he apparent suicide of a dis-
traught farmer at a well-attended
rally in the heart of New Delhi
has captivated the Indian politi-
cal world. It may also herald the
biggest crisis of Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s 11-month old govern-
ment.
India’s Aspirations
True, questions have been raised about
the background and real motivations of
Gajendra Singh, who hung himself from a
tree during a demonstration called by the
Aam Aadmi (“CommonMan”) Party on
Wednesday.
Critics have also lambasted AAP organ-
izers for not immediately calling off the
rally. The fact is, however, that the tragedy
could not have come at a worse time for
Modi.
India’s opposition Congress Party has
recently found its voice by painting the
government as anti-poor and challenging
Modi’s efforts to amend a restrictive land-
acquisition law.Worse, new forecasts pre-
dict a lower-than-normal monsoon this
year.
That would drive up food prices and in-
flation, and limit the central bank’s room
to trim interest rates.With reforms bogged
down in Parliament, Modi can ill afford
any new constraints on growth.
Clearly, the Prime Minister needs to ad-
dress widespread distress among Indian
farmers, almost 1,400 of whom committed
suicide last year after suffering from debt,
crop failure and drought. But his response
must be thoughtful and multi-dimen-
sional.
The clamor for him to abandon at-
tempts to reform the land law, for in-
stance, is misplaced. Singh didn’t kill
himself because unscrupulous developers
had snatched his property. According to a
suicide note, unseasonal rains had wiped
out much of his recent crop.
As I wrote recently, Indian farming re-
mains far too dependent on the goodwill
of the weather gods: Too much rain and
too little are equally problematic. Farmers
have few options – such as crop insur-
ance – to mitigate risk.
More importantly, most landholdings in
India are simply too small to be profitable.
Half of the population – around 600 mil-
lion people – cannot live off 15 percent of
India’s GDP. The only long-term solution to
India’s farm crisis is to reduce the number
of farmers.
To do so, infrastructure and job-pro-
ducing factories need to be built – and
those require land. As long as farmers are
compensated properly (evenModi’s
amended law would guarantee compensa-
tion at four times the market price), selling
their land could help tide them over until
jobs materialize.
Some of the other fixes being bandied
about are equally short-sighted. Modi
should think carefully before he an-
nounces a wholesale waiver of farm loans,
or a broad increase in the “minimum sup-
port price” the government guarantees
farmers for their crops. The former penal-
izes farmers who have repaid their loans
on schedule and presents a moral hazard
for the rest.
Beefing up support prices usually bene-
fits the largest farmers disproportionately.
The rest, who are net buyers of food, suffer
from the inflationary impact of the in-
creases.
The government needs to move faster
to a model where it can distribute cash aid
directly to the poorest farmers, depositing
money into their bank accounts.
More immediately, there are at least
three things Modi can do that would fun-
damentally improve farmers’ prospects
and ability to withstand misfortune.
First, he should offer subsidized crop
insurance nationwide. Given that India’s
largest insurance companies are all state-
owned, this program could be launched
quickly.
Second, he should announce a big-
ticket effort to upgrade irrigation through-
out India, giving the program as much
political weight as his “Make in India”
manufacturing push.
The two states which have seen the
highest growth in agricultural yields in the
last decade – Gujarat and Madhya
Pradesh (both governed by Modi’s
Bharatiya Janata Party) – have invested
large amounts in extending irrigation net-
works.
Multiple approaches can be adopted,
from building canals to linking rivers, from
installing pumps to draw groundwater to
educating farmers on rainwater harvest-
ing. Not all these measures would be a big
drain on the exchequer.
Finally, Modi should use his bully pulpit
to overcome the irrational resistance to
field trials for genetically modified crops.
Gujarat, Modi’s home state, has already
been a big beneficiary of Bt cotton, which
lends itself to higher productivity and less
waste than ordinary cotton.
According to one recent independent
study, farmers who planted Bt cotton be-
tween 2002 and 2008 earned 50 percent
more profit than those using conventional
seeds.
Modi’s attempts to boost manufactur-
ing and industry will take time to bear
fruit. In the meantime, farmers need help.
The challenge for Modi is to respond with-
out compromising his equally important
long-term goals for the economy.
