US urges India to avoid Pakistan-centric policies

[Shivakumar]

Amazing stuff, you wrote it?

As usual copied from somewhere. You know, he is a Pakistani journalist.

 

[haviZsultan]

Desperate Indian Farmers Kill Themselves in 'Free' Market Economy

Siliconeer, News Feature, Siliconeer Report, Posted: Feb 19, 2007

You watch "I Want My Father Back," Suma Josson’s poignant documentary film on the misery of small-scale farmers in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, and it breaks your heart.

Academics may argue about economic statistics, ideologues can engage in polemical debates, but Suma Josson has actually been there, and documented the suffering first hand.

I Want My Father Back was screened recently in the Bay Area at the University of California at Berkeley, Fremont and Santa Clara in association with the India Relief and Education Fund (http://iref.homestead.com), a 12-year-old Bay Area organization, which works towards increasing awareness about social justice issues in India.

Whether it’s an inconsolable father sadly going over the modest belongings of his daughter who committed suicide, or a son crying his heart out as he reminisces about his father’s suicide while his grandfather’s creased face is immobile in stoic silence, you realize that the policies that can do this to ordinary, decent people is nothing short of criminal.

Step back and think about it for a moment, and your disquiet is even greater. There are many questions but no answers. Why is the Indian media AWOL on this issue? Where is the public outrage?

The statistics are staggering. From 1998 to 2006, over 100,000 farmers have committed suicides. In Vidarbha, 3,000 farmers have taken their lives in the 1999-2006 period. Since June 2005, 2-3 farmers have been committing suicides every day.

Yet you wouldn’t know that from the Indian media. Reports of farmer suicides and protests do appear in fits and spurts, but most of the media appears focused on the glitzy malls, the phoren fast-food chains, the luxury cars, the call centers and the hip lifestyles o the rich and famous.

So what’s going on here?

The farming crisis did not happen in a day, the film argues. It is the result of decades of wrong policies.

It all began with the Green Revolution in the 1960s, says environmental activist Vandana Shiva. “The Green Revolution is neither green nor a revolution,” she says in the film. “It was a means to open new markets for fertilizers.”

Fertilizers, pesticides and now genetically modified seeds have transformed Indian farming. In the traditional farming method, farmers used to plant multiple crops, food along with cash crops.

Now it’s different: it’s about capital intensive farming and monocrop, and buying seeds from pesticide sellers. The upshot of all this is that small-scale farmers are obliged to borrow heavily from moneylenders to grow cash crops.

If you think that’s bad, you don’t even know the half of it. The real fun begins when the farmer takes his crops to the market to sell it. Thanks to the arm-twisting of the U.S. dominated multilateral organizations like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization — and if truth be told, the appalling spinelessness of the Indian political masters — Indian farmers are locked in a bizarre, unequal battle.

While subsidies for inputs and government procurement programs for the Indian farmer are jettisoned, he is pitted against the farmers of the affluent West who are formidably fortified by generous government support. Some free market, this.

Take cotton. The 25,000 cotton farmers in the U.S. get a subsidy $230 per acre. It should come as no surprise that in this kind of “free” market, from being a traditional exporter of cotton, India has become the world’s third largest importer of cotton.

What happens to the cotton farmer is shown in harrowing detail in the film. Up to their neck in debt, facing plummeting prices for their crops, they are committing suicide in droves.

According to UNICEF, one third of the world’s hungry children live in India. “Our leaders who talk about Shining India, Superpower India, they should be drowned in a palmful of water along with this figures,” fumes Shiva. “(We are a nation of) 70 percent farmers, (with) plenty of sun and water. The soil is good. In such a nation farmers are committing suicide. Children are dying of hunger. This is totally unacceptable.”

Kishor Bhoer, a farmer in Vidarbha, is more blunt: “It’s either suicide or the Naxalites (militant Leftists).”

Ever heard of this? You all know about proverty in India and how kids pick out food from gutters... and the extent of the wide-spread proverty. Why don't you do anything to change that rather than pick on our problems every single day?

And still you people have the energy and the war-mongering spirit to come here each and every day and discuss Pakistan and its problems...

Don't you feel ashamed? Don't you feel bad about what you are doing and how you are ignoring your people? Minorities in India are discontent... Kashmiris demand independence! Maoist rebels are fighting you in the north! The extreme eastern bounderies in India have not integrated and do not see themselves as a part of India! Are'nt these enough problems already?

