MY VIEWS ON INDIAN SOCIETY WITH RESPECT TO ATROCITIES ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN

The menace of atrocities on women and children is not merely the problem related to women and children, it is the problem related to entire culture and civilization. The recent brutality in Delhi gang rape incident has drawn attention of entire nation and brought the issue of "women and her safety" into the nation's mainstream debate.People from different parts of country started protests for immediate justice on the issue and to amend the legal law on sex and sexual abuse to make it further stringent. I felt so happy when a needful and rightful protest, against inhuman activities on women, has been getting strengthened by consolidating rightful reactions from different parts of the country.But, the demands, to fight against these evils, should not be restricted to only legal measures.Mere stringent punishments doesn't stop this problem, punishment plays very minimum role in curbing the evil of this kind. We should extend our demands further more comprehensive to curb the dangerous evil. In my conscience there is no justice in this world for rape and sexual molestation. Any kind of justice or punishment can not mitigate the problem of a rape victim. The nature of rape is totally different from other crimes.Here the victim's loss is not any kind of materialistic item to recover from judiciary system but the loss is peace of life and social liberty which can be hardly recovered by judicial system.

So, the real justice, in case of rape and sexual molestation, is ensuring the society not to happen such  heinous crimes. Other than this no legal proceedings can restore the previous life of victim.

The threat against women is not only the rape and sexual assault, it also includes domestic violence, marital discord,honor deaths, women trafficking,extra marital relations,forcible prostitution, ill-treatment in manual scavenging and slavery,female foeticide,infanticide and also cultural,religious and economic discrimination on the basis of different social constraints.

    In this context we should see the problem of women with holistic view and should know rightful demands to eradicate this social evil on women.

Indian social architecture is highly complex with the factors of different religions, varying cultures and multiple linguistics.The change in any of these factors resembles the clear cut difference in their social customs  with respect to other.The social customs which are inherited from past generations will play dominant role in regulating lives of people belongs to that particular social customs.This social customs varies from place to place,community to community,child to adult and also male to female.


As per historical accounts, during pre-vedic period around 3000 years back from now, there was a perfect social balance with required moral and ethical code of conduct.I prefer to call this society as value based society. In this value based society women given equal priority in all activities on par with men. The mode of education is through oral transmission and it is open to all children who crosses 14 years of age irrespective of their gender.The main emphasis in education system was on character building of the student. Students were not taught in any class rooms,but their education starts and ends in the presence of nature, environment and society.Nature and society are two main components for their course of study.People lived in harmony among themselves and with the nature.It was basically an egalitarian society with no presence of casteism. People lived separated by small-small groups called tribes. There were presence of different social hierarchies in these tribes starts from Rajan to dasis. But all these different posts are open to all adults from their tribe irrespective of their gender, there is no hereditary for any of these posts.People had to prove their abilities and should occupy their respective desired posts.Women enjoyed utmost freedom and dignity during this period of time.Women allowed to marry a person of her choice and allowed to remarriage in case of husband's death or divorce.Women actively participated in economic activities.The nature of economy  was mainly pastoral.

In the latter ages of vedic period women started loosing her recognition gradually. The patriarchal form of society started emerging as all the power as the base of economy taking it's shift from pastoral to agrarian.
The slowly increasing complexities in work culture made women dependent on men because of physiological and biological differences between men and women. Brahminic society emerged as predominant and started preaching everything on the grounds of rituals. Performing all sorts of rituals were strictly prohibited to women. Caste-ism and hereditary of different posts taken it's birth during this time.The domination of men on women started first in aristocratic families and slowly entered into next line of families and finally to entire society. The priesty class started dictating the society with illegitimate rules.Women and untouchables were not allowed to access education which was open to all in pre-vedic period.

In due course of time women gradually became dependent on men for her livelihood.This gradual process had taken away her economic freedom permanently and made her complete dependent.The complete financial dependence of women led her to loose social security and liberty. She lost her say and significance in her family's financial and other important decision making.Finally society started to see her as tool to produce children. Women also convinced herself, without revolting against, and started accepting men dominance. This acceptance proved even more dangerous and gave them many social evils as gift.So, this evil gift to women was partly by men supremacy feeling and partly by women acceptance.

With all these kind of degradation, slowly she had entered into most dangerous ages where  'sati sahagamana' and child marriages were dominant.In the name of religion, the selfish priesty class had indoctrinated the society to accept sati kind of inhumane and ruthless practicesses as sacred paths for a widow to get moksha. In the name of sati, the widow has to be burnt alive in the funeral pyre of her husband.This is such an inhumane, ruthless, heinous and shameless practice against women that I ever heard in the history of human civilization.The concept of 'sati' has come from the concept of 'anumarana' which was seen during pre-guptan period.Unfortunately all these social evils taken it's shelter in Hindu religion because of some useless peoples' religious misinterpretation.In real sense these evil practices are not the spirit of Hindu religion, but these are brain childs of religious misinterpretation. Furthermore the status of women as depicted by Manu in The 'Manusmriti' was also discriminatory for women.

PRACTICE OF 'SATI'

As I mentioned in the starting itself India is a country with different religions.All these different religions played considerable role in determining the status of women in different times.I hope, I have given little account on how Hindu religion had been transformed from Vedic to Brahminic society.The other ancient religions which born against the social evils of Hinduism were Budhism and Jainism. Budhism had given proper place to women. Budhism allowed women to be educated and preached the importance of women in family building.The jainism was little women discriminatory on the grounds of their faith towards attaining salvation. The Jainism preaches extreme non-violence and vegetarianism in order to attain salvation.But attaining salvation is not possible to women as it treats women as impure. As per Jains women becomes impure and not deserves to get salvation because she kills many germs in her blood as part of her monthly menstrual cycle.

The other major religion during latter periods in Indian history is Islam.Islam started in India with Arab traders and muslim invasions  of 7th and 8th centuries. Islam as a religion preaches equality to all on the grounds of wealth and sex.The original doctrines of  'quaran'(noble book of Islam) and 'sharia'(the code of conduct for muslim) has given equal treatment to men and women.Infact it was the muslim rulers(especially Mughals) of India who strongly opposed the practice of  'Sati' in their territory. Humayun, Akbar and Aurangajeb were well known in fighting against the evil practice of sati. But, even in Islam also the latter periods religious encroachments started depriving women privileges. Oftentimes I used to see in 'The Hindu' news paper about harsh punishments given to women in some Arab countries.A women involved in adultery was given stone on to death punishment,but not to men who did the same thing.

