05-07-2007, 11:49 PM
And India stretches out its bowl again
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->On April 30, the Government of India finally found the time to issue a tender to import one million tonnes of wheat. This is the second year in a row that this happened. Following the experience of 2006, a truly prudent ministry would have moved long before. Now, I fear we are just a bit late.
The benchmark for commodities trading is set in Chicago. At the beginning of April, wheat was trading at US $4.12 a bushel. By April 30, when our economist prime mpinister and his crack team finally realised the danger, the price of wheat had risen to US $4.9555 a bushel.
In other words, the Indian taxpayer has already been hit for millions of dollars. (And his purse may be pinched even further if prices rise at news of the Indian tender.) That is a scandal in itself, but what is worse is that the Government of India may be doing too little even at this late hour.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Readers may recall that the Union finance ministry announced a ban on pulse exports in June 2006. That means everyone knew there was a shortfall (inevitably leading to rising prices). Why then did the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs wait until mid-April to approve of imports? Could this not have been done in January or February, or even earlier?
I am not quite sure where the imports are to come from. While wheat is grown not just in Australia and North America but even in Europe, the pulses that we Indians eat are cultivated (mostly) in just three nations -- Turkey, Canada, and Myanmar. Finance Minister Chidambaram himself told Parliament just that in March 2007. In the same statement, he said that this situation meant that the Government of India simply could not source pulses anywhere. If that was the situation on March 6, what was the point of waiting up to April 12?
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->150 years ago, it was said that a mysterious 'chapati' was used to ignite a war. The freedom fighters of 1857 were lucky -- they could actually afford to buy wheat and pulses at rates so cheap that chapatis could be sent forth as a coded message. What will it take today to remind our current leaders of their duties?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->On April 30, the Government of India finally found the time to issue a tender to import one million tonnes of wheat. This is the second year in a row that this happened. Following the experience of 2006, a truly prudent ministry would have moved long before. Now, I fear we are just a bit late.
The benchmark for commodities trading is set in Chicago. At the beginning of April, wheat was trading at US $4.12 a bushel. By April 30, when our economist prime mpinister and his crack team finally realised the danger, the price of wheat had risen to US $4.9555 a bushel.
In other words, the Indian taxpayer has already been hit for millions of dollars. (And his purse may be pinched even further if prices rise at news of the Indian tender.) That is a scandal in itself, but what is worse is that the Government of India may be doing too little even at this late hour.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Readers may recall that the Union finance ministry announced a ban on pulse exports in June 2006. That means everyone knew there was a shortfall (inevitably leading to rising prices). Why then did the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs wait until mid-April to approve of imports? Could this not have been done in January or February, or even earlier?
I am not quite sure where the imports are to come from. While wheat is grown not just in Australia and North America but even in Europe, the pulses that we Indians eat are cultivated (mostly) in just three nations -- Turkey, Canada, and Myanmar. Finance Minister Chidambaram himself told Parliament just that in March 2007. In the same statement, he said that this situation meant that the Government of India simply could not source pulses anywhere. If that was the situation on March 6, what was the point of waiting up to April 12?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->150 years ago, it was said that a mysterious 'chapati' was used to ignite a war. The freedom fighters of 1857 were lucky -- they could actually afford to buy wheat and pulses at rates so cheap that chapatis could be sent forth as a coded message. What will it take today to remind our current leaders of their duties?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->