Monday, August 17, 2009

ASEAN- India FTA; India Vulnerable?



India has signed a Free Trade Agreement with the ASEAN countries, which would lead to the waiving off of import duties on about 80% of the imports from the ASEAN region.

This article tries to share some concerns about the deal and its implications to the country in general and Kerala in particular.

ASEAN consists of 10 countries- Thailand, Burma(Myanmar), Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Laos, Vietnam , Cambodia and Brunei. The collective population of the ASEAN bloc is about 56 million, while in India, its 1.07 billion. So in business terms, the FTA opens a customer base of 56 million for India and a huge base of 1.07 crore for the ASEAN bloc.

According to the deal, signed by the Minister of Commerce and Industries, Anand Sharma and by the Economic Ministers of ASEAN, the import duty of about 80% products-including agricultural products- that these countries export to India would enjoy near zero import tarrifs. Its interesting to note that nowhere it says about the number of goods India would be exporting to these countries.


Poor Negotiation Skills?
An article which was published in Economic Times, says that the deal effectively opens more market place in India for the ASEAN bloc, while India gained nothing significant. About 75% of the Indian goods entering the Asean countries currently attract zero duties, the effective additional market access that India has secured out of the FTA with Asean is mere 21% of its export. While ASEAN gets an import tariff cut of about 80% of the products. The FTA, which will come into force in January 2010, will phase off the import tariff of about 320o proucts by 2013. tariffs on an additional 800 products would be brought down to zero or near zero levels by December 2016

The government claims that India got a good deal by including 489 products in a high sensitive 'negative list', in which there will be no tariff cuts until a level playing field is achieved. But the truth is that the Indian negotiators agreed for one consolidated negative list of 489 items for all Asean countries put together, which means India has about 50 items in its negative list for each Asean country. And India had to concede to each ASEAN countries to come up with a negative list of high sensitive Indian Imports into their countries. In effect, the idea of setting up a negative list back fired; weakening India's position further. This move would also force India to compromise a lot on the Doha Rounds, in which the former Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath had put a great effort in defending India's right in imposing duty on agricultural imports. This clearly raises disturbing questions on the integrity, vision and negotiating skills of the Indian delegation who carried out the deal.

There is also another danger lingering behind the deal. With the ASEAN's FTA, any country, especially countries like Australia, who already have an FTA with the ASEAN, can use those countries as transit points to export products like wheat to India, by bypassing tariff payments.

Although the government claims that the annual trade between the two parties is forcasted to touch 60 billion dollars after the deal comes into effect, the question lingers... who get the benefits? What would this deal do to a 26million who lives under poverty.

Impacts on Kerala's agrarian sector


The ASEAN FTA was vehemently opposed by ruling left government of the state. The Chief Minister, followed by a ministerial delegation met the Prime Minister to share the apprehensions and concerns on the deals negative impact on the state's agrarian system.

Many of the ASEAN countries share the same climatic conditions as of Kerala, which means those countries produce more or less same crops as the kerala farmers. Kerala was always famous for its spices. But today, countries like Vietnam took over the prime position in international spice markets. Kerala spices can no longer fight with the cheap produces from these countries. They have clear advantages, both in labor cost and productivity.


Rubber still forms the backbone of Kerala cash crops. The stability in rubber prices have contributed a lot in the stability of a robust economy- especially in southern kerala. Even a minor price fluctuations in rubber would lead to a drastic breakage of the existing economic system. Southern kerala had seen the negative effects of rubber price drop before, when the rubber prices came down to 26 a kilo in the late 1990s. A lot of small firms was thrown out of business during those years. The domestic comsumption of natural rubber has seen good growth in the last few years. The combined ASEAN bloc is the world's largest rubber producers, which explains why India is a lucrative market for them. There are many huge corporations working on agricultural sectors in these countries. Even though many agricultural products are included in the negative list, the apparent presence of loop holes would make it difficult to control the agricultural products, which forms a big chunk of ASEAN's exports. For example, natural rubber is added in the negative list, but the tariffs of synthetic rubber is to be waived to a near zero level, which will fire up competitions in which Kerala will have a very vulnerable position.


The deal becomes all the more relevant, when the state is slowly recovering from scary days farmer suicides. A loss of confidence again would make it harder for the agrarian sector to revive from the abyss and fight back. This calls for an expeditious administrative and diplomatic level action in finding a solution to the issue.

