222 The Rise of China’s Auto Industry. Kazakhs protest sale of oil resources & land to China

(1) The Rise of China’s Auto Industry and Its Impact on the U.S. Motor Vehicle Industry
(2) Self-immolations in China trigger review of land-seizure policy
(3) China asked to account for returned Uighurs
(4) Kazakhs protest sale of oil resources - and lease of land - to China
(5) Google's mooted withdrawal from China shows there'll be no Orange Revolution there
(6) Japan Airlines files for bankruptcy
(7) More hungry people than Africa: the desperation of India's peasant farmers, amid population explosion

(1) The Rise of China’s Auto Industry and Its Impact on the U.S. Motor Vehicle Industry

From: IHR News <news@ihr.org> Date: 26.11.2009 06:41 PM

The Rise of China's Auto Industry
Secrecy News
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2009/11/china_auto.html

The Rise of China’s Auto Industry
November 20th, 2009 by Steven Aftergood

“In recent years, China has become the world’s fastest growing automotive producer,” according to a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service. <http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40924.pdf>

“[China's] annual vehicle output has increased from less than 2 million vehicles in the late 1990s to 9.5 million in 2008. In terms of production volume in 2008, China has surpassed Korea, France, Germany, and the United States, trailing only Japan.”

“China’s automobile industry has continued to expand despite the global economic downturn. From January to October 2009, more than 10 million vehicles were sold in China. If such growth continues, China is on its way to becoming world’s largest auto market,” the CRS said. ==

The Rise of China’s Auto Industry and Its Impact on the U.S. Motor Vehicle Industry

Rachel Tang

Analyst in Industrial Organization and Business

November 16, 2009

Congressional Research Service

Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

Summary

 html version of the file http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40924.pdf

The automobile industry, a key sector in China’s industrialization and modernization efforts, has been developing rapidly since the 1990s. In recent years, China has become the world’s fastest growing automotive producer. Annual vehicle output has increased from less than 2 million vehicles in the late 1990s to 9.5 million in 2008. In terms of production volume in 2008, China has surpassed Korea, France, Germany, and the United States, trailing only Japan. A disproportionate share of China’s output was heavy vehicles in the 1990s. However, since 2000 China’s growth has been led by an increase in passenger cars, which now account for more than 65% of its vehicle production.

China’s automobile industry has continued to expand despite the global economic downturn. From January to October 2009, more than 10 million vehicles were sold in China. If such growth continues, China is on its way to becoming world’s largest auto market.

Unlike Korea or Japan, China’s automotive industry has developed extensively through foreign direct investment. This investment has come in the form of alliances and joint ventures between international automobile manufacturers and Chinese partners. The international automobile manufacturers are unlikely to promote Chinese exports that compete with their own products in other markets. As a consequence, the Chinese companies that have expressed a strong interest in exporting cars have not had strong ties to foreign car producers and that, consequently, may struggle to meet safety and emission standards in industrialized countries. However, if independent producers, such as Geely, can achieve much higher standards, they could prove to be a strong international competitor. Ford’s proposed sale of Volvo to Geely may help the Chinese company improve its products.

China exports and imports few motor vehicles. Exports are growing much more rapidly than imports and are mostly light trucks and passenger cars shipped to developing country markets. By contrast, Chinese auto parts exports are already making inroads into the United States and other developed markets. While U.S. motor vehicle trade with China was insignificant in 2008, the United States imported more than $5.5 billion in parts from China, while it exported about one- eighth of that amount. Many of these imports are aimed at the aftermarket, as most of what China now exports to the U.S. market are standard products such as brake parts, electrical and electronic parts, and seating and interior trim. But with high rates of investment and strong growth in China by the leading U.S. manufacturers of both cars and parts, major motor vehicle companies are likely to increase sourcing from China.

