Archive for November 2011
IGC’s 2011 wrap-up – Eurozone crisis has affected crops, barring rice
The International Grains Council has released its grain market report for November 2011. As this will be the IGC’s last report for the year, grain traders in the major exporting countries and buying countries will use this as their end-2011 reference. Here are the main forecasts by the IGC for major crops:
Market commentary – After showing some strength in early November, global grain export prices were again in retreat, though with rice once more the exception. Overall, IGC’s GOI index fell by 16 points, or 6%, to a 13-month low. The recent market downturn can be partly ascribed to bearishly perceived market fundamentals, as harvests neared completion in the northern hemisphere and work started south of the equator. But it was also in reaction to deepening financial uncertainties, notably in Europe, affecting nearly all commodities. Heavy supplies of wheat amid strong export competition, including from new crop grain out of Argentina and Australia, mostly reduced fob values by between $20 and $30 over the past month, narrowing the gap with Black Sea quotations.
Despite initial support from US cash markets and a smaller official crop estimate, CME maize futures in Chicago saw major speculative selling, partly due to increased competition from other exporters but with sentiment considerably dented by worries about the global financial crisis and the collapse of a major brokerage firm. Similar pressures were evident in oilseed markets, led by a decline in US soyabeans, values of which dipped to their lowest since October 2010. As measured by IGC’s sub-index for rice, export prices of this cereal remained firm in the past month: within this measure, quotations in Thailand saw further gains, attributed to the country’s severe floods, while those in Vietnam and South Asia weakened.
Grains – Reduced grain crop estimates for some major producers, including for maize in the US, are only partly offset by increases in the CIS and elsewhere, trimming the global production total for 2011-12 by 3m. tons from October, to 1,816m. This would still represent an increase of 64m. tons over last year, largely due to sizeable recoveries in output in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Production of all crops except sorghum will rise this year, with the biggest increases in wheat and maize. Southern hemisphere prospects remain favourable, with rains in South America and Australia mostly boosting yield expectations for wheat and helpful for plantings of maize and sorghum. Consumption of grains will also increase in 2011-12, especially in the feed sector, including a marked rebound in Russia after the previous year’s drought.
At 1,826m. tons, world use is expected to show a rise of 2.2% from the previous year. However, a feature this year will be the marked slowdown in the expansion of industrial use, set to rise by only 1.7%, to 303m. tons. Within this figure, the use of grains in fuel ethanol, which has displayed huge growth in the past decade, is expected to stay close to last year’s 147m. tons, assuming the use of maize for this purpose in the US declines slightly. With the reduction in the global grain crop estimate largely balanced by an upward adjustment in the opening stocks figure and a slight cut in the use forecast, the projection of world carryover stocks is unchanged from last month, at 360m. tons.
[ Data – here are the IGC’s data files (all Excel): Total grains supply and demand ; Total grains trade ; Rice supply and demand ; Rice trade ; Soyabean trade ; IGC’s grains and oilseeds index ]
However, the total for the eight major exporters is trimmed by 3m. tons, largely because of a reduced stocks projection in the EU. World trade in grains in 2011-12 (July-June) is expected to climb by 11m. tons to a record 254m., 4m. more than forecast previously, reflecting larger than anticipated wheat purchases after this season’s marked upturn in medium and lower grade supplies, especially from the Black Sea region, whose total grain shipments are set to total 55m. tons, up from only 22m. last year.
Wheat – The second largest world wheat crop ever and ample carry-in stocks from last year, have sharply boosted global availabilities in 2011-12. While use is rising at a faster than normal pace, world stocks at the end of the season are still expected to climb to their highest level in a decade. Compared with last month, the estimate of world production is 1m. tons lower, at 683m., including a slight downward revision in the US, where the spring wheat crop was even smaller than expected.
Stronger than previously projected feed use adds another 2m. tons to the global consumption forecast, at 679m., boosting the annual percentage increase to about three times the longer-term trend. Because of the increased demand figure, the forecast of global carryover stocks is 2m. tons lower than last month, at 200m., but these would still be the largest since 2001-02. The world trade forecast is lifted by 3m. tons from before to nearly 135m., only slightly below the 2008-09 record. Rather than reflecting a supply shortfall in any one country or region (as it did in 2008-09, when Iran’s imports were higher than usual), import demand appears strong in a wide range of countries, aided by competitive pricing in the major exporters, especially for lower and medium grades.
