India - Africa Relations

This article succintly describes the India - Africa relations in the recent past and the future. Gist is here.

• Required AU support for UNSC Permanent place.
• Solidarity with AU for mutual benifit in WTO doha development round negotiations.
• AU can be alternate energey source for India - Ex. Nigeria,Sudan,Ghana.
• Trade is booming and reached about 25B$ in 2006-07. [ Focus Africa ]
• Intiatives in the field of Trade agreements - Negoatiations with SACU , COMESA.
• AU support for complete convention on Terrorism.
• Need for other sources of minerals and resources for Indian economic growth.
• PAN African e-Network established by India to connect universities and hospitals in Africa to promote telemedicine and tele-education initiatives.
• Joint fight to AIDS control.

Only things missing from here is - NEPAD , NAASP , TEAM-9 , Focus Africa , ACBF

• NEPAD - New Economic Partnership for Africa Development.
• TEAM-9 - Techno Economic Apporach for India-Africa Meeting.
• ACBF - Capacity building for Africa Human resource to compete in the globalized world.
• Focus Africa - A program aimed at boosting trade with african countries
• COMESA - Common Market for East and South Africa.
• SACU - Southern Africa Customs Union
• SADC - South Africa Devt community
• ECOWAS - Economic cummunity of West Africa States.
• NAASP - New Asia - Africa strategic partnership - it hinders on 3 pillers -

1. Political solidarity
2. Economic cooperation
3. Socio-Cultural relations

news today - 11th Jun

NEWS

• Pranab Mukharjee - Right to reprocess spent fuel is necessary and non-negotiable for India. Finalisation of 123 agreements. Indo-Us civilian nuclear cooperation. US should not transfer its problems into India.
• CSIR Director General - P. Ramaswami
• Advanced sesmic Laboratory at chennai to develop quake resistant buildings.
• Atomic Energy Commission chairman - Anil khodkar said indian nuclear program is fool proof.
• Moreh in Myanmar is in news. Naxalite menace vs Salwa judum.
• Chicken Guniya Viral fever in Kerala

SPOTLIGHT

• Wheat imports and Food Security

• Revised estimates of Wheat production : 73.6 MT
• We are already in trouble regarding the Wheat production. In the last seven years, there is decline in the wheat production from 1999 (76.5 MT).
• Reasons : We have lower productivity due to soil health. only one variety of the Wheat is used
• through out the Punjab. However,
• To the mandis are not problem, but farmers are not selling to Govt because of the low msp by the Govt. So less inputs into the PDS. Because of the higher prices offered by private parties.
• Because of the Agriculturing marketing act. MSP will hardly meet the expenses of the production.
• Entire country's production of wheat is stagnant from last 6 years. But in these years, we have increased our pop by 14 crores. So food crops are scarce.
• The govt policy of diversification into cash crops or water intensive crops. Are not attractive
• for the farmers. they want more incentives from the Govt.
• Farmers Demands:
• To link the MSP with the index of the prices. Unhappy about the MSP. to be at 1150 ( by farmers). They can produce more wheat if they can give us right cost. And also with 6h pay commission ,they also want to take into account the income of the farmers as well.
• At NDC, National Food Security mission ( Rice,Wheat ,Pulse) - What is the primacy ?
• States having their own agriculture policies and Area-specifi schemes and district specific schemes. 25000 cr allocated to States to make specific schemes
• 850rs/ Quintal. - Neglecting the agronomic - pay commission link to
• So much of imbalance in the fertilizer consumption. Need for Site specific nutritient managment.
• It has the ability to improve the productivity of the land huge land. improving the productivity from 3.3 tonnes to the worlds best levels of 6.5 to 7 tonnes/hector. --> need for extension levels.
• Normal 1:2.4 is required. Now its 1:35 ..
• Failure of the extension services - if farmers are not using the inputs in the suggested ratio it will represent the failur of extension service. Innovativeness shown by private players are not shown by the universities and KVKs to extension. Entire extension system by every state is collapsed. Overdrawal of water is also a problem.

News This Week June 3rd - 10th.

• BRGF ( Backward Regions Grant Fund) to remove the inter regional disparities. IMTG (Inter Ministerial Task group ) have come up with an index of backwardness to identify the b/w districts in the state. This index include 3 parameters - value of agricultural worker output, agricultural wage rate, the percentage of sc,st population. This is in addition to the districts covered in RSVY (Rashtria Sam vikas Yojana) , NREGA , NFFWP.
• National Urban Health mission in the lines of NRHM. steps to eradicate polio.
• INSAT-4B dedicated to the nation by APJAK at Hasan. One Nation and one space concept. The cost compulsions and economics of the future projects made inter country cooperation as necessity. The future projects include industrial complex on moon and the habitation on mars will become real in another 50 years. Reusable Launch Vehicles and Complex inter planatatory missions should be real the sooner.
• Dedicated Military Reconnaissance satellite CARTOSAT -2A to be launched.

• India in G8 at Heilindam (Germany)
• Climate Change,
• WTO Doha round negotiations,
• 60B$ grant to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
• To double developmental aid

• India - Brazil agreements on June 4th.
• JNehru International understanding award to Brazil president Lula de silva.

• India - Africa Relations

• As part of PAN-African e-network proposed by the president in Johannesborg , IGNOU lanched mba program for students in Ethiopia. The program will be expanded to 53 countries of the Africa.

• The Effect of Climate Change on Asia.

