop 2.3 percent to 448.6 million
tons in the 2009-10 year from 459.1 million tons a year earlier
because of the crop losses in India and the Philippines and
cyclones, landslides, flooding and earthquakes that reduced
production in Japan, Nepal, Pakistan and Taiwan, the FAO said in
a report Nov. 10.

`Tight Situation'

Rice fields in the Western Hemisphere are also suffering.
The U.S. crop has been "severely damaged" in the main
growing area of the upper Mississippi River Delta, while drought
cut plantings in South America's largest producing region, the
Mercosur, according to Dwight Roberts, president of the U.S.
Rice Producers Association in Houston.
"It doesn't take a genius to see we are in a real tight
situation," Roberts said.
As production suffers, demand will increase 1.2 percent to
451.3 million tons from 446 million tons a year earlier,
according to the FAO.
The potential for lost production to send prices to records
will be limited by a record wheat harvest and ample rice
stockpiles, Calpe said in an interview Nov. 9.
Kellogg, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, declined to
comment on its rice use. Last year, after wheat and rice prices
jumped to records, the maker of Froot Loops and Rice Krispies
announced at least three price increases for U.S. breakfast
cereals because of rising energy and ingredient costs.
"While commodity costs have fallen as we expected, we're
still seeing overall cost of goods inflation versus last year,"
Chief Executive Officer A.D. David Mackay said Oct. 29 during a
conference call with analysts.

`Huge' Stockpiles

Thai rice inventories of as much as 6 million tons, triple
the 2 million tons of last year, are "a huge amount, if you
take into account that total trade is 30 million tons," Calpe
said. "I'm pretty sure they will have to release them soon."
In addition, world wheat stockpiles swelled by 36 percent
to 165 million tons this year from 121 million tons last year,
according to the USDA. Consumers can turn to bread and wheat
when rice prices jump.
"Do not extend what we saw in 2008 to the situation we
have today," Calpe said. "This is not a reason for concern
today. If in the 2010 season we again face problems, then we
will start worrying."
Sales to India and the Philippines will determine how high
prices go, Samarendu Mohanty, senior economist at the
International Rice Research Institute, said Oct. 28.

Record Imports

The Philippines held its first tender for supplies a month
earlier than usual and may boost imports 30 percent to a record
2.6 million tons, the USDA forecasts.
India's reserves, normally about 20 percent of the
country's consumption, are plunging as output falls faster than
demand, said The Rice Trader's Zwinger.
The Indian harvest will drop 16 percent, shrinking
stockpiles to about 9.9 million tons by October 2010 from 17
million a year earlier, according to the USDA. The country may
buy as much as 3 million tons abroad next year, becoming a net
importer for the first time in 21 years, Mohanty said.
"If India imports 3 million tons, they'd become the
world's biggest importer," said Mark Welch, an agriculture
economist at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.
"Three million tons disrupts natural trade because they
normally don't import any."
Three state-owned traders issued tenders for 30,000 tons in
October. The response to offers hasn't been announced, with one
potential buyer, MMTC Ltd., saying last week it wouldn't buy
rice at "high prices."
"A country like India -- or China, for that matter -- they
can absolutely not rely on a very thin market" for imports,
Calpe said. "They are market makers. If they come to the market
to buy, they will see the prices skyrocket."

--With assistance from Van Nguyen in Ho Chi Minh City, Thomas
Kutty Abraham in Mumbai, Pratik Parija in New Delhi, Rudy
Ruitenberg in Paris and Tony Dreibus in Chicago. Editors:
Matthew Oakley, Tim Coulter.

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4a.

Re: "I am the Real Desh Bhakt": Maoist Leader Kishanji

Posted by: "kalindi.kokal" kalindiko...@gmail.com   kalindi.kokal

Tue Nov 17, 2009 12:02 pm (PST)



This was a rather interesting interview. Personally, I would not disgree with the concept of "stop giving in to the West" and that we should stand up to the "economic emperialism" of America and the World Bank. But violence is definitely not the way out. As non-state actors, the CPI(M) has obligations to the society on humanitarian grounds, to safegueard their right to life, equality, honour and dignity is something that the CPI (M) needs to stick with at all times.


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5.

Should We Have Talked to the Chhattisgarhi Mother?

Posted by: "SADANAND PATWARDHAN" 2sadan...@gmail.com   sadanandpatwardhan

Tue Nov 17, 2009 8:24 pm (PST)



Mainstream, Vol XLVII, No 48, November 14, 2009

Should We Have <http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1759.html> Talked to
the Chhattisgarhi Mother?

Tuesday 17 November 2009, by Somnath
<http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/auteur505.html> Mukherji

The much anticipated Operation Green Hunt has started in fits and starts. It
is a high stake hunt. The government is waiting to re-assert its authority
in the forested reaches of Central India. The corporations are waiting for
unhindered access to the wealth underneath the land. The Maoists are
[perhaps] waiting for the atrocities to begin so that the discontent takes
deeper roots into the hearts and minds of the adivasis. And the
adivasis...what are they waiting for? We do not know. We do not know because
we never asked them.

The Chhattisgarh State Government never asked them when framing the
industrial policy of the State that discouraged all cottage industries and
occupations that could have benefited small endeavours by communities. The
adivasis were never asked whether they wanted to do agriculture on their
land or vacate it en-masse for steel, bauxite and iron-ore processing
plants. In fact, on October 12, at the public hearing for TataÂ’s mega steel
project, villagers were prevented by security forces from attending it. The
project was cleared in the presence of a staged audience of 50 people
without a hitch. The proposed plant will churn out 5.5 million tonnes of
steel annually that will be needed to build, bridges, flyovers, malls, cars,
high rises—almost everything that the adivasis from Lohandiguda will never
use. A total of 10 villages will be displaced from 2044 hectares of land. A
few hours away by bus, Essar is to set up a steel plant of similar capacity.