Maize (corn) – While the US crop was slightly smaller than last year’s, larger outturns elsewhere are expected to lift world maize production to a new record of 853m. tons (826m.). With harvests in North America and Europe entering their final stages, attention is switching to the southern hemisphere, where farmers in Argentina, Brazil and South Africa are set to plant more maize than in 2010-11. Due to strong competition from feed-grade wheat and projected sluggish growth in industrial demand, world use is forecast to increase at a slower than average pace. However, with the total still expected to exceed output, 2011-12 ending stocks are forecast to fall to a five-year low. Trade in the year to June 2012 is forecast to increase by 1% due to strong demand from buyers in parts of Latin America, Asia and North Africa.
Rice – Flooding in parts of Asia has negatively affected crop prospects in some key exporters. Nevertheless, bigger outturns in China and India are expected to lift global production by 2% in 2011-12, to a record 459m. tons. Total rice use is also forecast to expand by 2%, with a further small increase projected in the global carryover, to 100m. tons (98m.). Within the total, inventories in the five major exporters are forecast to increase by 8%, to an all-time peak of 32m. tons. World trade in calendar 2012 is forecast to contract by 0.8m.tons, to 32.5m., on reduced imports by Far East Asia, especially by Bangladesh and Indonesia.
The day India said ‘yes’ to Wal-Mart
Update – The real nature of the neoliberal economy of India has become clearer with the decision – against the run of public opinion and against the evidence from the agricultural and food sectors – to permit opening up the retail sector.
Since the decision was taken, the central government has spared no effort in a cynical and devious campaign to claim that permitting foreign direct investment in retail will benefit farmers and consumers. On Sunday, 27 November 2011, large advertisements were released in newspapers proclaiming the benefits of this decision. Nothing is further from the truth. India’s urban households, those eking out livelihoods from informal work and precarious manufacturing sector jobs, recognise the untruth and see the evidence in the 10%-15% annual food inflation. Our trade unions know this and our left parties know this.
Ranged against this population, rural and urban, are the ministries and industries who see in the permission a new means to control access to food and the provisioning of food. That is why I support the opposition represented by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), whose concerns reflect those of this broad majority.
The CPI(M) has said correctly that this decision “will destroy the livelihoods of crores of small retailers and lead to monopolisation of the retail sector by the MNCs”. The party’s statement said: “Coming in the backdrop of persistent high inflation, growing joblessness and agrarian distress, this decision shows the utterly callous and anti-people character of the UPA Government. The Government seems to be more eager to meet the demands of the US and other Western governments and serve the interests of the MNCs like Walmart, Tesco and Carrefour, rather than protect those of its own people.”
India’s central ministries – now even further disrobed to reveal their predatory nature as instruments of the country’s business satraps – have held up the flimsy excuse that conditions imposed will safeguard the farmer, consumer and small retailer. This is lies.
The restriction that foreign retail outlets are limited to operating in cities of over 1 million population is meaningless because those are precisely the places where the MNCs want to go, to tap the lucrative segment of the market. It is in these cities – there are 53 cities with populations of over a million – that small retailers are mostly concentrated. India has the highest shopping density in the world, with 11 shops per 1,000 persons – these have evolved as neighbourhood suppliers and represent a cultural integration of small supplier and household familiarity.
The result is a rich density of trusted small retail – India has over 12 million such shops and these employ directly over 40 million persons. Well over 95% of these shops are run by self-employed persons in floor areas of under 500 square feet (about 48 square metres). It is these small shopkeepers in urban areas who fear for their future with the now-sanctioned entry of the MNC retailers. International experience shows that supermarkets everywhere invariably displace small retailers. Small retail has been virtually wiped out in the developed countries like the US and Europe. South East Asian countries had to also impose stringent zoning and licensing regulations in order to restrict the growth of supermarkets, after small retailers were getting displaced.
Then there is the cunning untruth that the condition for making at least 50% of the investment in ‘backend’ infrastructure will benefit rural populations, as this is said to lead to more cold chains and other logistics, benefiting the farmers. International experience has, however, shown that procurement by MNC retailers do not benefit the small farmers – we have seen this in India despite the specious and manufactured ‘case studies’ produced by India’s management schools (the several worthless and compradorist Indian Institutes of Management and their similarly worthless competitors). Over time, smallholder farmers receive depressed prices and find it difficult to meet the arbitrary quality standards. Allowing procurement by MNCs will also allow the central government to reduce its own procurement responsibilities, and this will directly affect the food security of those millions of rural and urban households which depend India’s public food distribution system.