 The one more important religion in India is Sikhism. Sikhism is very recent religion traces back to 15th century.This religion treats both men and women as equal entities in all respects.According to Sikhism, men and women are two sides of the same coin of the human. There is a system of inter-relation and inter-dependence in which man takes birth from a woman, and woman is born of a man´s seed. According to Sikhism a man can not feel secure and complete during his life without a woman, and a man's success is related to the love and support of the woman who shares her life with him, and vice-versa. I would like to quote a sikh poet's quotation on women which follows as below:

"A woman, is the favourite in her parental home, loved dearly by her father and mother. In the home of her in-laws, she is the pillar of the family, the guarantee of its good fortune... Sharing in spiritual wisdom and enlightenment and with noble qualities endowed, a woman, the other half of man, escorts him to the door of liberation."

I WANT TO LIVE

Living under such a great religion with sacred norms in their doctrines, Punjab is struggling with declining sex ratios.People are reluctant to accept girl child as they have to pay huge dowry for her marriage.Female foeticide and infanticides are very high in Punjab.I have red a case where a poor women gave birth to female child. After her birth she was thrown in the garbage dump outside the village for dogs ate her.It was very shivering for me while reading this news. Her only fault — she was the fourth girl born in a poor family. Such an evil practices are seen today across India, as per some statistics, India killed 10 million girl childs in 20 years.

With all these kind of discriminatory historical background women entered into modern world in India. With liberalized economic concepts over the last few decades, India established considerable market in services sector.The work nature of these services made Indian women once again to take equal participation in economic contribution of her family.Even in agriculture and it's allied activities also women contribution is more and it is being recognized slowly.So, on general perception comparative to medieval era's women the present women empowered considerably and in the process to become fully empowered.In spite of some matured customs in modern society still many women and children are facing some inhuman brutal activities with one or other reason .I am not getting any words to describe such wicked acts where small babies of age 2-10 years being sexually molested and raped by lusted buffalo like persons.On one side a big agitation against Delhi gang rape was going on, at the same time, I have seen plenty of such an incidents reported in newspapers on daily basis.Why all these evils became persistent in Indian society?,What causes these?.

I WAS ATTACKED WITH NO FAULT OF MINE

I can not attribute these evils to any religion as it happened in ancient and medieval periods.I would like to attribute these evils to the way the Indian society has taken it's transformation over the last three or four decades.Indian society has seen a paradigm shift in the recent years, the social values and human relations has been encroached by commercial, market and luxury orientations. People started measuring a person's social status based on his/her material possession instead of human values and character. This social and psychological feelings can be seen in majority of people now a days. We are clearly seeing this kind of transformation very much in rural India also.I feel we are in transition zone to see this transformation, there has been a clear cut differences in the social practices and living style of people from my childhood to till date in my village(located in coastal area of Andhra Pradesh).

The change of social priorities from human relations to material possession is the main root cause for many evil practices in today's world, atrocities on women is one of the component among these evils. It is very clear that the primary need of the person became money and material. This need drove our education system from value based education to market based commercial education. The pattern of education that we have today is very much interested in promoting corporate interests and money making but least interested in ethical and moral conduct of student. We see the study of ethics being offered as a master course of study in some universities. This clearly representing the degradedness of our education system. I wonder how can this course of study could be delineated from other courses of study. When you are offering it as separate course, does it mean the other course students do not require it?.We can divide physics,biology,polity, economy,etc into many sub streams and can be offered as separate course of study, but we can't afford to do same with ethics and moralities.This ethics and moral science should never be a separate subject, it should be the inner soul of every subject right from elementary school to a university study.A nuclear science student primarily should be a humanist to use his knowledge for peaceful purposes otherwise it leads to devastating effects.Likewise, every person in the society should have some moral values to recognize security of any woman is same like security of his own mother,sister and wife.

SAVE THE FUTURE

The other dimension of  changing culture lies in fashion and luxury:

Luxury: People are successfully trapped in big psychological game being played by corporates in the name of consumerism.In the process of promoting consumerism especially for luxury items(basic needs never requires promotion), there has been lot of evil impact on women.The tool to promote consumerism is mass media and public boardings. This mass media and add agencies are using women as passive sex objects to promote their clients'(corporates) product.I don't appreciate a half nude woman promoting men innerwear. This kind of adds in public are really an insult to our great Indian women.I may appear that I am pointing out small small issues, but these are not small issues, these kind of patterns will have great impact on the status of women and on the minds of young India.

Fashion:  Fashion has crossed it's frontiers and entered into dangerous zone in our society.It is encroaching our rich Indian culture and tradition and degrading our values.Fashion means not only the outer appearance, but also includes the inner attitude of a person.Modern or advanced culture doesn't lies in western dresses, it always lies in thought process of us. We can not call a person as modern who is fully dressed up in western, graduated from IIT and lives in abroad, but still harassing his wife for dowry. The present day movies are playing great role in ruining our tradition and building erroneous culture to our youth.During early ages of movie, we were shown how to respect a Guru(respected teacher), but now a days we are being shown how to tease the same Guru in class room.The story of the movie also promotes erotic feelings than the family values.People have been seriously started believing beauty of maerials and status would be recognized by fashion and luxury respectively.

 I would like to make it very clear that I am not against to fashion or luxury.It is everyone's freedom to enjoy. But our freedom should not promote any wrong signals to society, it should be practiced with proper care and awareness.

The real beauty of person never reflects in cosmetics and western dresses, rather it reflects in inner manifestation of character. Without character our dress-up is not complete, we are still nude.


Apart from all these many of our children are not being paid proper attention by their parents.The recent economic activities made the greed to conquer over the need.We have such a parents who likes to pay lakhs of rupees for corporate schools but don't like to spare time to monitor their children activities.I am not exaggerating anything here, this is real scenario that we are observing these days.

Finally, it is very clear that,from ancient to modern world, the problems of our women is more social and cultural than anything else.The remedies for these problems also lies in social and cultural aspects.We should  move forward with changes in education system first which promotes value based science than only science. Govt has to focus more on this. We need stringent punishment for any atrocities on women and children, at the same time ensuring every child is being exposed to holy and noble thoughts is more important. Today's criminal is one day's child and there had been some serious problem in his upbringing for today's act. Punishing him is utmost important to send a warning to other same mindsets and taking actions to see where the problem lies in is also equal or more  important to curb/minimize the problem in future.

We see sometimes some incidents of atrocities turn into political game in the name of caste and religion. Everyone should understand the situation and should not attribute the criminal to his caste or religion. As a human being we are all one unit though the social practices divide us multiple, when we fight for justice it is good for us to disown our general tendencies and fight together as single unit. Splitting ourselves on any line is buying the future problem directly into our home.

I AM THE FUTURE

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Thanks a lot for reading this article.I personally requesting you to excuse me for using some objectionable terminology in this article and also if I hurt you on the grounds of any religion and gender.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         -----




     

Vinod Rai(C&AG) on Public Auditing

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India Vinod Rai delivered a speech on Social Obligation of Public Auditors at Harvard Kennedy School in the US.

