India, Nepal press reset button
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s return visit to Kathmandu, following Nepalese Prime Minister Sharma Oili’s first port of call on returning to power was New Delhi. Mr Oili Sharma, previously a critic of Indian policy towards Nepal made this a gesture of reconciliation, a determination to put behind past misunderstandings and resentments and make a new beginning in relations between two neignbours joined at the hip by shared history, culture, faith, ethnicity and kindred tongues. There has long been (and is) a robust Nepali presence in India, with Nepali listed in the Indian Constitution as one of the country’s 18 official languages.
Since the abolition of the monarchy a decade or so ago, various Communist factions in Nepal have gained political ascendancy, but have recently come together to form a united Communist Party designed for purpose to transform the deeply entrenched feudal past into a vibrant present of modern infrastructure, jobs, wealth generation, educational opportunities and much else. Mr Modi hit upon an appropriate metaphor likening India to a Sherpa guide taking Nepal to summit of Mount Everest. However, it is India’s responsibility to translate words into deeds. India power projects in the country must be complete within promised time-bound schedules and of costs; and other schemes for Nepal’s socio-economic development must surely follow suit.
Road links with Nepal must be extended, including the proposed electrified railway from Rexaul in India to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital city. This could be a game-changer in ties. Supplementing these linkages would be the development of inland waterways. Add to this a pipeline from India bringing petroleum products to Nepal for its transport and energy needs. It is for India to push long dormant schemes in multiple sectors forward as part of regional integration. India’s neighbours rightly complain of its bureaucratic sloth, the dithering and delays in implementing projects. Indians on a similar wave-length frequently do the same.
Prime Minister Sharma Oili, for his part, has assured India that Nepal would not allow its territory to be used as a transit route by hostile anti-Indian elements, that his government took Indian interests to heart. Jihadis from Pakistan and other criminal gangs have used Nepal as a base of operations in India.
Nepal is the best guardian of its sovereignty, like India’s other neighbours, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Self-defeating paranoia about Chinese influence in these parts is an exercise in futility and should be jettisoned. The idea that a Communist regime in Nepal would subordinate its national interest to a professedly Communist China is yesterday’s hang up. Communist Vietnam went to war with Communist China in February 1979, did it not? They are now at loggerheads in the South China Sea. Freedom from fear has not lost value. Brotherly love between comrades has for long been a fiction, just as it is, and has been, between the US and many liberal democracies; India must outgrow the rancid phobias seeded past deficits. The time to bury the dead is now.
Nepal and India must walk the talk to a more rewarding future – a future that works to the benefit of both parties and their future generations.
India’s strides in poverty reduction
India’s once endemic poverty has shown significant decline, largely on the back of the country’s southern states, but also on the improved performances elsewhere, notably in Maharashtra, Goa, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarkhand, and Sikkim states. Between 2005-16, poverty levels fell from 55per cent to 21 per cent, improving multidimensional poverty (MDP) – an international measure of extreme poverty based on the three critical categories of health, education and living standards. Thus India’s previous 54th ranking among Third World countries has dropped to 26 th.
While that national average of poverty stands at 21 per cent, in the five southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the average poverty level is down to 9 per cent under MDP measurements. A paper to be published shortly by Professor S.P.Singh and research scholar Akarsh Arora of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, and by Zakaria Siddiqui, an Australia-based development scientist and others have concluded from data extracted from the National Family Health Survey-4 2015-16.
Bihar, with a 43 per cent povery level, is India’s poorest state by far, Jharkhand, 36 per cent, Uttar Pradesh 31 per cent, Rajasthan 31 per cent and Odisha 29 per cent have rates above the national average. In contrast, Kerala is down to 1 per cent, Tamil Nadu to 6 per cent, Karnataka 11 per cent , Telangana 14 per cent and Andhra Pradesh 13 per cent, all significantly below the national average. Gujarat with 16 per cent, West Bengal with 17 per cent have been positioned below the 21 per cent national average. The trend is set to continue with increasing momentum.
Food processing a likely game-changer
India’s rising food processing sector has the potential to become a major transformative force in the country’s development, bridging the rural-urban divide, stimulating agricultural growth, raising living standards across the country. The food processing sector represents the focal point where agriculture and industry conjoin in a seminal advance, with each playing an existential role in India’s modernization.
It would be appropriate at this stage to lay out a series of basic facts. India is one of the world’s foremost producers of food products. It has the world’s second largest population after China. India has around the world’s fifth-largest irrigated land, and, equally, swathes of arable land that is highest in the region and beyond.. With science and technology inputs the country’s Green Revolution made India a major producer of wheat and rice, an entitlement to landmark food security, and the banishment of spectral famine and crippling grain shortages, forcing the government to look abroad for succor. India is now the world’s largest producer of milk, which has led to an explosion of dairy products, a whole range of which are exported. Pulses, bananas, guavas and mangoes, apples and oranges are produced in abundance, enough to meet domestic demand and leaving sufficient surpluses for exports.
It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that much food that goes to waste is increasingly preserved through refrigeration, another example of industry sustain agriculture. The complementary step is food processing which caters to a growing market driven by rising incomes and living standards. The food processing sector promises thus to be the next big thing in taking in Indian development and making it global player in the field. For this to happen the sector requires substantial investments, domestic and foreign, if it is to reach its full potential. Indeed private sector investment is already on the rise. There are immense opportunities in contract farming, sourcing of raw material and developing agricultural linkages. Many foreign companies already have a presence in the contract farming segment.
With such expansion proceeding apace, experts predict that the market for plant and machinery in the food processing sector is set to grow in value to $51.41 billion by 2025.High growth in the food segments within the ambit of the Food and Beverages industry is increasingly noticeable in breakfast cereals, savoury snacks, seasonings, dressings and pet food.
Apart from the growing population and their increasing purchasing power arising from disposable earnings, smaller family units, rapid urbanization, expanding retail trade, emergent in digitization, and the growing presence of global players enthused by growth drivers, of which he huge Indian population is a telling example. The retail sector is expected to multiply threefold by 2020, which increases the ongoing traction. Swelling consumption in the food and beverage sector is estimated to earn around $1.142 trillion by 2025. With government recognition the food processing sector’s potential in its manufacturing policy, special funds have been set up for its promotion. A final point: the sector is vitally important for job creation.
Each of the factors outlined above are integral to the vast cycle of development, has the power to transform the face of India beyond recognition for the betterment of its peoples. The long and hard journey may be nearing its goal. An unfolding future like no other is before us.
