My first article on politics after the India elections 2014, and there could not be a more appropriate topic than the concerns of India in World Trade Organisation. If you are unaware, in December 2013, a round of negotiations took place at Bali, Indonesia, and a Trade Agreement was hammered out.
The Bali Package, as it is termed, is hailed as the 1st ever agreement reached through WTO which has been approved by all its members. The Bali Package, it is claimed, would bring down the cost of international trade by 10 to 15%, bring about 21 million jobs, and stimulate $1 Trillion worth of global economic activity.
Sounds good, though everyone who talks about the jobs and the $1 Trillion fail to say where those jobs and money would accumulate.
:-P
Reality apart, there is a very big sting for India (and the other Developing and Least Developed Countries), as the Bali Package aims to dismantle Food Subsidies. The primary target of US and other developed countries is said to be the Indian government stockpile of the food grains. For without that stockpile, the developed countries (and their trading houses) can run riot manipulating the price of food grains creating havoc in economies whose staple food consists of rice or wheat.
Ever heard of Bengal Famine? Though the causes for the famine are thought to be 4-fold, it was the absence of food stockpile in then colonial India, and the efforts of the British to create a stockpile of their own for consumption after the war, exacerbated the famine in 1943.
Despite what the present BJP led administration might claim later in the year, the Congress led government adopted a tough negotiation style in the Bali Conference. They managed to extract assurances that the concerns of India (and the developing world) on Food Security would be met with.
Under such circumstances it was a surprise to read an article in Reuters today, accusing India of erratic and exasperating behaviour. [http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/07/19/g20-trade-idINKBN0FO0H620140719]
It might be a scare tactic, a sounding balloon, sent out to test the Narendra Modi government, which was expected to be more ‘friendly’ towards business, but has been kowtowing the same policies of the previous Manmohan Singh administration.
Reading the article made me guffaw on how two positions of inactivity, which are exactly the same, could be described as two different, and contrasting situation - one stark, and the other, a magic wand for all the world’s troubles.
Since the Bali Package of December 2013, India, understandably could not have moved to conceptualize the guarantees it yearns for its poor, because of the extended elections, and the change in leadership. Thus it is India is accused of not providing ‘any clear description of exactly what changes it would like’ in the agreement.
But what has been the WTO Secretariat, and the gang of developed countries, who could manage the Bali deal only ‘after New Delhi extracted promises that its concerns related to food subsidies would be addressed’, have been doing over the last 6 months?
Neither side has even prepared a draft position paper on what and how to address the Food Security and allied issues. But the inaction on the part of the WTO and Developed Nations is described as a position full with ‘patience’, while a similar lackadaisical activity on India’s part is described as ‘erratic’ and ‘hindering’ the progress.
During the Bengal Famine of 1943, the price of food grains - basically Wheat and Rice - is said to have quadrupled in 6 months between March and October 1943. If the decision by Winston Churchill to divert food grains from Australia, Canada and the USA to other British territories (for the war effort) and to Britain herself (for after war efforts) was one of the 4 main factors of that Bengal Famine, the purely speculative Commodity Exchange of India is superbly duplicating his efforts seventy years later. The only difference is there was no elected government in 1943 for the people to blame!
(image courtesy: Keystone, Hulton Archive, Getty Images)
The Bali Package, as it is termed, is hailed as the 1st ever agreement reached through WTO which has been approved by all its members. The Bali Package, it is claimed, would bring down the cost of international trade by 10 to 15%, bring about 21 million jobs, and stimulate $1 Trillion worth of global economic activity.
Sounds good, though everyone who talks about the jobs and the $1 Trillion fail to say where those jobs and money would accumulate.
:-P
Reality apart, there is a very big sting for India (and the other Developing and Least Developed Countries), as the Bali Package aims to dismantle Food Subsidies. The primary target of US and other developed countries is said to be the Indian government stockpile of the food grains. For without that stockpile, the developed countries (and their trading houses) can run riot manipulating the price of food grains creating havoc in economies whose staple food consists of rice or wheat.
Ever heard of Bengal Famine? Though the causes for the famine are thought to be 4-fold, it was the absence of food stockpile in then colonial India, and the efforts of the British to create a stockpile of their own for consumption after the war, exacerbated the famine in 1943.
Despite what the present BJP led administration might claim later in the year, the Congress led government adopted a tough negotiation style in the Bali Conference. They managed to extract assurances that the concerns of India (and the developing world) on Food Security would be met with.
Under such circumstances it was a surprise to read an article in Reuters today, accusing India of erratic and exasperating behaviour. [http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/07/19/g20-trade-idINKBN0FO0H620140719]
It might be a scare tactic, a sounding balloon, sent out to test the Narendra Modi government, which was expected to be more ‘friendly’ towards business, but has been kowtowing the same policies of the previous Manmohan Singh administration.
Reading the article made me guffaw on how two positions of inactivity, which are exactly the same, could be described as two different, and contrasting situation - one stark, and the other, a magic wand for all the world’s troubles.
Since the Bali Package of December 2013, India, understandably could not have moved to conceptualize the guarantees it yearns for its poor, because of the extended elections, and the change in leadership. Thus it is India is accused of not providing ‘any clear description of exactly what changes it would like’ in the agreement.
But what has been the WTO Secretariat, and the gang of developed countries, who could manage the Bali deal only ‘after New Delhi extracted promises that its concerns related to food subsidies would be addressed’, have been doing over the last 6 months?
Neither side has even prepared a draft position paper on what and how to address the Food Security and allied issues. But the inaction on the part of the WTO and Developed Nations is described as a position full with ‘patience’, while a similar lackadaisical activity on India’s part is described as ‘erratic’ and ‘hindering’ the progress.
During the Bengal Famine of 1943, the price of food grains - basically Wheat and Rice - is said to have quadrupled in 6 months between March and October 1943. If the decision by Winston Churchill to divert food grains from Australia, Canada and the USA to other British territories (for the war effort) and to Britain herself (for after war efforts) was one of the 4 main factors of that Bengal Famine, the purely speculative Commodity Exchange of India is superbly duplicating his efforts seventy years later. The only difference is there was no elected government in 1943 for the people to blame!
(image courtesy: Keystone, Hulton Archive, Getty Images)
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