There have been a significant number of trade disputes with China ranging from implementation of obligations that were made when China joined the WTO, China’s exchange rate policy, lax trade law enforcement, and alleged subsidies to industrial producers. With a bilateral U.S. trade deficit that rose to more than $268 billion in 2008, representatives of the Obama administration, as well as many Members of Congress, would like to achieve more balance in U.S.-China trade relations.

(2) Self-immolations in China trigger review of land-seizure policy

Major changes to China's land seizures

http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201001/2805626.htm?desktop

Last Updated: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:21:00 +1100

The Chinese government has outlined major changes to the way in which land can be seized for re-development.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been uprooted for booming urban redevelopment, often with the approval of local officials.

Under the plan, the use of violence during evictions will be banned, and developers can no longer cut off water and electricity to force residents out.

Property seizures have caused widespread protests in China, including two self- immolations. ==

China shakes up rules on land seizures

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e271a6c8-0cc7-11df-b8eb-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fe271a6c8-0cc7-11df-b8eb-00144feabdc0.html&_i_referer=

By Geoff Dyer in Beijing

Published: January 29 2010 12:18 | Last updated: January 29 2010 15:58

China on Friday unveiled a shake-up of the way that land is seized for redevelopment after a public outcry over violence used by some developers and a rare public campaign by leading academics.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, published the proposed regulations, which should increase compensation for relocation, make it easier for residents of houses marked for redevelopment to take legal action and limit conflicts during demolitions. ==

Startled by self-immolations and protests, China suggests major changes for land seizures

By Cara Anna (CP) January 29, 2010

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gKkOXZLPklZUmn5ukGUmaBqugPmA

BEIJING — China's Cabinet suggested major changes Friday to the way land is seized for redevelopment in an attempt to calm a passionate issue that has sparked growing violence and even prompted some protesters to set themselves on fire.

Developers and demolition companies would be banned from using violence or shutting off water and electricity to force residents from their homes, according to changes proposed by the State Council, or Cabinet, and posted on its Web site.

All are common tactics in China, where hundreds of thousands of people have been uprooted for booming urban redevelopment, fueled by government lending and often with the approval of local officials.

The draft proposal also calls for compensation for seized property to be above its market price, an effort to calm protests over little or no payment. More than 90 per cent of residents in places marked as old or dangerous would have to agree to demolition first - even for projects judged to be in the public interest.

China Central Television led its midday news broadcast with the proposals.

"Definitely these would have helped us," said Zhang Weimin, who camped out in his unlit, unheated Beijing restaurant for weeks, resisting threats from what he and other holdouts suspected were hired thugs before their strip of businesses was torn down this month. "What happened to us would have been a violation."

Property seizures have caused widespread protests. Late last year, a video and photos of a woman standing on a roof and setting herself on fire in protest in the southwestern city of Chengdu spread across state-run media. Shortly after that, a man protesting another demolition set himself ablaze in Beijing. Unlike the woman, he survived.

Five law professors from China's top Peking University then took a rare public stand, asking the National People's Congress Standing Committee to change a regulation they said encouraged abusive tactics by developers and led to "mass incidents" and "extreme events." Meetings with legislative officials from the State Council followed.

Property seizures are supposed to be limited to projects in the public interest, and seizing land and negotiating with residents for compensation is the government's job under China's property law.

But a regulation issued in 2001 allows developers to step in and handle those negotiations, the professors argued. Developers are sometimes accused of using hired thugs to threaten residents, sometimes with violence.

"The interests of the companies and people are sharply contradictory. So increasingly, more demolition cases end in a horrible way," Shen Kui, the professor who organized the request to the National People's Congress, told The Associated Press last year.

Shen praised the government's speed in dealing with the issue Friday, but said it can still forcibly demolish a property if it thinks its decision is fair and people have been compensated.

Friday's proposals are open for public comment until Feb. 12, a statement on the State Council's site said. The National People's Congress has already authorized the State Council to enact regulations on the issue after the comment period is over.

