Is it possible to usher in the second green revolution in India? Is it possible to do it fast? Why has the new green revolution to start right away?
June 6, 2007 (Press Release) --
Is it possible to usher in the second green revolution in India? Is it possible to do it fast? Why has the new green revolution to start right away? Why is there little or no time left to wait for the green revolution to take its time as did the first green revolution of the 1960s? Is it because time is running out? Running out very fast. Is it because there is no insurance of a political upheaval that Jawaharlal Nehru and his immediate successors enjoyed for almost 25 years after him?
Is the second green revolution a tall order for the rulers of the day? Is it that they have very little breathing time? Is that breathing time just two years now as three years of their five year term have run out? What grandiose design could they come up with in the short time at their disposal? The questions are in the region of the fathomable as well as unfathomable: is a miracle on the farm front possible?
The Grand Old Party that the Congress is in India has ruled the nation for 50 of the 60 years since 1947 without batting an eyelid. Did it face any challenge? almost none. The only Opposition came from within and even the Morarji Desai and Chaudhary Charan Singh experiment of less than three years came from former party men after the Congress split in the mid 1970s. Today the scenario is vastly different, though there is no alternative even now to the Congress. The only alternative is a hung Parliament, with the remote and limited prospect of a rag tag non-Congress coalition, with both the Third Front and BJP led coalition being near non-starters.
Is it this weakness of the non Congress parties around the country and their apparent inability to coalesce viably that is making the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and their flock to sit up and try and keep the present arrangement going by reaching out to the traditional Congress constituency in the countryside, in the villages, in the farms, in the cow belt and beyond the Vindhyas, in western India and eastern India? Is it the Congress effort to override the caste factors yet once more and promise the poor and deliver a life worth their while? Is it possible?
The green revolution of 1960s took 20 to 25 years to raise grain production from 30 million tons to nearly 200 million tons. It was a great achievement. The sevenfold increase in food production in that time span came to a halt in 1990s even as industry and services flourished as never before. They did feed millions upon millions of people, but not hundreds of millions as half the nation of 1.1 billion is malnourished and nearly half of that almost starving.
The hundreds of farmer deaths and suicides after failure of crops and unbearable indebtedness, now visible live in electronic media and even print processes have added a new dimension to public awareness. Is it what at times influences the voters? The caste code having been cracked by the likes of Mayawati with the incumbency factors of U.P. and Andhra having overturned two key State sat
Is the second green revolution a tall order for the rulers of the day? Is it that they have very little breathing time? Is that breathing time just two years now as three years of their five year term have run out? What grandiose design could they come up with in the short time at their disposal? The questions are in the region of the fathomable as well as unfathomable: is a miracle on the farm front possible?
The Grand Old Party that the Congress is in India has ruled the nation for 50 of the 60 years since 1947 without batting an eyelid. Did it face any challenge? almost none. The only Opposition came from within and even the Morarji Desai and Chaudhary Charan Singh experiment of less than three years came from former party men after the Congress split in the mid 1970s. Today the scenario is vastly different, though there is no alternative even now to the Congress. The only alternative is a hung Parliament, with the remote and limited prospect of a rag tag non-Congress coalition, with both the Third Front and BJP led coalition being near non-starters.
Is it this weakness of the non Congress parties around the country and their apparent inability to coalesce viably that is making the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and their flock to sit up and try and keep the present arrangement going by reaching out to the traditional Congress constituency in the countryside, in the villages, in the farms, in the cow belt and beyond the Vindhyas, in western India and eastern India? Is it the Congress effort to override the caste factors yet once more and promise the poor and deliver a life worth their while? Is it possible?
The green revolution of 1960s took 20 to 25 years to raise grain production from 30 million tons to nearly 200 million tons. It was a great achievement. The sevenfold increase in food production in that time span came to a halt in 1990s even as industry and services flourished as never before. They did feed millions upon millions of people, but not hundreds of millions as half the nation of 1.1 billion is malnourished and nearly half of that almost starving.
The hundreds of farmer deaths and suicides after failure of crops and unbearable indebtedness, now visible live in electronic media and even print processes have added a new dimension to public awareness. Is it what at times influences the voters? The caste code having been cracked by the likes of Mayawati with the incumbency factors of U.P. and Andhra having overturned two key State sat
Email
Print
SPAM
