"India’s rapid expansion swallows up farmland" November 25, 2011|By Ravi Nessman, Associated Press
ROZAJALALPUR, India - The farmers of Rozajalalpur knew what was coming.
They saw others closer to India’s expanding capital city pushed off their land to make way for malls, apartments, and offices. They saw billboards rise along potholed roads and tiny sales offices sprout on medians to hawk homes in Leisure Park, Golf Homes, and Dream Valley.
Americans also understand that phenomena.
Then, in March, they saw the innocuous-looking announcement in the newspaper. In type so small it was nearly unreadable, the state government declared it was seizing their farms under an 1894 national law enacted by British colonists to acquire land for roads and railways. Their land was being taken for the “public purpose’’ of “planned development.’’
That has to be a real blow to the gut of most Indians.
If Gandhi hadn't been cremated he'd be twirling in his grave.
India’s transformation from a largely agrarian nation into a global economic power hinges on a steady supply of land for new factories, call centers, power plants, and homes. As cities like New Delhi spill over their seams with ever more people, the government is increasingly seizing the farms around them for private development.
The farmers east of the capital are fighting back ferociously, taking to the streets and to the courts, with some success. And the government is scrambling to appease them and prevent them from threatening India’s development dreams....
The whole paragraph is so slanted to government it is tough to read.
Those "ferocious farmers" that the government is appeasing as they threaten the development dream, blah, blah, blah.
Can you see now why I'm am sick of reading this stuff you would fertilize your soil with?
The land protests erupted in violence in May. Four people were killed, including two police officers, in the nearby village of Battha Parsaul. Similar protests have hit at least 17 of India’s 28 states over the past three years, according to The Times of India.
Gandhi would not have liked that at all.
In the spring, protesters fought to stall plans to take their land for a nuclear plant in Jaitapur, in southern India; in August three farmers were killed by police along a highway near Mumbai as they protested a water project they feared would lead to land confiscations....
Thousands of area farmers took to the streets over the summer to fight the seizures that would turn villages into the new development of Noida Extension.
Why do I feel that has been under-reported in my Globe?
Rahul Gandhi, the all-but-anointed next leader of the ruling Congress Party, rode out on the back of a motorcycle and joined the protest as a way to embarrass the opposition-led government in the state of Uttar Pradesh....
State officials say they are using the profits from the land sale to install roads, sewer and water lines, and electricity hookups, justifying the higher price. Officials from the embattled Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority, which is in charge of the land seizures and development in the area, did not answer or return dozens of phone calls from the Associated Press.
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So where are Indians going to get food?
"India opens door to global retail chains; Walmart, others will have chance to open stores" November 26, 2011|By Muneeza Naqvi, Associated Press
NEW DELHI - India’s commerce minister said yesterday that the decision to open the country’s $400 billion retail sector to global chains such as Walmart has a built-in safety net for small shops and farmers.
Anand Sharma told reporters that the Indian cabinet’s decision late Thursday allowing 51 percent foreign ownership of supermarkets would vastly improve decrepit infrastructure that causes massive food waste in a country plagued by malnutrition and high inflation.
Sharma said the new rule would only apply in cities with more than 1 million people. The minimum investment would be $100 million and half of this would have to be invested in rural infrastructure and refrigerated transport and storage. Thirty percent of the produce sourced by the retailer would also have to come from small and medium enterprises.
Top retailers have lobbied for years for a chance to build stores in the nation of 1.2 billion people, and political deadlock on long-promised changes in retail and other areas has helped cool foreign investor interest....
The country suffers chronically high malnutrition and soaring inflation. It is the world’s second-largest grower of fresh produce, yet an estimated 40 percent of fruit and vegetables rot because of a lack of refrigerated trucking and warehouses, poor roads, inclement weather, and corruption. That means lower incomes for farmers and higher prices for consumers.
If companies like Walmart and Tesco can open shops of their own, the investments they make in improving farming techniques and getting produce into stores more efficiently could lower food inflation and possibly raise incomes.
Sharma said the policy would have a “multiplier effect,’’ and tens of millions of people would gain jobs.
Whether it's casinos or this, I'm sick of empty promises. I'm sure empty-bellied Indians feel the same.
This month, the Cabinet this month also indicated that it is open to allowing 26 percent foreign investment in pension fund management - another headline item in the Congress Party’s promised second wave of economic reforms, which follow a round of liberalization forced by a balance of payments crisis in the early 1990s.
India becoming further integrated into the global system.
The central bank has raised interest rates by 5.25 percentage points over the last 18 months, but that hasn’t been enough to control runaway inflation or the rupee’s freefall.
International investors, who have grown increasingly wary of corruption, surprise tax bills, and shifting regulations in India, have also put pressure on the government to make good on old promises to grant them greater access....
From Europe to Asia to AmeriKa you SEE WHO is REALLY RUNNING "democratic" GOVERNMENTS!!!
The country has struggled to find consensus because of concerns that competition from the foreign retail giants could hurt millions of small shopkeepers as well as the poor.
AmeriKa is exhibit A.
Also interesting in that the paragraph is the afterthought ending of the article.
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Globe always leaves you wanting more, and not in a good way.
"New retail policy riles lawmakers in India; Foreign owners’ gains are disputed" November 30, 2011|By Muneeza Naqvi, Associated Press
NEW DELHI - India’s ruling Congress party failed yesterday to persuade both its allies and the opposition to support the country’s new open-door policy for foreign retailers.
The Cabinet decision last week to let foreign retailers own up to 51 percent of supermarkets and 100 percent of single-brand stores has unleashed a political furor across the country, with parties across the spectrum demanding its immediate revocation....
Oh, the PEOPLE are AGAINST IT, huh?
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And government listened?
"India backtracks on foreign retail plan; Government bows to pressure from opposition parties" December 08, 2011|By Erika Kinetz and Ravi Nessman, Associated Press
NEW DELHI - India yesterday suspended its plan to open its huge retail sector to foreign companies such as Walmart in a reversal seen as a major capitulation to political opponents that further weakens the administration.
Meaning it will be brought back later when no one is paying attention. Maybe after the next false-flag frame-up of Muslims, 'eh?
The business community had hailed the initial decision to let foreign firms own a majority stake in retailers here, and the government and some economists said foreign retailers would bring better prices for farmers and lower prices for consumers.
But opposition parties and even some members of the governing coalition protested, saying the local mom-and-pop stores that are the heart of Indian retailing would be crushed.
Opposition lawmakers disrupted Parliament for days in protest....
The move had signaled to business leaders that India was serious about economic reforms and welcomed foreign investment. Walmart, British-based Tesco PLC, French-based retailer Carrefour, and others had been eyeing India.
The initial decision also was seen as a forceful move to prove the government was still capable of making bold decisions, despite corruption scandals, soaring inflation, and continual antigovernment protests.
Why is it that GOVERNMENTS must PROVE THEMSELVES and PLEASE "investors" and not its PEOPLE!?!?
Rajan Bharti Mittal, vice chairman and managing director of Bharti Enterprises, said the suspension was unfortunate. Foreign retail, he said, would bring huge infrastructure investments that would save food from rotting, helping increase farmer profits while reining in rising food costs.
“We hope that various stakeholders across the spectrum will take these facts into account, build consensus, and allow this major reform to see the light of the day,’’ said Mittal, whose company’s joint venture with Walmart has 13 wholesale outlets in India and sells produce from thousands of farmers.
Harsh Mariwala, president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, branded the decision deeply disappointing but suggested compromises to make the plan more palatable....
Pun intended, or.... ??
Doesn't really read like a backtrack, does it?
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Globe always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.