  Asia to face “water stress”: Report

  June 10

  With the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, the main source of fresh water supplies to major rivers of the continent, Asia is heading towards fresh water crisis. A new US State Department Report said that the reduced fresh water availability in Asia could affect more than one billion people by the middle of this century. It has stressed on safe water and sanitation strategy in developing countries. The point made by the State department report is that globally by 2020 between 75 and 250 million people are expected to be under "water stress" due to climate shifts and population growth. "Increased floods and changes in coastal water temperatures could result in greater morbidity and mortality due to diarrhoeal disease," said the report. Apart from the lower yields in rain fed agriculture, climate shifts in the short term can also impact the frequency and severity of droughts, floods and heat waves, added the report. It further said that from a longer term perspective climate change could lead to changes in snow and glacier run off that feed water supplies and to increases in coastal flooding and salt water intrusion. "All of these changes will impact the economic and cultural systems that have developed in response to current climatic conditions," the report has maintained "Unless fundamental changes occur in water management practices, the region will experience harsh water shortages that will adversely impact economic growth," the report said. "Water demand for domestic and industrial uses is exploding in the ANE (Asia and the Near East) region, while irrigated agriculture is also expanding. Much of the water crisis in the region is caused by poor operation and maintenance, inappropriate technology, and weak technical and financial management." "To meet basic human needs for water and mitigate tensions over increasingly scarce water resources, ANE countries need to pursue a different path to water resources development and management. This path involves bold, concerted action by governments, water users, donors, and the private sector working in partnership," the report said. "Water utility reform, combined with sustainable capital market financing, can help reverse this trend and is critical to meeting the needs of developing countries in water and sanitation. In developing countries, the water and sewage utilities are often operating far below sustainable cost recovery levels as they struggle to maintain even the currently inadequate levels of service" it said. "This also means they are even less able to attract the capital needed to expand service delivery to the poor populations in slums and villages lacking access to safe water supply and sanitation services," the report added.

International Relations today

These are the two articles I have happened to read it over today.. I wish some of it might be useful for my International Relations.. The first article talks about the relative comparitive advantages and the areas of cooperation between Iceland and India.. In the Second article, Watch out for some key terms like

• "cooperative security"
• "IMDEX Asia" (International Maritime Defence Exhibition)
• RMSI (regional maritime Securitive intiative)
• SURPIC --( a sea surveillance system based on a real time picture of the Singapore strait that lies close to the malacca strait )..

The articles are over here.

• Iceland to co-sponsor G-4 draft resolution
• New moves in the Malacca Straits

Organ Transplantation Act - Euthanasia

Organ Transplantation Act (OTA) , People can donate their organs only after their natural death or after their brain dead. But this law came under serious pressure because of "Venkatesh" incident at AP last december, Where he wants to donate his organs before his imminent death. He is a patient of "Muscluar Dystrophia". Its symptoms being paralysis of the organs which starts from the toe and propagate upwards. So as anyways he is going to die.. he wants to donate his other organs which are not being infected.. His and the people who supporting Organ donation in these cases mainly based a) There are a lot of people who are in need of Organs. b) There is no possiblity of the patient being survived using modern medicine, and no possiblity of discovering one. c) It would be better for the victim to die rather than suffer of these diseases. But High Court turned down his petition by saying it is tantamount to suicide and can not be made as a law as the consequences being undesirable. But it suggests that each such case should be verified and approved by a group of doctors and specialists before granting the right of killing himself and donating his/her organs.

India refuses foreign aid for Tsunami relief

I have been wondering from long about the denial of foreign aids for Tsunami relief in India. Here I have found a decent explanation in support of India's decision. Embassy Row: 'Pragmatic decision'

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

India rejected foreign aid to help with the tsunami disaster because its own relief agencies were capable of rescuing, feeding and clothing the victims, said Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen. Mr. Sen said his government had made a "pragmatic decision" based on past experience with natural disasters. However, the decision met with international criticism. "There was initial incomprehension and even righteous indignation about what was perceived to be an arrogant and insensitive decision by our government to decline intergovernmental or international assistance in coping with the immediate aftermath of the natural disaster," the ambassador wrote in the Indian Embassy's "India Review" magazine. The Indian government's past experiences with natural disasters had showed that "around 90 to 95 percent of relief and rehabilitation work ... was carried out with Indian expertise and resources," he said. India has been overwhelmed in the past with foreign relief donations that officials could not distribute. Indian citizens also contributed generously to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund, raising $120 million in three weeks. Mr. Sen added that India wanted to avoid being overrun by foreign relief workers, especially in the hard-hit Nicobar Islands, home to an ancient tribal people. We did not want well-meaning foreign or Indian [nongovernmental organizations] to rush to the Nicobar Islands, which are home to declining and vulnerable tribes whose ways of life have remained unchanged for centuries and millennia, and for whom such humanitarian intrusions could possibly be as traumatic as the tsunami itself," Mr. Sen said. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did agree last month to accept some financial assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. India, which lost about 16,000 people to the Dec. 26 tidal wave that ravaged the coasts of a dozen countries, believed that other nations needed more help."We remain convinced that the immediate needs of our neighbors, particularly Indonesia and Sri Lanka, were greater than ours," the ambassador said. While dealing with its own disaster, India dispatched assistance to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Fourteen Indian naval vessels and 1,700 Indian relief workers "maintained a continuous flow of assistance to these countries," he said. "I know of no precedent of a country that, while coping on its own with a massive natural disaster, has extended timely and significant assistance to its neighboring countries," Mr. Sen said.