In another self-immolation, a man in the southeastern province of Jiangsu set himself on fire Tuesday to protest a demolition, the People's Daily newspaper reported on its Web site Thursday.

Associated Press researcher Zhao Liang contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

(3) China asked to account for returned Uighurs

http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201001/2805625.htm?desktop

Last Updated: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:21:00 +1100

A leading human rights group has called on China to account publicly for the fate of Uighurs forcibly repatriated from Cambodia last month.

The 20 Muslim Uighurs had sought asylum in Cambodia after fleeing China in the wake of an eruption of ethnic rioting in China's Xinjiang region.

Bowing to Chinese pressure, Cambodia deported them in December in what UN human rights experts charged was a blatant violation of the world body's refugee and anti-torture conventions.

Human Rights Watch says it's received an unconfirmed report this month that some of the Uighurs have been sentenced to death by a court in Xinjiang.

Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch says Uighur asylum seekers sent back to China by Cambodia have disappeared.

She has called on Beijing to make a public statement about their status and allow them to meet with family members and UN representatives.

(4) Kazakhs protest sale of oil resources - and lease of land - to China
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE60T01Q20100130

Kazakhs protest against China's growing influence

Sat Jan 30, 2010 10:37am GMT

* Beijing lending billions to resource-rich neighbour

* Government denies plans to rent land to China

By Olzhas Auyezov

ALMATY, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Kazakh protesters scuffled with police on Saturday at a rally against their government's burgeoning ties with neighbouring China.

Many in Kazakhstan, a vast but thinly populated nation, are suspicious of China's growing influence in resource-rich Central Asia and accuse the government of selling out oil riches to their giant, energy-hungry neighbour.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev said last month China had proposed renting a million hectares of Kazakh land to grow soya and other crops. The government later denied any plans to lease land to China.

Shouting "Down with Nazarbayev!" and carrying banners depicting China as a threatening dragon, hundreds of people gathered in the biggest city Almaty.

"Handing over land to foreigners should be forbidden," opposition activist Marzhan Aspandiyarova told the rally.

(5) Google's mooted withdrawal from China shows there'll be no Orange Revolution there

Google's run-in with China shows that internet is now a real battleground

It was naive to imagine the regime would not control what its people could read in the internet

John Naughton

The Observer, Sunday 24 January 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/24/google-china-internet-freedom-control

ONE USEFUL spin-off from the developing story of Google's difficulties with the Chinese communist regime is that it may finally spur the west to discard the rose-tinted spectacles through which it has chosen to view China in the past decade – and not before time.

The west's response to China's rapid industrialisation was determined by a recipe blending three parts greed with one part naivety. The greed was understandable: the stupendous rate of Chinese economic growth triggered a desperate desire for a slice of the action. Everywhere, whether in companies or universities, one found a palpable determination to "get into China". In the political world, we saw western governments scramble to out-do one another in fawning upon visiting Chinese potentates.

Still, greed is part of human nature; we have to make a living, and often behave reprehensibly while doing so. What was less forgivable about the west's approach was the implicit naivety. It was a product of wishful thinking brought about by market triumphalism, the belief that, in the end, it is impossible to have a capitalist economy without also having liberal political institutions.

Google's engagement with China was driven by both greed and naivety. The latter was graphically illustrated by the deal on filtering search results the company accepted. The Google folk persuaded themselves it was better to let internet users know their searches had been filtered, on the grounds that this might alert Chinese citizens to the imperfections in their political arrangements. It was unpalatable, but better than nothing. And it might lead to change.

It was all hooey, of course. The regime is irredeemably authoritarian and never had any intention of ceding freedom of information to its people. Neither has it ever bought into the idea of market triumphalism. The whole Chinese economic "miracle" is a refutation of the link between capitalism and liberalism: Hu Jintao & Co believe it is perfectly possible to build a dynamic, prosperous economy without bothering with all that democracy nonsense.