Here is the  full text of the speech:
     
I deem it a great privilege to be able to address such a distinguished gathering in such a distinguished school. Privilege - not because I stand in America's most elite university; privilege - not because I stand in front of some of the finest and brightest brains in the world, privilege - because I stand in front of a group who have the capacity and opportunity to transform processes and the very thinking of people. I am conscious as I stand before you that I address a group who will wield tremendous influence on the future of the societies they belong to and who will emerge as future leaders. I say this as many who have passed from this School are indeed very distinguished leaders in many countries of the globe. I consider getting an opportunity to interact with such a group, an honour.

Immediately after my college education, I joined the Indian Civil Service and have been a bureaucrat all my life. A bureaucrat, according to a definition is: an official who works by a fixed routine, without exercising intelligent judgment. Frank Hubert in his science fiction novel, 'Heretics of Doom', says "bureaucracy destroys initiative". He elaborates by saying that there is little a bureaucrat hates more than innovation, specially innovations that produce better results. Adjectives like rigid, negative, close minded, unresponsive are routinely attributed to us. So how is it that after spending 40 years in this supposedly rigid, red-tape ridden system, I stand before you with the confidence that I can call upon you to address precisely those attributes which we are not committed to doing.  I do so, with the confidence of my personal experience of a rewarding career in government.  I firmly believe that the attributes ascribed to us are bogeys.  They are red herrings.

Governance in government is, exercising power and taking decisions on behalf of people. The well-being and development of this group of people in the village, city or country, depends upon the choices made by the people granted this authority. It is easier to misuse or not use this authority. Good governance, according to the United Nations, is when its authority and institutions are accountable, effective and efficient, transparent, responsive, equitable and inclusive and follow the rule of law. In the present age, governance has assumed such critical proportions that it appears too important to be left only to the government. The stakeholders in governance have expanded beyond the executive, legislature and judiciary to civil society, social organisations, media and the public. Apart from the base expanding, each new stakeholder has become very vociferous and demanding. It is in this context that I propose to discuss with you the role of the public auditor.

All countries around the world have a provision to have an Auditor General to oversee Government's spending on behalf of Parliament.  In most of these countries such Auditors General, are constitutionally mandated to conduct audit of government departments and report their findings to the Parliament.

We in India also have such a mandate.  Considering the heightened interest of civil society, in holding its government to account, we have been introspecting whether our mandate is merely to conduct audit - prepare a Report and - place it in Parliament and full stop!

What we have been introspecting is whether our constitutionally mandated responsibility ends the moment we have placed our Reports in the Parliament or is it in any way beyond this mechanical function that we perform.  To get an answer to this query repeatedly arising in our minds, we also looked at the constitutional position of Supreme Audit Institutions in certain other parliamentary democracies. This was at the time, when we were being advised by the highest in the land, not to exceed our mandate which they believe to be mere accountants and to conduct mechanical audit of government's expenditure.  We were being advised not to get into the realm of auditing policy formulation.  The question that continues to repeatedly arise in our minds is whether the Parliament, and in fact, the public at large, expect us to be mere accountants and do arithmetic over government expenditure?   If it was so, then why should constitutions worldwide - appoint such high dignitaries as Auditors General and give them independence, freedom from the executive and accord them a constitutional position.  Evidently what was envisioned in the constitution was more than expecting them to be mere accountants.

Civil society in India is witnessing a rare phenomenon. A phenomenon where the citizen has come centre stage and is wanting to hold government accountable for its decisions.  Citizens today seek a dialogue with government and would like to participate in decision making.  They are seeking transparency in policy formulation. Today's youth is discerning, demanding and believes in respecting Institutions created by the constitution.  He is not willing to see politicians subvert these Institutions. He seeks a new moral and ethical framework for sustainable governance.  The citizen coming centre stage and wanting to be heard, is indeed a phenomenon which debunks the myth of a 'silent majority'.  This voice is seeking to be heard.  This voice was never taken seriously by political parties as it was the voice of people who merely engaged in living room debates and never came out to vote.  The administration ignored them as they did not have a history of mobilizing themselves into a potent pressure group.  Hence, the spontaneous outpouring of people as witnessed recently, has taken the administration and political parties by surprise.

There is thus a distinct paradigm shift in civil society in India.  This demands a distinct paradigm shift in the model of governance.  If so, should there not be a paradigm shift in the objective and approach of public auditing?

It is this issue that I propose to place before you today.

Should we as public auditors limit our role to placing Reports in parliament or go beyond that and seek to sensitize public opinion on our audit observations, especially so in social sector audits such as Rural Health, Primary Education, Water Pollution, Environment, Drinking water etc.

We have reacted positively to this paradigm shift and have introduced a threefold change.  Firstly, we now premise our audits on the firm belief that we are as much engaged in the business of upgrading governance as any other agency in the administration.  We do not subscribe to the WE - THEY concept and hold ourselves to be on the same side of the table as the executive. Our audits have undergone a culture change. We now engage in positive reporting. Hence, from being a bunch of fault finders who are often wiser by hindsight, we now recognise and report good practices that we observe during audit.

Secondly, to ensure a mere widespread dissemination of our audit observations - both positive and negative - we convert the salient observations in our Reports into small booklets which are well indexed and facilitate easy understanding.  We have been distributing these pamphlets, which we refer to as "Noddy" books, to the media, colleges, citizen's groups, non government organizations and the like.  This is being undertaken in the firm belief that an awakened citizenry, once sensitized about the inadequacy of government departments, would exert pressure on these departments and maintain a vigilante thereby ensuring better delivery of government services.

Thirdly, in our quest for a deeper insight and a more widespread coverage of social sector issues we have wholeheartedly supported the concept of social audit.  We recognise that our own core competence is limited to conducting audit.  At times, we may not have adequate in-depth knowledge of areas where government schemes are being implemented on the ground.  We thus engage with credible citizen's groups which are working in that area to avail of their local knowledge for a better appreciation of the efficiency in the implementation of government schemes.  This has given us a better outreach, and provided those agencies, with a more credible voice in their legislatures.  We even give prominent coverage, in the media, of our intent to conduct audits in specific places and sectors and invite suggestions as well as information about these areas.  This has evoked a very positive response.

All these three initiatives apart from engaging the stakeholders in the process of accountability by moving them from the fringes to centre-stage, has also helped we auditors in producing more rounded Audit Reports.

To ensure that we are on the right track, and indeed owe an obligation to society at large, we looked at trends among other Supreme Audit Institutions.  We found that worldwide the trend is to make Government functioning more transparent.  In this context Legislatures in other democracies are empowering their Auditors General with a mandate to hold the Government financially accountable through Performance Audits of the programmes and activities of the Government.  In July 2004 in USA, several proposals were introduced in the 110th Congress to augment the mandate of the External Auditor.  The erstwhile General Accounting Office (GAO) of the USA was re-designated as the Government Accountability Office to reflect the agency's evolution and additional duties. Most of the agency's work today involves programme evaluations, policy analyses, and legal opinions and decisions on a broad range of government programmes.  Today, most GAO blue-cover reports go beyond the question of whether federal funds are being spent appropriately, to ask whether federal programmes and policies are meeting their objectives and needs of society. At today's GAO, measuring the government's performance, and holding it accountable for results, is central to who they are and what they do.  They continue to believe that the public deserves the facts on all aspects of government operations - from spending to policy making.