 

[haviZsultan]

As usual copied from somewhere. You know, he is a Pakistani journalist.

Adivasi, Patnaik and Amartya Sen are all Pakistanis? So all the people mentioned in the 2 articles Jana presented are Pakistanis or "ISI Agents" So you're trying to tell us that there is absolutely no proverty in India and we are playing some sort of a game with you?

As I always say, continue ignoring your problems and blaming them on others... when another Pakistan is created you can come back here and cry about it!

 

[Shivakumar]

dimension, if you have problem understanding english, then get somebody for help. That is not a reply to your post and in no way it is related to your post.

 

[Marathaman]

Jana was just pointing out that the arabs and persians brought Islam to Pakistan and it would not have come here without them and that if they would be alive today then they would have supported Pakistans cause! Well they conquered India so that gives us a right to own India...

Please remember that Pakistan would not have come into the equation without the arab-persian conquests and the conversion of so many people to Islam. If Islam was'nt brought to India then Pakistan would have been out of the question! So Pakistan is in the equation indeed

So let me get this straight:

Pakistan gets raided by Arabs, looted and pillaged, then its people get converted to a foreign religion, mostly because a submissive muslim population is so much easier to rule, and finally an islamic empire is established.

Something to be proud of eh? Atleast the hindus had the balls to stick to their beliefs rather than get converted.

You guys narrow brain cannot comprehend the fact that I judge each islamic ruler on his own merit, and not clump them all together as "muslim oppressors" or "conquerers" depending on POV.
Of course India was conquered, but some later muslims rulers were highly secular for their time and ensured the prosperity of their subjects. They are heroes. Get it?

For you guys, Muslims = Pakistanis = dominators of evil pagan hindus = heroes. Well lemme tell you, life isn't that simple. Those muslims dominated the people of modern pakistan and converted them before they even reached modern india. So keep your cockiness in your pockets and learn a little humility.

What do you mean? Well was'nt Pakistan created when muslims remembered the glory of the old days and that they once had a land to call their own without being oppressed just for being muslims?

Yeah, Pakistan was created because Muslims could not stand being out of power. They knew that in democratic India, muslims will have to live on par with hindus, and would be unable to dominate much longer. So they demanded a separated well where they could be the ruling frogs.(You guys must have heard the frog in the well fable rite?)

Admin Edit: A total flaim bait. Sent out an infraction (warning). By the way, i can write much better than this, but why bother?

 

[Marathaman]

hahhaa
well Dear actually that Marhathaman was saying that Muslim rulers were not outsiders and they are Indians Heroes
And i was just telling if he accept them as heroes i will be even more happy.
than he he continues changing stance

You are soo far from my point it is almost surreal.

As far as the heroes part is concerned, refer to my earlier post.

What astounds me is how are the muslims conquerers, remember, not the later rulers, but the conquerers, heroes to Pakistanis?
Don't you get it? Religion is about power and controlling the people. They forced the local populations to accept islam under threat of dire consequences. Quite simple. You guys had islam forced down your throats. I know these are harsh words, and I"ll probably get some negative reps, possibly even banned, but this is the cold truth folks.

 

[Spring Onion]

Amazing stuff, you wrote it?

Indeed Amazing scale of Indian Pride compare to Amazing scale of Hungry Indians with farmers committing suicides after failing to pat as meager debt as few hunderds rupees.

As far wirting it well dear take out some time and click the link you will know your own people researched and mentioned it.
But as usual you people love to live in state of denial

As usual copied from somewhere. You know, he is a Pakistani journalist.

First of All i am She not He.

Secondly indeed the news and reports about Indian poverty are already published and i had to copy and past it.

As Dimension said the writers are Indians.
Now its another matter that ISI might be responsible for the number one status of India in the world Regarding Poverty.

 

[IceCold]

So let me get this straight:

Pakistan gets raided by Arabs, looted and pillaged, then its people get converted to a foreign religion, mostly because a submissive muslim population is so much easier to rule, and finally an islamic empire is established.

Something to be proud of eh? Atleast the hindus had the balls to stick to their beliefs rather than get converted.