Recent developments confirm the indifference of the regime to western sensibilities. Though nobody has yet conclusively proved the hacking attack that triggered Google's decision to quit China was officially sanctioned, I can't find anyone in the security world who doubts it. And already some specialists have uncovered interesting similarities between it and the "Ghostnet" operation of 2008/9 mounted against Tibetan activists – which was traced back to a Chinese intelligence network.

James Fallows, the distinguished US journalist who has recently returned from a long posting in China, thinks it is entering its own "Bush-Cheney era" – a period of aggressive dismissal of the world. "A difficult and unpleasant stage of China-US and China-world relations lies ahead," he writes. "This is so on the economic front [and] may prove so on the environmental front… It is increasingly so on the political-liberties front, as witness Vaclav Havel's denunciation of the recent 11-year prison sentence for the man who is in many ways his Chinese counterpart, Liu Xiaobo."

Which provides the context for the most remarkable development of the week – Hillary Clinton's speech on internet freedom at the Newseum in Washington last Thursday. Internet users, she declared, must be "assured certain basic freedoms" – freedom of expression and of worship, freedom from want and from fear and, most intriguingly, "freedom to connect".

She then turned to l'affaire Google. "We look to Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions that led Google to make this announcement. We also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent. The internet has already been a source of tremendous progress in China, and it's great that so many people there are now online. But countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century."

The regime was so enraged it issued an unprecedentedly speedy critique. Which shows how quickly the Google drama is evolving into a high-level crisis. Cyberspace was the next frontier; it's becoming the next battleground.

(6) Japan Airlines files for bankruptcy

Japan Airlines has filed for bankruptcy with $US25 billion of debts

Created: 20/01/2010

Mark Willacy, Tokyo

Last Updated: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:57:00 +1100

http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201001/2796242.htm?desktop

Asia's largest airline - Japan Airlines - has filed for bankruptcy, in one of the country's biggest corporate failures in decades.

Japan Airlines shares have plunged to a record low of less than four cents, with its stock to be delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange next month.

The fall has effectively reducing the market value of the company to $US130 million, which is about half the cost of a new jumbo jet.

Crippled by debts of $24 billion, JAL is now seeking bankruptcy protection.

It'll now have to rely on billions in government aid and will have to slash 15,000 jobs.

The Japanese Government says it will inject $US3.5 billion into the company as part of a re-structure aimed at keeping it flying.

US carriers American Airlines and Delta are now in a bidding war for a slice of the Japanese airline's lucrative routes. ==

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_japan_airlines

Japan Airlines files for bankruptcy protection

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jan 19, 9:24 am ET

TOKYO – Japan Airlines filed for one of the country's largest bankruptcies ever Tuesday, entering a restructuring that will shrink Asia's top carrier and its presence around the world.

Staggering under a $25.6 billion debt mountain, the carrier applied for protection from creditors under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law — Japan's version of Chapter 11 — with the Tokyo District Court.

Japan's flagship airline will slash nearly 16,000 jobs, reduce pensions for retired staff, cut routes and shift to more fuel-efficient aircraft as part of its restructuring.

Some $10 billion of government cash will keep JAL's planes in the air during the reorganization. Lenders will forgive $8 billion in debt, and JAL shares will be removed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Feb. 20, wiping out investors.

There was no word on the outcome of a fierce tug-of-war between Delta Air Lines and American Airlines for a slice of JAL's business. Despite its woes, the airline's access to Asia is a mouthwatering prize for foreign airlines.

A state-backed turnaround agency pledged 900 billion yen ($10 billion) in financial support for JAL — 600 billion yen in credit lines and a 300 billion yen cash infusion. The bankruptcy is the fourth-largest in Japan, according to figures from Teikoku Databank, which tracks corporate failures.

"This is not the end of JAL," transport minister Seiji Maehara told reporters. "Today is the beginning of a process to keep JAL alive."