There was a similar case in Estonia where the Tallinn City Body contested the mandate of the National Audit Agency to audit its activity in the housing sector.  After protracted litigation over four years, the Supreme Court maintained that it was not unconstitutional for the National Audit Authority to supervise local governments.  The Court held that local bodies function for the welfare of the people and the people need to be kept informed about the efficiency of their operations through an independent audit procedure.  Such worldwide trends have reaffirmed our belief that Supreme Audit Institutions are also mandated to sensitise public opinion.

The traditional role of Public auditors is to conduct financial attest audit.  However, the issue we debated is whether the common citizen is really concerned whether the governments financial statements are materially mis-stated.  Is he not concerned about more fundamental issues that affect his day to day life and about issues that impinge on his very existence such as food, housing, health care, education etc.?  The question that we posed to ourselves and that is my first proposition to you: does public audit address these issues by merely placing their Audit Reports in Parliament?

Do not public auditors have obligations that go beyond those achieved by conventional methods?  If the outcome of good governance is improvement in the quality of life of its citizenry, should the same not be the outcome of effective public audit?

Our answer to all these was a resounding affirmative.  It is thence that we have commenced pushing the envelope and going beyond hitherto practiced conventional and conservative methodology.  This pushing of the envelope did evolve a very sharp resistance from the executive.  This was no doubt expected.  Issues regarding our exceeding our mandate were raised.  Statements about such 'activism' tantamounted to interference in policy formulation and misleading public opinion, emerged.  However, since Indian democracy is maturing and the urban India middle class is becoming more involved in citizen's affairs, we continue to tread the new path in the belief that the final stakeholder is the public at large.

In taking the initiative as mentioned we are no doubt aware that we, as an Institution, will be subjected to scrutiny.  This entails that we practice objectivity and transparency in the conduct of our audits.  We ensure that our organization maintains a zero tolerance of lack of probity.  We also ensure that our human capital - our auditors, remain professionally outstanding and are equipped with the latest trends in public auditing.  It is imperative that we appear objective and trustworthy.  We can only deserve trust if we are judged as credible, competent and independent and can be held accountable for our operations.  Our utmost priority is to strive for service excellence and quality within a self-defined code of ethics and morality.

The auditing of government and public entities has a positive impact on trust in society. It focuses the minds of the custodians of the public purse to use public resources effectively, as they know that after audit scrutiny, the public will be aware of their actions.  Such awareness thus supports desirable values and underpins accountability mechanism leading to efficient decision making.  Once the citizens are sensitised about such findings, they get empowered to hold the custodian of the public purse accountable.  In a parliamentary democracy, it is critical that the citizens of a country are able to hold their representative accountable.  Democratically elected representatives can only be held accountable if they, in turn, can hold accountable those who implement their decisions.  An important ingredient of this accountability cycle is an independent and credible Supreme Audit Institution capable of scrutinising the stewardship and use of public resources.  It is incumbent on us to show our efficacy by appropriately responding to the concerns of citizens.  It is our firm belief that it is important for us to communicate and promote the value and benefits that we can bring to democracy and accountability in our jurisdiction. An alert media and an awakened citizenry have certainly drawn attention to such accountability of those in power. It is towards this objective that we also lend our weight. We may not be able to wipe out corruption, but endeavour to uncover instances of crony capitalism. Government should be seen to support enterprise per se and not particular entrepreneurs.

I now revert to my earlier statement of confidence that I am privileged to stand before a group of future leaders.  There is a two-fold purpose of my explaining to you of the change that we have introduced in the system.  First, that I seek your endorsement of our belief in the social obligation that we endeavour to fulfil.  Secondly, to place before you my second proposition viz., it will be very convenient for you to remain in a state of lethargic non-performance under the garb of complicated rules, fear of investigations and time consuming procedures as an alibi.  However, with forty years of experience in the bureaucratic system behind me I assure you, given a little imagination, innovation and initiative the challenge of enabling and empowering the poor and marginalised, is within the realms of possibility.  All it requires is a simple innovation of processes, a slight tweaking of the rules, sensitisation of the people who work, for the scheme and for whom the scheme works and insistence on timeliness.

The challenge is to be a change agent. Being a change agent is not all that difficult. Each one of us should have certain non-negotiable principles governing our lives. The biggest challenge facing you is to constantly change yourself without changing the core principles in you.

But change agents are not born that way. They are moulded, shaped and forged largely by their education and by their experiences. Some centres of learning consistently produce students who later become game changers in whatever field they venture into. The mission statement of Harvard states: "it strives to create knowledge to serve society".  That institution which differentiates between education and knowledge is the institution which acts as a crucible to mould leaders.

The view that "the end justifies the means" is becoming an increasingly convenient cover for behaviour of individuals, groups or governments. But the implications of this individual or collective conduct, are far reaching. History is witness to the fact that any dilution of morality has eventually led to degeneration of societal values, pushing the country into a quagmire from which it takes ages to emerge. This leads to my third proposition before you: should ethics be applied selectively? If so, who determines the purpose, the justification and the quantum? When does it stop being convenient, and become inconvenient? When from individual transgressions, we move on to institutional transgressions? A basic premise of parliamentary democracy is that an elected and accountable political executive, with the assistance of an elaborate bureaucratic structure, would manage public affairs within the restrictions imposed by the Constitution and Law. However, the reality of complex politics in every democracy is leading to convenient deviations. A dominant culture of adjustment has become prevalent, with honesty and integrity being the casualty.  Let me remind you that it is into this rather imperfect world that you now venture. You will be men and women who will matter and who will be leaders in society. Make the choice early in life and ensure that probity is the cornerstone of your actions.

The Kennedy School has given great men and great ideas. It is neither the rich student nor the poor students' college. It has no prejudices. Its only pursuit has been the freedom of the mind and the dignity of the individual. We in Supreme Audit Institution of India are also committed to these values. We are committed to the mission that when the India story is written, posterity should not judge us to say that when the challenge arose, we were found wanting. Institutions shape their own destinies. Nations also determine their own destinies. Each generation must further enrich the culture of its predecessor generation. I am firm in my belief that history will record that we bequeathed to Gen Next a value system and a heritage which was considerably more enriched than what we inherited.

