On 11/16/06, Rajeev Srinivasan <rajeev.srinivasan@gmail.com> wrote:
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nov 15th, 2006
i used to have some respect for p sainath. but now he has become one of the mouthpieces of the left. he's pandering to the usual group of clueless anti-national elements.
i agree on one point: the continuing devaluation of agriculture as a priority sector will spell doom for india. san will disagree, but india's future is tied to agriculture, nothing else. as ghostwriter said, the cow and the brahmin, agriculture and intellectual property, this is what we have as our patrimony.
sainath's rhetoric is alarmist and ridiculous. china has pushed 150 million people off its farms. this floating population is unemployable. *that* is well known. of course no left-leaning person will mention this, as their handlers in peking would get upset with them.
india's agricultural problems today are nothing compared to what happened in colonial times: 20 million dying of famine in the 1850-1900 CE timeframe. part of the problem is farmers being tempted to abandon traditional crops and run after new crops, as pushed by the market. eg. vanilla in kerala, a disaster except for the first few clever folks who jumped in, made their money, and jumped out.
but i agree, no indian farmer should have to commit suicide. compare india's unhelpful attitude to america's $18 billion in subsidies to rich farmers.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: yashhttp://ia.rediff.com/money/2006/oct/19bspec.htm
'The largest mass migration in history is unfolding in India'
-Suman Guha Mozumder
Wellknown journalist P Sainath told an audience in New York on Wednesday that while food courts are springing up almost everywhere in India's big city malls catering to the palates of well-off Indians, an average family in the country's rural areas has less to eat today than it had six years ago.
"The average rural family today is eating nearly 100 grams less of foodgrains than six or seven years ago and the average per capita availability of food grains has declined sharply. In 1991, when reforms began, availability of food per person was 510 grams, today it has fallen to 437 grams," Sainath said.
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1 comment:
Rajeev,
Mass migration is right - and it is catastrophic.
Let me illustrate with publicly available figures on population growth for New York City and Bangalore
New York City
Year Population
1900 3437202
2000 8008278
or 4.5 million people added in 100 hundred years
Bangalore
Year Population
1971 1680000
2001 5680000
or 4 million people added in 30 years The projected population of Bangalore in 2010 is near 7.5 million. This is just crazy. No urbanization plan in the world can accommodate 6 million in 40 years. With the kind of governments we have in India it is impossible!!
Remember NYC has a responsive government that provides civic services to citizens and there were still race riots, gang wars and a mafia (anyone seen the movie Gangs of New York?)
This is the natural outcome of what I call the 'derivative society' (guess I will Trade Mark this one). First Panditji applied the Soviet model and we now have the likes of Gurcharan Das and Montek Singh Ahluwallia applying the American model. Both will fail. True Indian genius does not flower in decayed cities.
Unless we bring wealth to the village; the village will bring poverty, slums and non-sustainable cities to us. It will then it will be too late to do anything, but sit at home and pass judgment on the 'Jhuggi Wallahs'
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