JAL President Haruka Nishimatsu resigned, bowing deeply as he apologized for the company's troubles. Kazuo Inamori, a Buddhist monk and founder of Kyocera Corp. and Japan's No. 2 mobile carrier KDDI Corp., has been tapped as its next leader.

"This is our last chance," Nishimatsu said. "I believe we can be reborn as an airline that can represent Japan again."

JAL said flights will continue uninterrupted and that frequent fliers would not lose their miles. Tokyo asked foreign governments for cooperation to keep JAL flying around the world.

The day's events culminate a process that began in October when JAL — saddled with debts of 2.32 trillion yen ($25.6 billion) — first turned to the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp. of Japan for help. Under the prepackaged reorganization, it will embark on a massive overhaul to shed the fat and inefficiency that hobbled its finances.

Maehara said the turnaround would involve 15,661 job cuts — a third of JAL's payroll — by March 2013.

The carrier will retire all 37 of its Boeing 747 jumbo aircraft and 16 MD-90s, which will be replaced by 50 small and regional jets. As of March, JAL's fleet consisted of 279 aircraft, mainly from Boeing Co. It served 220 airports in 35 countries and territories, including 59 domestic airports.

JAL shares, which have lost more than 90 percent of their value over the last week, tumbled another 40 percent Tuesday to 3 yen before finishing flat at 5 yen. The company is now essentially worthless, with a market capitalization of about 13.7 billion yen ($150 million) — the price of one Boeing 787 jet.

Nevertheless, American and Delta have continued to battle over JAL.

Delta and its SkyTeam partners have offered $1 billion, including $500 million in cash to lure JAL away from American's oneworld alliance. American Airlines and its partners say they would inject $1.4 billion cash into the Japanese airline.

"Delta and SkyTeam fully support Japan airlines and stand ready to provide assistance and support in any way possible," the Atlanta-based airline said in a statement following JAL's bankruptcy filing.

Maehara declined to comment on which U.S. carrier the government preferred and said it is "not in a position to force any partners on JAL."

The bankruptcy represents a humbling outcome for Japan's once-proud flagship carrier which was founded in 1951 and came to symbolize the country's rapid economic growth. The state-owned airline expanded quickly in the decades after World War II and was privatized in 1987.

But it soon became the victim of its own ambitions.

When Japan's property and stock bubble of the 1980s burst, risky investments in foreign resorts and hotels undermined its bottom line. JAL also shouldered growing pension and payroll costs, as well as a network of unprofitable domestic routes it was politically obligated to maintain.

More recently, JAL's passenger traffic has slowed amid the global economic downturn, swine flu fears, competition from Japanese rival All Nippon Airways Co. and a spate of safety lapses that tarnished its image. It lost 131.2 billion yen ($1.4 billion) in the six months through September.

Geoffrey Tudor, a principal analyst at Japan Aviation Management Research and former JAL employee, said the airline needs to be leaner and meaner.

"It wasn't commercially brutal enough in dealing with the facts of economic life," said Tudor, who spent 38 years at the Japanese carrier and now watches its collapse with a mixture of sadness and frustration.

Its four government bailouts since 2001 only exacerbated JAL's problems, officials now say.

Passengers seemed to agree as much.

"I guess they did not work in earnest and so fell into this situation," said Isao Sasaki, 72, who waited in line Tuesday at a JAL check-in counter at Tokyo's Haneda Airport. "Weren't they spoiled as they always had protection from the government?" ___

AP Writers Jay Alabaster, Yuri Kageyama and Mari Yamaguchi, and APTN staffer Kaori Hitomi contributed to this report.

(7) More hungry people than Africa: the desperation of India's peasant farmers, amid population explosion

From: Sandhya Jain <sandhya206@bol.net.in> Date: 18.10.2009 10:10 AM

http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=877

India in the midst of a global food crisis

Saurav Basu

18 October 2009

More and more people across the world are going hungry. In the wake of the global recession, the UN says the number of hungry people have topped a billion. With world population likely to cross the 9 billion mark by 2050, the number of hungry will escalate. Growing hunger has dangerous socio-eco-political implications apart from morbid influences on health, especially in the developing world. As many as 60 countries faced food riots in 2007. The Indian subcontinent cumulatively has more hungry people than Sub Saharan Africa. This hunger can be exploited by proponents of inhuman terror-laden ideologies like Naxalism and Global Jihad.