ఆదునిక ప్రపంచం .......తరుగుతున్న మానవత్వ విలువలు

మనిషి  ఆదునిక  ప్రపంచంలో సాధిస్తున్న శాస్త్ర సాంకేతిక పరిజ్ఞానం చూసి  ఆనందించాలో లేక  రోజు రోజుకు దిగజారుతున్న నైతిక విలువలు చూసి బాదపపడలో తెలియని స్తితి ని ఆదునిక ప్రపంచం నేడు మన ముందు ఉంచింది. ఢిల్లీ బస్సు లో జరిగిన బాధాకరమైన సంగటన ద్వరా స్త్రీల ఫై జరుగుతున్న అనాగరిక  అత్యాచారాల గురించి  మరోసారి వార్త పత్రికలో మనం చూస్తున్నాం. ఇలాంటి సంగటనలు కేవలం నగరాలకు మాత్రమే పరిమితం కాదు దేసవ్యప్తంగా ఎంతో మంది స్త్రీలు మరియు పిల్లలు లైంగిక వేదింపులకు, అత్యాచారాలకు  గురిఅవుతున్నరు కానీ వెలుగులోకి వచ్చే సంగటనలు మాత్రం చాల తక్కువ. ఇలాంటి గటనలు జరిగినప్పుడు నిందితులుకు కటినమైన శిక్ష పడే విధంగా చట్టాలు అమలుపరచడం చాల అవసరం కానీ కేవలం చట్టాలు మాత్రమే పరిష్కార మార్గాలు అనుకుంటే పొరపాటే. నిజమైన సమాజ శ్రేయస్సు  చట్టాల చేతుల్లో కంటే  సమాజం చేతుల్లోనే ఎక్కువ  వుంది. నేటి వికృత చేష్టల పాలిట ప్రధాన నిందితులు అవిచేసే వాళ్లు  కంటే  వాళ్ళు అలా పైశాచికులుగ తయారు కావడానికి దారితీసిన పరిస్తితులు అని చెప్పాలి. ఈ  పరిస్తితులకి కారణాలు వెతికితే అందులో మనం  రోజు చూస్తున్న టీవీ, సినిమా, విధ్యా విధానం మరియు సామజిక విలువలు  దగ్గరి నుంచి కుటుంబం లో పిల్లలు తల్లితండ్రులు దగ్గరి నుండి  పొందుతున్న ప్రేమానురాగాల వరకు ఇమిడి వుంటాయి . ఎవరికివారు  తమ పిల్లల పెంపకంఫై శ్రద్ధ పాటించక పొతే తిరిగి వారే  బవిష్యత్  బదితలుగ మారవలిసివస్తుంది.  నేడు ఢిల్లీలో జరిగిన సంగటన ప్రతి గల్లిలో జరగకుండా ఉండాలంటే దాన్ని అరికట్టకలిగిన శక్తీ నేటి సమాజం చేతుల్లోనేవుంది.

          

PRESIDENT OF INDIA SPEECH ON SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE FOR FOOD AND LIVELIHOOD SECURITY

This is my first visit to Punjab in my present capacity. I had indeed looked forward to being here - amongst the distinguished scientists and experts present today. This Institution is synonymous with the Green Revolution which transformed Indian agriculture, making our country self reliant in feeding its population. Today, we produce enough to spare for export and assistance to other developing countries. It is the Punjab Agricultural University that pioneered agricultural research and technology dissemination in our country - at a time in the '60s when this was a crucial need. Its scientists engaged with a sense of urgency in research, innovation and foreign collaborations. They have since developed hundreds of new strains, high yielding and robust varieties of crops and studied the management of environmental, weather and soil conditions. I congratulate the Punjab Agriculture University for its splendid contribution in the service of our nation.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the agriculture sector in India continues to be the lifeline of our people and a key factor in our economy's overall productivity. It has rightly been accorded due priority in every budget and Plan for achieving India's developmental goals. Government of India has, over the decades, introduced a variety of schemes and measures to give support to the entire agriculture sector from small farmers to large investors. Institutions and banks have been created to focus on supporting agriculture development, fixing remunerative prices and improve agricultural marketing. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices and the Food Corporation of India have been set up to recommend Minimum Support Prices and procure grains for public stocks respectively, the NABARD and Regional Rural Banks to ensure easy and adequate credit availability, and programmes such as the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna, National Food Security Mission and National Horticulture Mission have taken the Government's outreach to the farthest and remotest regions.

Promoting inclusive growth, sustaining food security and boosting rural incomes in the country is intrinsically linked to growth in the Agriculture sector. As the Finance Minister, I had outlined a four-pronged strategy as part of the Union Budget for 2010-11 to drive growth in the Agriculture sector. The first component of the strategy was to extend the green revolution to the Eastern region of the country comprising Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Orissa. The second component of the strategy was to reduce the significant wastage in storage as well as in the operations of the existing food supply chains in the country. The third component was to improve credit availability to the farmers, while the fourth component was to aim at providing a further impetus to the development of the food processing sector by providing state-of-the-art infrastructure and substantial fiscal incentives.


The initiative of bringing green revolution to Eastern India has resulted in a significant increase in production of paddy, as States in Eastern India reported additional paddy production of 7 million tonnes in Kharif 2011. The total paddy production in the country increased from 95.98 million metric tonnes in 2010-11 to 104.32 million metric tonnes in 2011-12. Mr. Robert S. Zeigler, Director General of the International Rice Research Institute in Manila lauded our achievement when he mentioned that "the most heartening aspect of India crossing the 100 million tonne rice production mark is that a major contribution has been from Eastern India". The total food grains production in the country increased from 244.78 million metric tonnes in 2010-11 to 257.44 million metric tonnes in 2011-12. To reduce wastage in storage, concrete steps have been taken by the Government to create additional food grain storage capacity in the country. Two million tonnes of storage capacity in the form of modern silos have already been approved for creation. Further, nearly 15 million tonnes of storage capacity is being created through private entrepreneurs and warehousing corporations. To enable the timely availability of affordable agriculture credit to the farmers, the target for flow of agriculture credit has been enhanced in the Union Budgets from time to time, from Rs.3,75,000 crore in 2010-11 to Rs.5,75,000 crore in 2012-13. The Mega Food Park scheme, which was introduced in the Eleventh Plan, aims at developing farm proximate state of the art infrastructure with strong backward and forward linkage in a demand driven manner. 30 Mega Food Parks are being planned for creation in this financial year.

At the present juncture, we have come a long way. The growth rate of GDP in Agriculture and allied activities in 2011-12 is 2.8 per cent which is, of course, lower than the growth rate of 7 per cent in 2010-11 but higher than the growth rates of 0.4 per cent in 2008-09 and 1.7 per cent in 2009-10.