You guys narrow brain cannot comprehend the fact that I judge each islamic ruler on his own merit, and not clump them all together as "muslim oppressors" or "conquerers" depending on POV.
Of course India was conquered, but some later muslims rulers were highly secular for their time and ensured the prosperity of their subjects. They are heroes. Get it?

For you guys, Muslims = Pakistanis = dominators of evil pagan hindus = heroes. Well lemme tell you, life isn't that simple. Those muslims dominated the people of modern pakistan and converted them before they even reached modern india. So keep your cockiness in your pockets and learn a little humility.



Yeah, Pakistan was created because Muslims could not stand being out of power. They knew that in democratic India, muslims will have to live on par with hindus, and would be unable to dominate much longer. So they demanded a separated well where they could be the ruling frogs.(You guys must have heard the frog in the well fable rite?)

Marathaman! my serious advise to you is go take a history class before coming out here with absolutely ridiculous crap of yours. I promised my self not to engage in any of this stupidness i would say but then again you scoured it, i'll have to give it to you.
I just wonder why does it has to happen in everythread? What is it with you guys(indians)? Why cant you just take facts as they are rather turning them into somesort of propaganda stuff and paste it here. The best solution will be for you to paste it is at Bharat Rakshak as it is known as one of the best anti pakistan qualities.

 

[Marathaman]

Marathaman! my serious advise to you is go take a history class before coming out here with absolutely ridiculous crap of yours. I promised my self not to engage in any of this stupidness i would say but then again you scoured it, i'll have to give it to you.
I just wonder why does it has to happen in everythread? What is it with you guys(indians)? Why cant you just take facts as they are rather turning them into somesort of propaganda stuff and paste it here. The best solution will be for you to paste it is at Bharat Rakshak as it is known as one of the best anti pakistan qualities.

Which parts of the previous post exactly do you object to? Please be more specific so I can elaborate.

 

[IceCold]

dimension, if you have problem understanding english, then get somebody for help. That is not a reply to your post and in no way it is related to your post.

Why is every indian here seems to be having some sort of english phobia, Salim, you, Marathaman? Whats with it? Did it never happened with you people when you responded to someone's else post here. So what if Dimension did?

 

[Bull]

Indeed Amazing scale of Indian Pride compare to Amazing scale of Hungry Indians with farmers committing suicides after failing to pat as meager debt as few hunderds rupees.

As far wirting it well dear take out some time and click the link you will know your own people researched and mentioned it.
But as usual you people love to live in state of denial.

Who is denying that there are poor in India? Who is denying their are hunger deaths in India?

 

[IceCold]

Which parts of the previous post exactly do you object to? Please be more specific so I can elaborate.

Seriously Marathaman your posts as a whole on this thread, i just quoted this one didnt actually had the time to quote each and everyone of it. Pakistani ancestors being raped by arabs lol, come on man no offense seriously you can do better then that, i know you can. Why not just get back to the actual topic and not play the hero part here.

 

[Marathaman]

. Pakistani ancestors being raped by arabs lol, come on man no offense seriously you can do better then that, i know you can.

No offence buddy, but its true. And not just for Pakistan either. Its an instrument of power that was used in each and every war during ancient and medeival times. Don't get me wrong, it might have sounded offensive, but wasn't meant to be so.

All I was trying to say is that the islamic conquest of Pakistan is nothing to be proud of for modern Paksitanis.

 

[IceCold]

All I was trying to say is that the islamic conquest of Pakistan is nothing to be proud of for modern Paksitanis.

Something to be proud of or not, thats a completely different debate and would rather require a seperate thread for that, my objection was on the rape and loot thing you mentioned in your posts all most in every of them.
Do you think that if according to you it was true, people after the downfall of mughals would have remained islamic. Do u seriously believe that someone rapes you up and loots your family, you start following them. I dont see any example of it in any society nor past nor present. Atleast i cant aggree with it.
I rather myself relying on the past glory days of muslims as a whole, I would rather see the future where we are going, our next generations will stay, a better future for them all.

 

[haviZsultan]

dimension, if you have problem understanding english, then get somebody for help. That is not a reply to your post and in no way it is related to your post.

Please grow up! You were talking about JAna's post and I replied to your idiocy because Jana is my sweet freind!

Wait, is your post holding a secret message? Are you trying to tell me under the table to go easy on you since you do not know proper English?