India houses one-sixth of humankind, and will soon overtake China in terms of population; the situation here is grave as over 60% of the population is engaged in agriculture-related activities and the share of agriculture to national income is steadily decreasing. To attribute this to India’s rapidly rising services sector is not theoretically untrue; yet, this only conceals the obvious pauperization of the Indian peasantry. The number of agricultural labourers has increased from 20 to 27% between 1957 and 2001, while cultivators have registered a decline from 50% to 32% in the same period.

The optimism of the Green Revolution has been replaced with general despondency. The Green Revolution was never a pan-India phenomenon and benefitted a small section of farmers who could afford the high yield varieties of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and had the necessary water resources. The fantastic augmentation in yields obscured the increased support structure required to sustain this new intensive farming, and the long term intangible costs paid in terms of declining soil fertility and loss of biodiversity. Agriculture yields even in the Punjab are now declining.

The merciless exploitation of groundwater reserves thanks to mechanized pumps and politically motivated free electricity means water is being drained faster than its replenishment. Satellite-based estimates of groundwater depletion in India by NASA confirm a progressively severe reduction in groundwater in Northwestern India between 2002 and 2008. Further, the impending climate change and global warming are having a deleterious effect on Himalayan glaciers which are receding sharply. In future most North Indian rivers including the holy Ganges will transform into seasonal rivers, inadequate for both agricultural and daily human needs. The catastrophic consequences will be unimaginable.

Shockingly, 86,922 farmers committed suicide between 2001 and 2005. It was 17,060 in 2006, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (The Statesman, 12 Oct. 2009). The populist decision to waive off institutional credit to the tune of 60,000 crores by the UPA may have paid rich political dividends, but it was a colossal waste as farmer suicides continued unabated in suicide belts like Vidarbha.

The oppressive moneylender who charges exorbitant interest rates continues to flourish as poor farmers have little access to institutional credit, especially on unproductive loans (unrelated to agricultural pursuits). The loan waver scheme helped mostly the rich farmers who neither pay income tax, enjoy subsidies on fertilizer and free electricity and are largely unmoved by the plight of their poor brethren. Moreover, the loan waiver does not address the issue of eliminating future debt creation. At best it is a suicide speed breaker, not a solution against the vicious cycle of poverty -> loan -> inability to pay -> suicide.

All these facts belie the claim of Indian self sufficiency in food. More than 75% Indians subsist on less than Rs. 20 a day (Arjun Sengupta report). In Portfolios of the Poor (Princeton University Press, 2009), a group of top economists explain the misery of over 40% of the world population who subsist on less than $2 a day. India’s HDI is way down at 132.

Obviously, the myth of food self sufficiency was constructed by conformist public sector academicians who insist on a definition of poverty which emphasizes minimum level of living rather than a reasonable level of living. It is measured in terms of calories intake and does not take into account demands in clothing, shelter, healthcare and education. By all accounts, the Indian poverty line is nothing more than a starvation line. Also, per capita consumption of food is based on the pious assumption that all people irrespective of social class would consume similar quantities of food, ignoring the obvious fact that as people get relatively richer, they start consuming more proteins in their diet. This explains how per capita consumption of milk in India has risen since independence.

Most Indian economists have been largely unoriginal, always guided by Western models. They have never sought inspiration from their national heritage nor understood the spirit and aspirations of the people. The socialist Nehruvian Congress had the most dampening effect on the revitalization of Indian agriculture. The failure of cooperative farming, the penultimate stage to collectivization, thankfully failed in India, probably due to its social hierarchy. Yet the myth of uneconomic fragmented landholdings of India must be dispelled. In Cuba, simultaneous multi-cropping on small strips of land using labour intensive techniques have proved rewarding.