There is however, a reality that cannot be ignored - and I take this opportunity to call upon all present here today to reflect on why, despite all these successes and efforts and despite India's overall improved economic performance, the economic viability of this sector is still a challenge. There are, even today, so many regions in our country where subsistence farmers and small farmers remain susceptible to failure, risk and desperation. Despite various programmes and schemes of Government- complemented by the efforts of the scientific and corporate community, why is it that prosperity has eluded a large part of this sector? It is ironical that although India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, value addition to this produce is just 7 per cent and processing only around 3 per cent of production. There is hardly any value addition at the farm level - and 98 per cent of farm produce is sold as it is harvested. Due to our tropical / subtropical conditions, more than 25% of production is lost during harvest and post harvest operations. We import a large amount of the pulses we consume. In the agriculturally advanced regions, there are problems of over-exploiting ground water resources and vulnerability to pests and crop diseases; over-mining of nutrient reserves has led to multi-nutrient deficiencies. Excessive use of fertilizers is taking its toll on the productivity of soil.

I recall a comment of Mahatma Gandhi which made a profound impression on me : He said, and I quote, "A farmer cannot work without applying his mind. He must be able to test the nature of his soil, must watch changes of weather, must know how to manipulate his plough skillfully and be generally familiar with the movements of the stars, the sun and the moon......"

This is a compelling reason for the Indian farmer to be provided the wherewithal that he urgently needs - the financial, technological, infrastructural, transportation and other requirements for a sustainable approach for the increased productivity that we seek.

In this context, I take this opportunity to share a few thoughts on the challenges that we must address. We need to do a re-think on agriculture in India. And we need to do this urgently to ensure food security in India. We must have in place a coherent and comprehensive policy that has synergy among its various elements. Government initiatives are of little use without efficient systems for their implementation. Equally important is the necessity for collaboration between the state and central governments on the monitoring and appraisal of various schemes. A co-ordinated and integrated approach should start at the grassroots, taking into account all the factors.

Many policies are susceptible to failure because of inaccurate feedback. Collation of information and policy integration is essential. As I am among academia and experts, I would like to suggest that we identify the priorities and act swiftly. I would put training and entrepreneurship development high in my list of items requiring urgent attention. To this I would add the task of developing and reaching appropriate technology to farmers, agriculture marketing reforms, studying the present yield gaps and methods to harvest wastelands, address wastage and overuse of fertilizers and develop simple IT tools for farmers - that are user friendly and can provide relevant and timely information relating to weather forecasts. Enhanced productivity would reduce per unit cost, enhancing the global competitiveness of our produce.

Farm mechanization, linking farms with markets and adding value at each stage will help in employment generation, entrepreneurship development, increased profits to farmers and safe and healthy food to consumers. Investments in food processing sector have multiplying benefits for all, and hence a major boost needs to be given to the processing sector. Fiscal incentives and land leasing policies of State Governments should be such that agro-processing, especially in the rural areas, becomes a lucrative option both for the farmers and the private sector.

A useful part of the re-assessment would be a mapping and indexing of crops and livestock to anticipate market demands, plan resource allocation and ensure its optimal utilisation to ensure maximum output. This would give an edge in the global market. Similarly, the agro-industry, in partnership with research institutions can plan relevant and standardised crop production and efficient agricultural supply chains, which are vertically integrated. Improved connectivity between agricultural universities and the farmers could be very beneficial for both.

Most importantly, innovation-of new varieties, technologies and methods for post harvest processes--should move up on our priority list. The percentage of GDP from Agriculture and allied activities spent on research and development must be increased from the current level of 0.6 per cent to 1.0 per cent in the Twelfth Five Year Plan.

I believe that a multi-pronged strategy involving technology development, new marketing methods, precision in farm operations and innovative policy instruments is required to ensure agricultural sustainability and food and livelihood security and I would stress the importance of due attention to modernising food storage and its distribution.

This Conference on Sustainable Agriculture for Food and Livelihood Security is, therefore, an important opportunity for stakeholders to review the current overall approach and, develop an updated, comprehensive strategy to accelerate agricultural growth and further strengthen national food and livelihood security in India

I also take this opportunity to convey my best wishes to the students and faculty for success in all their endeavours in years to come.

With these words, I have the pleasure to formally inaugurate this conference.

Jai Hind

Irom Sharmila----Brave woman

Irom Sharmila, Manipur's 'Iron Lady', on Monday completed 12 years of protest demanding repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). On an indefinite fast, Sharmila, who is force-fed through the nose to keep her alive began her fast till death after ten persons, including a boy who received the national bravery award, were shot dead in an alleged encounter with Assam Rifles personnel at Malom near Imphal airport on November 2, 2000. A newspaper columnist and social worker then, Sharmila, went on fast on November 5 that year demanding repeal of AFSPA. She was arrested a day later and charged with attempt to commit suicide.

She is force fed at a government hospital at Porompat where the ward, she is in, has been converted into a jail. Sharmila has received several global awards and several prominent personalities from different parts of the country have visited her in support of her demands. 

The demands of Sharmila is not only a genuine cause but also the whole grievances of north east people especially those from areas declared as disturbed.

According to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), in an area that is proclaimed as "disturbed", an officer of the armed forces has powers to:

* Fire upon or use other kinds of force even if it causes death, against the person who is acting against law and order in the disturbed area for the maintenance of public order, after giving such due warning

* To arrest without a warrant anyone who has committed cognizable offences or is reasonably suspected of having done so and may use force if needed for the arrest.

Depending on Jeevan Reddy commission govt promised to amend the act and ensure 'humane' nature of act, but the promises became an eye wash measures and the act is still being enforced in the following states:
Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland , Tripura and Jammu & kashmir.

AGRARIAN UNREST

India is seventh largest country with an area of around 33 lakh sq.Km and second largest in population with nearly 121 crore people.Our huge population is mostly dependent on domestic agriculture production for  food security.During  initial years of our independence we were dependent on food aid from foreign countries(mostly form U.S.A),but with in one decade we moved near to self sufficient.India proved herself the brave and hard working nature by achieving self sufficiency, in food, when entire world was thinking about final stages of India.This spectacular achievement can be attributed to our great Indian farmers led by versatile administrators of that time(founding fathers of India).

This victory in agriculture would have least possible if our farmers couldn't put their sweat in our mother land. So, the person who made us self sufficient and who is feeding our belly is nothing but our brave farmer.It would be difficult for me to describe the greatness of our farmer, he is the person who is feeding entire population in spite of many challenges in cultivation.The real servants of society are not those who are in front pages of news paper but are those from soil of rural India.

But, during recent past our great warrior is struggling himself to ensure nation self sufficiency.The person who is feeding us is finding difficult to feed himself and starving his stomach.The reasons can be trace out to the following to the best of my knowledge.

* Vagaries of monsoon.
* Nature fury(cyclones etc)
* Irrigation facilities.
* Degradation of land.
* Fertilizer subsidies
* Ever increasing population.
* Failure of Govt policies like NREGA.
* Costly credit.
* lack of mechanization and scientific management.
* No proper remuneration to produced output.
* Bad procurement network.
* Lack of warehousing facilities
* Lack of cold storage chains.
* Loop holes in PDS.
* Hoarding and future trading.
*Policy paralysis in Govt.