Very few journalists went out of their way to find out if the feelings of
the adivasis were hurt after their villages were torched or their harvest
looted; if they felt resentful when the government-backed vigilante, the
Salwa Judum, smoked them out and herded them into camps. By December 2007,
fifty thousand of them, according to a Human Rights Watch report, were being
held inside 24 barbed wired camps in unhygienic conditions. The media went
where the state directed it—to the schools blown up by Maoists or to the
site of the truck that overran an IED. The adivasi was neatly kept out of
the reports filed from the sites of these ghastly attacks. The media never
reported that close to 300,000 people have been rendered homeless by the
senseless violence, not just from guns but also from the paradigm of
development that seems to being ushered in on six-lane highways.

The hallways of Raipur and Delhi were so abuzz with discussions on M-O-Us
and M-A-Os that everyone forgot about the 65,000 adivasis who fled into
neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. Did they want to go back and live in their
homes on their lands? Did they want to live at all? They were no oneÂ’s
problem. Where were they to go to complain about the rapes and loots?
Police? Judiciary? When they did muster up the courage to file complaints
aided by civil organisations, the state lashed out at the organisations.
Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA), a Gandhian organisation, has been working for
two decades in empowering tribal communities around Dantewada. On May 17,
the state power was on full display when the ashram of VCA was razed to the
ground under the watchful eyes of 500 strong CRPF personnel.

The crimes of the VCA had been unpardonable —they have helped to file more
than 500 complaints [none of which have been acted upon till now] on behalf
of the adivasis, for rape, loot, torture and murder against the law
enforcement agencies and the Salwa Judum. The VCA also had the temerity to
petition the Bilaspur High Court against the against the police encounter in
Singaram where 19 “Maoists” were killed. The villagers claimed the dead to
be their unarmed relatives. Ever since then the VCAÂ’s staff has been
threatened and assaulted to strike fear so that their voice is stifled—a
gentle admonition from the powerful state not to act impudently. After all,
the state had already set an example by keeping Dr Binayak Sen in jail for
over two years on trumped-up charges. It was a reaffirmation of the stateÂ’s
with-us-or-against-us logic and for the others to draw lessons from it.
Look, the state seems to say, we donÂ’t care what you do in your spare time
whether it is reducing infant and maternal mortality, or saving the fast
vanishing bio-diversity, donÂ’t dare question our logic of either arming
civilians or co-opting the role of media in a democracy. The sentiments of
the state have often been faithfully echoed by refined intellectuals who
profess to capture the complexity of the whole situation in the length of
their columns and decry the nonsense the activist-types spout. The
nonsensical activists are perhaps the only actors that can stop the
brutalisation of the adivasis through peaceful negotiations.

¨

No one went to the Gonds or the Gothikoyas and explained to them that the
Constitution of India, the country in which they live, has special
provisions to protect their lands under the Fifth Schedule. The Ministry of
Tribal Affairs has certainly not been in touch with them. As if it was not
enough protection, the Forests Rights Act of 2006 ensured the rights of the
Scheduled Tribes and forest dwelling communities over their land and common
property natural resources. Or perhaps, the woman from Lingagiri
misunderstood the Act and ran away from her home when her village was raided
and gave birth to her son in the forest. Perfect plot for an English
thriller to be read while waiting for a flight that never seems to be on
time. And you must have guessed the name of the boy by now—son of the
forest, Adavi Ramadu. Fact and fiction are so tightly interlaced in
Lingagiri that it seems unreal.

When the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) did finally go to Dantewada
after “activist” people like Prof Nandini Sundar filed a PIL in the Supreme
Court against Salwa Judum for the atrocities perpetrated by them, they were
accompanied by a large contingent of armed security personnel. The members
of the NHRC team themselves were all IPS officers—a blow to its
impartiality. The adivasi women were questioned in the camps in presence of
gun-totting security personnel and the Salwa Judum activists—the alleged
tormentors. None of the women admitted of rape in such a conducive
atmosphere. To the utter surprise and consternation of the the team, the
entire village of Chikurubatti ran away at the sight of the approaching team
accompanied by armed CRPF jawans. In spite of their best intentions, the
team did not get to hear what the adivasis had to say. They did not think
that the entire village fleeing said something.

No one asked the adivasis anything. That is the way it is supposed to be.
These people belong to the sacrificial stock. With the meditative resolve of
a tantric we have sacrificed them at the altar of development. Although
tribals constitute eight per cent of IndiaÂ’s population, they are 40 per
cent of the 60 milion people displaced by large projects from 1947 to 2004.
The people of southern Chhattisgarh might just boost the percentage.

We will mobilise our ground and air forces, enact laws which divide the
society along the for-us-against-us lines, send our Ministers and
bureaucrats to the US to confer on techniques of anti-terrorism,
counter-insurgency and “governance”, hold talk shows after talk shows in
ties and imitative body language, sanction crores of rupees for development
packages, but one thing we will not do is to take off our blinders and squat
next to the mother who delivered in the forest and ask her, “Hey mother of
Adavi Ramadu, why did you have to flee your home? What will make your life a
little easier?”

The author is a volunteer with the Association for IndiaÂ’s Development and
has been working with the VCA in Chhattisgarh and ASDS in Andhra for
rehabilitating refugees driven from their homes by the violence in
Chhattisgarh.

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