Indian farmers who for centuries made India self sufficient in food were dubbed ignorant, backward and religious Hindus, and foreign farming ideologies copy-lifted and thrust upon them. In this process, the Indian farmer lost his self confidence and self reliance. The farmer, who could pay up to half of his produce as tax to exploitative monarchs like the Khaljis, today cannot produce enough to cover his debts.

Several economists consider India’s cattle livestock useless and only fit to be eaten. Such misleading assertions are based on dangerous delusions since old cattle in India subsist more on waste food and are not properly fed. They can survive under trying conditions. Fuel and manure from cowdung are also critical for the small farmer.

Globalization and Westernization have compounded the world’s food problem. In developing countries, traditional diets which are balanced are being replaced by fast food based calorie-rich diets which cause health hazards like obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and other complications. Mexico is facing a growing obesity problem thanks to junk food. India is no exception with its growing malnourishment. Contrary to popular perception, malnourishment includes both undernourishment and over-nourishment. So while it is true that every fourth newborn in India is underweight (< 2.5 kg), obesity too has reached epidemic proportions, affecting 5% of the population.

The ultimate malady afflicting third world economies is their infatuation with driving exports and import substitution. The best quality foods are exported to richer Western nations like UK (which imports 40% of its food needs) in return for foreign exchange, even as millions starve. Vandana Shiva says every time India exports lettuce to London, it carries with it a water footprint. In other words, India exports vegetables while the West exports drought.

Fish from African countries like Senegal overfeed Europeans rather than their own poverty stricken and undernourished people. In a brilliant BBC documentary series ‘The Future of Food’, George Alagiah travelled to Kenya and found that large fertile farmlands are hired or bought by European corporations and Oil rich Middle Eastern nations to grow perfect farm produce for their nations and ensure their food security. The deception of developed nations who committed $22 billion for global food security as claimed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be understood in the light of these selfish motivations.

While food trade is not bad, the skewed trade relationship means manufactured industrial goods are disproportionately higher in monetary value than their constitutive raw materials supplied by poor countries. Similarly, processed food is priced higher than agricultural raw materials. This derisive application of the diamond water paradox of Adam Smith means any industrial development in the Third World is subject to underfeeding its extant populations. Perhaps the solution lies in the anti-Industrial model of Gandhi, especially for small nations whose crying need is food rather than industry. Industrialization cannot be a global mantra.

The cultural infatuation with meat eating is straining the world. Europeans and Americans consume more meat than the per capita world average, a luxury, not a necessity. One kg of meat requires a minimum ten kg of food-grain to produce - an ecologically unsustainable ethic. Hindu India with its culture of vegetarianism has a message for the world. It is a tragedy that Buddhists across the world have forgotten their vegetarian traditions, especially Japan, which is addicted to endangered whale meat.

Today we are in the midst of a global food crisis. With shrinking agricultural land thanks to SEZ diversions, groundwater resources, unreliable monsoons, receding glaciers, the Indian agriculture scenario looks dismal. Evidence suggests we are reaching a saturation point in agriculture, even as the Indian population refuses to stabilize. Per capita availability of food is unlikely to rise if present trends continue.

The situation demands absence of knee jerk reactions. India should resist becoming the testing ground for Genetically Modified crops. It must develop a political consensus on curbing population growth and desist from the politics of appeasement.

India’s large unskilled population is not a demographic dividend but a demographic disaster. Those who blame the Middle Class for not being committed to upliftment of the have-nots are hypocrites who forget that until two decades back, the Middle Class itself was subject to such inadequacies. Moreover, the ability to invest in their children’s future is an ability which is directly proportionate to socio-economic status. How could the government which spends as little as 10% GDP on combined health and education invest rapidly on large families remains a mathematical impossibility.

The author is an independent researcher