The Party remains unscathed

An interesting article by P.Sainath. Comparing "loan waiver" to Bear Sterns bailout is really "apple vs oranges". The Fed prints bills at the rate of 2billion per day and the US deficit stands over 8.7 trillion. But what is 15billion when compared to our budget deficit? The US economy is vastly different from India's. I give that , although inappropriate, the comparison puts the "loan waiver" in a different perspective. However, 15billion waiver is still fiscal imprudence. Deriding capitalism and promoting socialism is a poor attempt at justifying populism.

The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : Between a rock and a hard place

To be fair to the Union Agriculture Minister, he alone has not laid the blame at the door of faceless global forces. Sharad Pawar locates the problem closer home. In his view, south Indians are eating too many chapathis, leading to shortages of wheat. (DNA page 1, April 2, 2008). An entertaining view but there’s a problem with it. Even while dietary changes do affect consumption patterns, these occur over decades. There is little evidence of an outburst of wheat-centric gluttony in the southern States these past six months. (Unless, of course, with great cunning, the southies are hoarding it up for future chapathi orgies.)

Thanks for attacking such nonsense.

And we also exported millions of tonnes of grain — as in 2002 — and 2003. What’s more, we exported at prices cheaper than those we charged poor people in this country for the same grain. The idea was that we had a “huge surplus” of grain and could well afford to export. The truth was that the massive pileup of unsold stock arose from a surplus of hunger rather than of grain.

This is the curious bit. These are the facts:
India exported millions of tons of grain in 2002 and 2003. There was a huge surplus.
From the CBOT data, I see price volatility in 02 and 03 but largely the prices have been better than over the previous years. It is also during these years that the bullish trend kicked in. The international prices were definitely not depressed to force India to undersell.
BJP ruled during 02 and 03.
Over the past 3 years, food stocks have been reducing.
Farmer suicides increased dramatically over the past 3 years.
There was a wheat import scam under the UPA government.
Congress has been ruling since 04.

NDTV.com: Wheat import: UPA in trouble

There is more trouble for Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. After the Left, it was the turn of the congress party to distance itself from the government's decision to import wheat at a huge cost.

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Is India facing a food crisis?

Stocks have come down over the past three years because of low production and exports.

Sharad Pawar gets the blame and "The Party" remains unscathed. Some are beyond reproach.