Finding ways to instill confidence and helping the farmers in developing optimised cultivation technologies through which they can atleast stand up to an influx of foreign goods is the need of the hour. The government shall, at the same time, re negotiate the terms in the FTA, keeping in mind of the farmers' plights.


Monday, June 29, 2009

Flow: an update

As everyone says, life is flowing...and the sad part is that it doesn seem to have an ocean to meet... its flowing aimlessly...not even shaping round stones in the way... a lot of things come to mind.. and its cluttered..been thinking about taking a break from this aimless flow and settle down for sometime to rejuvenate and to instill concrete aims to flow...God willing, within a few months i will try again to consolidate the thought process...

Rain
Its monsoon time.. and the rain is nowhere...waiting for the rain to drench myself...may be to wash away something which i'm still not sure of...it showers in the night.. when i'm sleeping...i hear the sounds in the back of my mind... it forms a background score for my vague dreams.....and in the morning, its all gone... just like the dream..

life in ernakulam
since the flow is not free, i went out in search of work...
and i got one in ernakulam....to talk to school children about robots...
and i stayed with my high school mates... people who'v studied with me for 10 whole years.. we still dont know much about each other..but the relation has always been warm...we spent nights reminiscing those times in school..our shaping years.. i was sad because we were living in periphery...we were like the dry leaves flowing in a stream...dead and flowing in the current....not knowing the depths...but as everyone does..we still cherish those days...and some of them just want to stick back to the old times..

then we shifted to a dingy room in the middle of cemetries...muti storied graves sorrounded us.. so we started our life along with a lot of dead dreams...and we lived in a room which do not have much oxygen...it reminded of impending dangers... it showed how vulnerable we were.. the civiisation is counting its days... only some of them are keeping the count...rest are already dead....their minds...i mean




Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Kashmir is burning.

Zaffar was sad yesterday. He is my classmate and he is from Kashmir. The events that are happening in his home town are not pleasant. The town is under a curfew. Atleast 5 people have lost their lives in the police firing at the protest march to Lal Chowk, the centre of the town. Zaffar is not very political. He is a sort of happy go lucky guy. When people asks him whether he want independence or want to secede from India or join Pakistan, he used to answer that if people wanted freedom, he'd also support it. He was not much agog about the opression and occupation.
We were both reading from the library when he suggested we have a cup of tea from the canteen. we sat with our cuppas on the verandah. he said that he had got a call from home. and then he started talking and me listening. his brother had called to inform him that a deaf and dumb person in his neighborhood got brutally beaten up by the force since he didn move out of the street at the announcement of curfew.
Then he started talking about the history of the Kashmir problem. He blamed Sheikh Abdulla and his family for all the ruins that had come upon the Kashmimris. Sheikh was never a champion of democracy and had again and again rigged election results to clinch on to the power.

Then he started talking about the amarnath land issue, which is now the burning issue in the valleys.
The Gulam Nabi Azad Govt decided to transfer 100acres of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board. Amarnath is a famous hindu pilgrimage centre. The cave was discovered by a Kashmiri muslim nomad and since then thousands of hindu pilgrims have been visiting the place. one third of the annual profit was given to the family of the muslim nomad who found the cave. The Govt. decided to stop that also.

Initially the govt. claim was that the land id being transfered on a temperory basis, but the document said otherwise. The samiti was free to construct and lay tunnels and drainages if need arises. One asks whether the samiti will construct anything for just the pilgrimage period of 2 months? The Kashmiris were being hosts to thousands of pilgrims every year and not a single case of communal tension had registered during these years. Now the politics behind the sudden decision of the Govt. to transfer the land to the board is dubious. Kashmiri land was always occupied since independence. Nehru had promised a referendum regarding the independence long back and it is still to happen. 671 batallions of army and reserved police are stationed in the valley. There is, on an average, one Indian 'security' person per 10 Kashmiris.(Imagine how terrifying it would be for the people) Each battalion require some 150acres of land for themselves. So that much of land was forcefully grabbed them already. The military acquired orchards, fields, schools et al for their operations. The ethics record of the army in Kashmir was never good. The atrocities and brutalities that they have unleashed are uncountable. Kashmiris were always living under the guns of occupation forces. The latest issue of land transfer was bound to invite resistance from the already occupied people. Morover they have never cried for the blocking down of Amarnath yathra

Once the protest started, the army stepped in and started firing against virtually unarmed-except for the stones- masses. That is when NN Vohra took charge as the governor of the state. He decided to make the land transfer null and void. This sparked off furious protests from the Hindu dominated areas of Jammu. Hindu Fundamentalist forces took the issue into their hand and gave it a dangerous religious overtone. People took to the streets and destroyed schools, ransacked government offices and et al. The softer attitude from the army was appalling.

