Friday, March 26, 2010

Ultra Modern Zamindars

We fought more than 200 years with British for freedom of our land. Indo-Pakistani war and Indo china war were happened for Jammu Kashmir land dispute and Himalayan land dispute. So many agitations in India for separate land i.e. Telangana, Vidarbha, Mithilanchal, Saurashtra, Harit Pradesh, and Bundelkhand. Funny thing is… SATYAM (No related to land except software), such a big tech company collapsed due to greedy investments on land through MAYTAS and others. Matter of fact everybody loves land…. land is life, basis of all wealth and a factor of production. Now everybody’s passion is land because…the land appreciation value is very high comparatively with other savings like gold, fixed deposits, bonds, shares and securities. The land value is cherished more than 5 times in past ten years.

Before independence most of land was acquired by few land lords (Zamindars). Since independence, there has been voluntary and government initiated land reforms for distribution of land among the landless farmers. Jawaharlal Nehru initiated ceiling on lands to abolish landlord system. Land to tiller is the slogan of peasant’s movement in 1970s became very intense. Now the history repeating… present economic reforms are creating Ultra Modern Zamindars in the form of Industrialists. The land ceiling systems is applicable to agriculture lands only not for industrial lands, those limitations are advantages to the industrialist to acquire the land as much as they want. The governments are allotting thousands of hectares of land to big industrialists in the name of SEZ, IT industries, Airports, Seaports and other Projects. Reliance, Tata and Adani Group have got 4,830 hectare land from Gujarat state. GMR group (Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao) got 5500 acres of land for free to construct the Shamshabad Airport, but the Government share is very nominal. The Government of Andhra Pradesh allotted the land to Vanpic (Vaderevu – Nizampatnam Port& Industrial Corridor- Nimmagadda Prasad) around 10,000 acres. I can mention so many like 1300 acres to Jindal group (Savitri Jindal) near Visakhapatnam, 1000 acres to Vedanta Resources (Anil Agarwal) in Orissa and Tata and Essar 6500 acres of land in Chattisgarh. I have a right to believe that Chief Ministers are functioning as Property dealers

In fact farmers need the land, because that is their livelihood, they care for the land. The recent economic reforms are intend to forcible acquisition of agriculture land in thousands of acres that belonged to small farmers in the name of industries, mining, dams and others projects. The economic liberalization programs are completely neglected the land distribution among the landless farmers. Indian farmers are very small and peasants who are holding an average farm land of lessthan 1 hectare (2.5 acres) and some of them do farming by taking lands on rent basis (Tenant farmers). Present economic reforms are promoting the privatization of natural resources, it cause to moving the farmers out of agriculture and some times may be lead to insurgency (Maoists in Chattisgarh, west Bengal, Orissa, and Jharkhand). We need mutually beneficial reforms which can restore the pride of agriculture and ensure the industrial growth. We must protect our 600 million farmers to make sure our food security and food self sufficiency which is our country’s priority

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Same game, Same rules, Surrogate players

We have celebrated (sponsored celebrations) the approval of women reservations bill in Upper house of the parliament which aims to reserve the 33% women seats in the legislature houses. I hope this will pass in the Lok sabha also. This bill will improve the participation of women in politics. Media and everybody is admiring the bill by using magnificent words like “Historic, momentous, Victory of feminism, and Great step for empowerment of women”.Let me state my views here...

I am not opposing women reservation bill, but I am questioning that the number of women increase in legislation houses is lead to empower the ordinary women? As you know, presently our India is lead by women only .They are... President: Pratibha Patil, UPA chairperson: Sonia Gandhi, Parliament Speaker: Meira Kumar, Lok sabha opposition leader: Sushma Swaraj, Country's Capital -Delhi Chief Minister: Sheila Dikshit. Why these leaders are failed to identify the solutions for Manipuri Lady -Irom Chanu Sharmila’s hunger strike which has been from past 10 years? Why can’t these leaders try to stop her ritual of release and re arrest? Shall we believe the downtrodden or middle class women group will get the chance in 33% of the leglisture houses? I don’t think so…. This could be for only elite class or existing member’s siblings like… wife, Daughter, Daughter in-law… so on. I can say this as“Same game, Same rules, surrogate players”.  We have been implementing 1/3rd reservation of total seats for women in Panchayaths and local bodies from 1993, as everybody knows that some of the women are proxies to their male relatives.

We need to worry about the poor, middle class and illiterate women who are overworked in the farm fields and complete all domestic work. They are still powerless, mistreated, hapless and helpless. The weaker section and middle class women need to improve their economical, political, spiritual and social strengths which gives them confidence.  We need create such a policies and reforms which are Right to participation, Right to decision making, Right to equal access for women. Let us dream the society for a woman which has No abuse, No dowry, No rapes and No Gender inequality. Indian distressed women shall be blessed.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

Square shaped watermelon

Japanese farmers invented this cubic watermelon by inserting the melons to square tempered cases while the fruit is growing.  The reason behind this idea is to save the place since the watermelons are round and take a lot of space in storage areas and refrigerators. The cubic cases are designed as per Japanese refrigerators which the full grown watermelons are conveniently fit to the refrigerator shelves.
But the limitation is cost, the square shaped melon cost is triple than the normal one. The groceries retailers are marketing them as Gift fruits.
You tube video