T
Mother’sMilkBank forWorkingMoms
Dhiraj
Nayyar
Columnist
Bloomberg View
Chairman & Publisher
Dr. Sudhir M. Parikh
Editor
Sunil Adam
Managing Editor
Ela Dutt
NewYork Bureau
Bhargavi S. Kulkarni
Chicago Bureau
Sunthar Visuvalingam
Ahmedabad Bureau Chief
Digant Sompura
Tel. 26446947
ContributingWriters
Shilpi Paul, Joanne Flynn Black,
Swathi Reddy
Layout & Design
Shashikant Warik
Photographers
YogeshMehta,
Peter Ferreira, Deval Parikh
Chief Operating Officer
Ilyas Qureshi
Director
Business Development
Bhailal M. Patel
Advertising Manager
Sonia Lalwani
Advertising NewYork
Shailu Desai, Manoj Vyas
Advertising Chicago
Syed Sheeraz Mahmood
(773) 807-7925
Editorial & Corporate Headquarters
115West 30th Street, Suite 1206
NewYork, NY 10001
Tel. (212) 675-7515
Fax. (212) 675-7624
E-mails
Website
Chicago Office
2652West Devon Avenue, Suite B
Chicago ,IL 60659
Tel. (773) 856-0545
Fax. (773) 856-3537
California Office
650Vermont Ave, Suite #46
Anaheim ,CA 92805
Tel. (661) 468 -3851
Ahmedabad Office
303 Kashiparekh Complex
C.G. Road, 29 Adarsh Society
Ahmedabad 380009
Tel. 26446947
Fax. 26565596
Published weekly, Founded in 1975.The views
expressed on the opinion page and in the Letters to
the Editor column are those of the writers and do
not necessarily reflect those of News IndiaTimes.
Copyright © 2015, News IndiaTimes
News IndiaTimes (ISSN 0199-901X) is published
every Friday by ParikhWorldwide Media Inc.,
115West 30th Street, Suite 1206, NewYork, NY 10001.
Periodicals postage paid at NewYork, N.Y.,
and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send
address change to News IndiaTimes, 115West 30th
Street, Suite 1206, NewYork, N.Y. 10001
Annual Subscription: United States: $28
Modi’sMoment of Truth
Farmers need help. The challenge for Modi is to respond without compromising his equally
important long-term goals for the economy
he picture was quite clear. Even the
in-laws of 24-year-old Aarti Kataria
wanted a proper gap between their
grandchildren. But the urge of
Aarti’s husband for a male child,
following a girl child 12 months before, is
what triggered the entire problem.
Though Aarti gave birth to a chubby
baby boy, the heavy loss of blood and weak-
ness initially, and her professional career
later became a barrier between the child
and his nutrition. Lack of time to breast
feed, leading to a continuous supply of
powdered milk and other supplements
made the child contract severe pneumonia
in the very first month of his birth.
Despite knowing that the reason behind
her child’s condition was lack of mother’s
milk – which she was unable to provide due
to her busy schedule – the family refused to
fall back on mothers milk banks – which
make available donated human milk to
those in need.
However, scared by the doctors’ repeated
warnings to keep the child away from artifi-
cial milk and supplements, the Katarias de-
cided to give milk banks a chance and
seeing the improvement in her son’s health,
Aarti was happy. She even endorsed the
idea to her colleagues – mostly working
mothers – who too were facing similar
problems. TheWHO and Unicef heartily en-
dorse the idea of mothers milk banks, call-
ing it the best food if a new born is not able
to get his mother’s milk.
“Mothers milk banks are completely safe
for the children. Before taking the milk from
the donor mothers, there are checks to en-
sure that they are healthy and well nour-
ished, with no evidence of tuberculosis or
other infectious diseases like HIV or hepati-
tis,” Ankur Kumar, consultant neonatal, pe-
diatric and adolescent medicine at the
Delhi-based BLK Super Speciality Hospital,
told IANS. He said that before taking the
donors’ milk, it is ensured that the woman
is not on any medication and, most impor-
tantly, willing to donate.
The first mothers milk bank in Asia was
started inMumbai on Nov. 27, 1989.
Explaining the milk collection process,
Amrita Desai, lactation consultant at the
Pune-based KEMHospital, told IANS:
“Breast milk is collected by trained staff,
after taking full aseptic measures. The
breast milk is either extracted manually or
with breast pumps. The milk is collected in
properly labelled sterile containers and
transported to the banks under cold storage
conditions.”
Desai said that once it collected, it is im-
mediately frozen at 20 degrees centigrade
after which a sample is taken for its culture.
“If the bacterial culture is negative, then the
milk is pasteurized,” she added. “Milk from
a bank is the only solution if babies do not
get their own mother’s milk. It is imperative
that every baby receives breastmilk for
growth, immunity, brain development and
so on. India has a high infant mortality rate
(IMR) due to myths regarding a baby’s nu-
trition,” Desai said.
News India Times
May 1, 2015
2
T
Opinion
By Rupesh
Dutta