Indian economy is gamble of monsoon, the right time arrival of monsoon decides the fate of agriculture which in turn decides the fate of entire economy.The recent events proved again how the vagaries of monsoon impacting the Indian agriculture.The deficit in rainfall during june, july months led lacks of acres of land to leave fallow.In some parts  of Andhra  pradesh the Kharif season started too lately in the month of august instead of June.So, harvest is slightly delayed  and likely to happen during November and December.But, when farmers are about to reap the crop the  Neelam cyclonic effect taken it's fury on coastal areas of Tamil nadu and Andhra pradesh by destroying nearly 14 lakh acres in AP alone(nearly 50 people died in this calamity).All together the late monsoonal rains and the Neelam cyclone ensured southern India farmer with huge loss and unrecoverable damage.

India is well equipped with good river systems having perennial Himalayan rivers on northern part of India and monsoonal river systems on central and southern part of India.Having plenty of water resources still many parts in India are struggling for water because of lack of irrigation management.Every year millions of cusecs of water is flowing into sea over Ganga, BrahmaPutra and, Gadavari. The river inter-linking project which was proposed to join northern perennial rivers with southern non-perennial rivers ensures unirrigated areas with irrigation facilities,but this project is facing it's own scientific hurdles and social challenges and finally emerged as unimaginable project.The construction of many other nation importance dams also became questionable with day by day uprising opposition on the grounds of  environmental rights, tribal rights, regional politics, and challenges posed for mitigating problems of displaced.

Thanks to green revolution , it has played great role in achieving self sufficiency by introducing high yielding vaarities(HYV) of seeds and usage of synthetic fertilizers. This HYV seeds requires good irrigation facilities, so the introduction of this seeds was restricted to areas where irrigation facilities are already available and where irrigation facilities can be provided easily.So,it mainly concentrated in Punjab, haryana, western central india,some patches of eastern coastal India.The green revolution is restricted to certain parts only.The uncovered areas left with low or no productivity while the covered areas ensured with high productivity with the usage of HYV and fertilizers.But, over the due course of time the green revolution covered areas are facing problem of land degradation because of unsustainable exploitation of land with excessive dose of nitrozen-fertilizer and pesticides.The implementation process of fertilizer subsidy also motivating farmer to use it unscientifically. Now we are at cross roads to take up second green revolution to cover entire India with sustainable usage of synthetic materials in harmony with land fertility.

As I mentioned earlier India is rich country in human resources but at the same time this richness itself leading to poverty because of mismanagement of resources.The ever increasing population generating huge work force but to absorb this huge work force Indian Industry and service sectors has it's own limitations.So, out of total work force 65-70% of work force depends on agriculture and it's allied activities.The actual demand of work force for Indian agriculture sector is well below than 10% .This phenomenon leading to disguised unemployment in this sector. Children may be burden to any one else but not to mother, Agriculture is taking care of it's children and giving space to all by splitting herself into small and further small land holdings. These small land holdings are coming against to the scientific management of crops.The small land holding farmers are not able to adopt new mechanisms and the costly credit driving them into debt trap which is primary reason for all farmer suicides in India.

On par with all these hurdles the research and development in Agriculture sector is also not upto the present requirements. The investment rates in bio-technology and genetic engineering is at it's minimum in India. The developments of transgenic plants are yet to indigenize and reach the stage of commercial benefit. The plight of cotton growers in India is the best example to appreciate the science and technology role in developing BT cotton seeds.The gap between Agriculture university and farmers is huge in India. This gap is leaving our warrior unaware of scientific methods, in cultivation methodologies, which is leading to unviable economic practice to farmer.

In spite of all these hurdles our farmer is coming to market with a hope to sell his produce at a rate which will compensate i/p cost and little margin of profit. But, this is the juncture where small and marginal farmers are getting cheated by middle men.The middle men are those who are micro financiers and procurement agents in rural India.With their credit system farmer is compelled to sell his produce at throw away prices immediately after the harvest is over. In fact the farmer will get competitive price if he manages to store the produce at least for the next quarter,but he is not allowed to do so bcz of policies of middle men.

Every year on an average basis Indian farmer is producing around 240-250 million tonnes of food grains out of which around 84 million tonnes are procured by Food Corporation of India(FCI) and remaining procured by market players. Out of 80 or 84 MT with FCI, it has proper storage facilities to store only for around  60 MT, the remaining stored out side godowns, under the sun, out of which narly 6.5 MT are being maintained with unscientific measures.Because of lack of storage facilities considerable lot of grain is getting rotted. the problem is there in cold storage chains also which is leading to wastage of perishable vegetables and fruits.

The Public Distribution System(PDS) was universal PDS at least in papers till 1997, after this year PDS converted into targeted PDS which led to too much of misappropriation in food grains. There were many families left out of Anthyodaya anna yojana, which is part of targeted PDS, who are really deserved of it.On one side the PDS is struggling with poor quality of food grains and the other side with inefficient management of fair price shops(FPSs) and it's network mechanisms.Moreover the food grains offered by PDS are mainly rice and wheat, but there are many villages in India where the staple food of the people being maize and millets. Many people even from above the poverty line are desperate to have access to PDS for subsidized food grain. Identification of households who are eligible for BPL status, a qualification to get entitlement for PDS services, has been highly irregular and diverse in various states. The recent development of Aadhar cards has taken up this challenge of solving the problem of identification and distribution of PDS services along via Direct Cash Transfers.In this cash transfer schemes proposals also there were certain limitations, born out of Indian culture, clearly raised by noble laureate Amartya Sen.

In addition to all these the self interests of millers are driving the crucial farm produce to hoarding and future trading which is one of the factor in rise of food inflation in India.

The last but the most important one to address these problems is Govt policies which is facing policy paralysis because of insecure govt. There are problems in agriculture which govt also can't help anything and at the same time there are many where govt can mitigate the problems  to a large extinct especially in the management of PDS and subsidies to fertilizers..

Finally in this modern world after achieving scientific temper in human civilization and administration, our innocent farmer still continuing to pray for lord Varuna and goddess soil for their holy Karuna which is a pathetic story.

We may live without machines and computers but can't be lived without food.please be aware of  the state of our food donor and act in cohesion for his development.As rightly said by A. P. J Abdul Kalam and Y.S Rajan in "India 2020", I firmly believe that India has every capability to lead the entire world if we maintain our resources in a proper way.    