Meanwhile an economic blockade on the Kashmiris were already in place. The Jammu-Srinagar Highway, the only road which connects Kashmir to India, was blocked by the samiti protesters. Being the harvest season, tonnes of fruits were packed and ready to be transprted. But the blockade meant that any truck going through that road will have to face attacks from the protesteers in Jammu. Till today worth fruits crores of rupees are getting rotten due to the blockade.

The mainstream media portrayal of Kashmir as pro-pakistan was scoffed at by Mirwais Latif, a leader from Kashmir. He said the use of pro-pak and pro lashkar slogans are just means of their protest against the indian state and its army. They are aware of the political developments in Pakistan and they dont want to give themselves away to a highly unstable and corrupted state apparatus of Pakistan. Even pakistan seemed to have lost its interest in Kashmir and its problems. Even pro-pakistan people blame the pakistan media for the lack of interest in covering the current issue

The cry for azadi(freedom) is growing day by day, that too in a never before way. Thousands of people are joining the protest marches. They are unarmed, which makes it difficult for the army to "manage" the situation as they had done before. The people now thinks even if India is prospering, even if the independence means going backward in time, even if they couldn manage to support infrastructure, even if they are heading to darkness, they would still prefer independence rather than the integration with India. Why are still clinging on to Kashmir. All independent referundums strongly declares their will to be free. We all thought we're living in a democracy. How foolish we were.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

A rendezvous with another food security expert

Ironies never seem to cease!Last day I met this guy from one of the country's best universities. He has just completed his Mphil in development economics. And yeah, he did his bit of research in food security along with a well known "intellectual" from the same university. I met him from a restaurant in the campus. We both were waiting to get a seat in the busy place. So we had a small chat before getting seats at the same table. I asked him what he was doing, and he said: “food security”. By the time his order was served. It was a plate of noodles and a chicken hot garlic sauce; a bit too much for a guy of that size- he had this lean and hungry look!- I was hoping for an offer from him. I had some logical reason for my hopes. He had six pieces of spicy chicken and we were already on a talking terms. But I had to be satisfied with my fried rice! And that was not all. Once he was half way through the noodles, he took the menu card again and ordered chicken fried rice!! First I thought he might be taking food to one of his friends. But his plan was to have it for himself once he’s done with the noodles! And the guy was being quite articulate and authentic about the falling consumption rates. As someone pointed out, the word ‘irony’ has lost its power and appeal already.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

The Irony of food security

How more ironic can it get? The G8 summit happening in Japan was touted as the global leaders meet to analyze and find solutions for the declining food security, especially in third world country. And what happens after the day long meetings, seminars and blah blahs.. naturally the who's who of the world were famished.. and then.. an exuberant 8 course dinner with 19 dishes, cooked by 25 chefs..!! Now that is some big time contribution to the food security issue.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Malayalam Font

If anyone is having a problem in reading the posts written in malayalam, a link to download the unicode font is provided on the left pane of the blog window. Save it in ur windows/fonts folder and restart the browser.
Peace

പുക

ശ്വാസകോശം പുകയാല്‍ നിറഞ്ഞു
ഒരു റീകൊയില്‍ നടന്നപ്പോള്‍ എഴുപത് ശതമാനം
പുക ഒരു സ്ട്രീമായി പുറത്തേക്ക് വന്നു
കാറ്റിന്റെ ഗതിക്കൊപ്പം അത് വളഞ്ഞു
ഇടത്തേക്ക് നീങ്ങി, അന്തരീക്ഷത്തില്‍ ലയിച്ചു
മുപ്പത് ശതമാനം പുക ധമനികള്‍ വഴി ശരീരമാകെ
ഓടി നടക്കുന്നു- ഇന്നും

Friday, May 02, 2008

Manufacturing Consent

राजा बोला रात हैं
मंत्री बोला रात हैं
सब बोला रात हैं
ये सुबह सुबह की बात हैं।


free translation
the king said it's night and dark
the minister said it's night and dark
everyone said it's night and dark
when the sun was high and bright

source: indian people's theatre association(ipta) graffitti board

http://iptamumbai.org/