JAI JAWAN...JAI KISAN

   

 

PROS AND CONS OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN INDIAN RETAIL MARKET

 The govt of India proposed 51% foreign direct investments(FDIs), in retail sector, which became most controversial with the big hungama  conducted by major opposition party(BJP),Mamata Banerjee,Leftists and many other regional parties across India.Many of the political parties are opposing this move based on their political grievances.Many of the people are also opposing this move out of fear that it will ruin the local retailers, this fear factor is just because of little knowledge and inability to analyze FDIs nature(Nature of FDIs demands to have little knowledge on economics which obviously a frustrating factor for common people like us).This fear factor is being aggravated by opposition parties successfully.In this regard i would like to give you some pros and cons, of FDIs, based on arguments raised by protesters and supporters.

 India’s retail sector is already opened for indigenous operators(major participants being reliance,Aditya Birla group,Tata group,Pantaloon Retail,K Raheja Group,Piramal Group,Bharti-Walmart(a joint venture)). There is no logic in keeping foreigners out. Entry of foreign players means more competition, improved supply chain efficiencies and better offerings for consumers and, most likely, better prices for farmers. This concept already proved in the area of telecom and software sectors successfully . In telecom sector the entry of Vdafone didn't end the business of BSNL,Tata and other perhaps Indian players are sharing major market Airtel being predominent. In software services the entry of Microsoft,IBM and many other foreign companies didn't end the business of Infosys,TCS and many other Indian companies instead this sector has created hundreds of small and marginal s/w companies,became financially good source of employment to lakhs of people and also emerged as one of the major source to raise forex to Govt of India.Same hungama conducted by the then contemporary opposition to curtail entry of service sector in 1991,but ultimately time proved what is right and what is wrong.

Same concept would definitely successful in retail market also if the proposed FDIs bill is implemented with strong determination. Let us see the features of proposed bill and their +ve and -ve sides.

Some Important feature:
 1) FDIs can not move into any prat of a state without prior-permission of state govt  even though the central govt permitted it.

  2)Can't be accepted in any city where population is less than 10 lakh.

  3)Even in cities with more than 10 lakh population also foreign players needs     permission

   4)50% Investment has to be spent on development of infrastructure.

   5)3 years lock-in period.(Govt is trying to reduce this,but it should not be reduced at any cost)

Indian govt has ensured enough provisions to safeguard the interests of kirana shops, farmers and small manufacturers by imposing conditions (on foreigner retailers) such as domestic sourcing norms, entry at the discretion of States and permission to operate in cities with a population of 10 lakh or more. Investment has to be made to create back-end infrastructure such as cold storage chains(crucial for food processing sector) which would be a great help for farmers belongs to horticulture and vegetable growers.In fact Govt already allowed 100% FDIs in food processing and cold-storage but this scheme didn't attract investments since retail sector is totally closed.

So, with the above restrictions on one side and the competent Indian corporate on the other side it would hardly possible for any foreign player to monopolize the market.It only can give good competition to Indian players and will reduce the gap between production cost and consumer market cost of commodities.To sustain this competition all these companies has to start procurement directly from farmer by bifurcating middle men(who are one of major exploiters of farmer). Here the worst impact is on middle men and the primary benefit is to farmer since he will get fair price on per with market.Farmers will get some relief than the present but they won't get rid of all the problems since the agrarian unrest is not only linked up with middle men but also depends on erratic monsoon,lack of mechanization and scientific management,degraded land due to green revolution,irrigation facilities,illiteracy of farmer and disguised unemployment.With the latter reasons productivity is getting effected and by the former reason remunerative price rate is getting effected, all put together breaking the backbone farmer.

This middle men layer consists of small money lenders(costliest credit) and procurement agents(in some villages money lender himself is a procurement agent)  . In India we have nearly 6 lakh villages and each village contains 5-6 middle men on average and each person would provide direct employment to max of 10-15 members on seasonal basis,then  the total number put together 5.76 crore people.Out of this people the direct labor to middle man are also agriculture labor,they would get their work farm land, but the remaining 36 lakh people will feel the worst impact of the policy for initial period, later on they will find different work depending on their skill set(most of these people migrated to urban ares in case of China).

China and many other third world countries have opened up their market many years before.we can well compare ourselves with China in this regard since it is issue regarding consumer market,both countries have large consumer market. Any company would like to stay in larger markets either foreign or domestic person, this made China to reap the FDIs successfully.China opened it's economy in 1992 and utilized the technological advancements and Forex brought in by foreign players and emerged as major exporter in retail market.The status of international standard to their consumer product is gift given by healthy competition between foreign and domestic corporate people.China gradually lifted it's cap on FDIs to zero.Even after 20 years of it's reforms still local entrepreneurs are dominant with large market share than foreign players like Walmart and Tesco.

Walmart was rejected by local retailers in some cities of USA. Entering into any city of USA is very possible to Walmart since it is domestic player in USA, but same thing is not possible in case of India since walmart or any other foreign company not belongs to the category of domestic player.It has limitations and permissions to expand it's business as per proposed FDI norms. 


Responses from different sections of society: 

Strong protesters:

BJP: They are totally against to this policy since:

1) Initiator is Congress

2)Highly interested in protecting corporate interests.

3)Part of vote bank politics(Interested in mid term elections).

Mamata Banerjee: Against to it, she became so popular on this issue by posing instability to govt.

It would be highly difficult to analyze her stand because her interests and words change from time to time.Her party's( trinamool congress) election manifesto supported this move.When a journalist questioned about the manifeso she replied him that "it is a print mistake".


Communist parties: Opposing the move.

They interested in govt to handle everything.they don't like if anything going out of govt clutches as it is their basic ideology.This principle will work when we have Prime Minister to an attender(total of executives(these people are main) and bureaucrat) with optimum level  of honesty and integrity which we can't expect at these times.

Regional parties: some are supporting(generally part of UPA ),some are opposing (generally from NDA except Trinamool Congress).

Strong supporters:

  1)Most of UPA members since they are coalition partners of congress

  2)Majority of economists

      

The reasons are only political and vote bank politics.Frankly speaking we have some politicians with cabinet rank in many states who don't  know even how FDIs benefit in reducing the burden of Current deficit in the shorter run and trade deficit in the longer run.This is the sorry state of our political affairs today.Under this kind of circumstances we can't expect smooth process of these kind of policies.


FINALLY THE SUCCESS OF THIS MOVE IS POSSIBLE ONLY WHEN IT SERVES THE PURPOSE OF MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY BY DEVELOPING FOOD PROCESSING INFRASTRUCTURE .STRONG DEDICATION IS REQUIRED FROM GOVT SIDE TO PERSUADE INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS AND BRING TO INDIA WITHOUT CHANGING MENTIONED RESTRICTIVE PROVISIONS.


Sources:

http://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/chinese-retailers-give-global-giants-run-for-money/article2681679.ece?textsize=small&test=2
 
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/article3946087.ece
 
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/mamata-other-states-will-toe-west-bengals-line-on-fdi/article3942978.ece

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3897906.ece

http://swaminomics.org/?p=623