2011/11/25 – This is a turning point for India’s economy. The central government has allowed foreign investment up to 51% in the retail sector for ‘multi-brand’ ventures, and has allowed 100% foreign investment for single brand retailers.
With this permission, the ruling United Progressive Alliance has ignored utterly the concerns of hundreds of representations made over the last year by small traders and wholesalers, and by grocery shops’ assocations all over India, against the entre of foreign direct invetment in the retail sector. The ruling United Progressive Alliance has also ignored the needs and conditions of hundreds of thousands of smallholder farming families, who will from now on be steadily exposed to increasing levels of coercion to submit to corporate and industrial farming pressures, or to quit cultivation and join the masses of informal labour in urbanising towns and cities.
India’s powerful business and indutries associations – the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) – have vigorously for the last two years been manoeuvring the ruling political alliance towards this position. They have been aided substantially by representations from the countries and regions who have the most to gain from this permission being given – the USA and the European Union.
The so-called economists and analysts who are regularly polled by the business media and whose pronouncements are used to justify the progression of policy towards such permission, are making a variety of claims about the effects the expected foreign investment will have on India. They are saying that this “much delayed reform” will help unclog supply bottlenecks and help ease food inflation, that it will benefit farmers who can get better prices for their produce and will bring in international expertise to streamline supply chains in India.
This is rubbish meant to distract. The big retail corporations have for years been demanding entry into a country which is estimated to have a retail sector whose annual sales are said to be around US$450 billion. But this is a sector populated by tens of thousands of tiny family-run shops that account for 90% of this enormous volume of sales. This is a turning point for India’s economy, for it signals the start of yet another struggle to first block, and then throw out the retail conglomerates.
Here are some of the many news stories on this important matter:
Moneycontrol.com – ‘Don’t expect investments to flow instantly: Bharti Walmart’ – After a long wait, the government has finally allowed 51% foreign direct investment (FDI) in the multi-brand retail. It has also decided to raise the cap on foreign investment in single-brand retailing to 100% from the current 51%. …
The Hindu – ‘Cabinet approves 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail’ – In a bid to remove the impression that UPA II was suffering from “decision making paralysis” and kicking off the second generation reforms, the Union Cabinet on Thursday gave its approval to allowing 51 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in …
Shanghai Daily (subscription) – ‘India to allow global chains to open multi-brand retail stores’ – MUMBAI, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) — India’s cabinet has given the green light to foreign investors to take up to 51 percent stakes in multi-brand retail stores later Thursday after a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said a report by the …
MarketWatch (press release) – ‘Government of India Unleashes Potent Phase II Reforms’ – WASHINGTON, Nov 24, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — The US-India Business Council (USIBC) today hailed India’s steady progress in advancing major economic reforms with the Cabinet’s approval of opening India’s vast multi-brand retail sector to foreign direct …
Reuters India – ‘India opens supermarket sector to foreign players’ – India threw open its $450 billion retail market to global supermarket giants on Thursday, approving its biggest reform in years that may boost sorely needed investment in Asia’s third-largest economy …
Wall Street Journal – ‘Carrefour Welcomes India’s Decision To Open Multi-Brand Retail Market‘ – PARIS (Dow Jones)–French retail giant Carrefour SA (CA.FR) said Thursday it welcomed the Indian government’s decision to open the country’s multi-brand retail market to foreign investment. “Carrefour will follow with attention the finalization of the …
Voice of America – ‘India Opens Retail Sector to Foreign Supermarkets’ – November 24, 2011 India Opens Retail Sector to Foreign Supermarkets VOA News India’s Cabinet has approved a plan to open up the country’s $450 billion retail sector to foreign supermarkets, a reform that could unclog supply bottlenecks that have kept …
Wall Street Journal – ‘India Unlocks Door for Global Retailers’ – MUMBAI—India paved the way for international supermarkets and department stores to establish joint ventures, a major step in opening one of the last great consumer markets that has been off-limits to many of the world’s biggest …
Hindustan Times – ‘Left and Right sharpen knives for FDI battle’ – The Cabinet’s approval of 51% FDI in multi-brand retail is likely to flare up into a major political controversy with the main opposition parties gearing up to oppose it. While BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley jointly condemned any such move …
Namnews – ‘Government Opens Up Country’s Retail Market’ – It’s official – the Indian retail market is now open to international chains, setting the stage for a major change of the local industry. Earlier today, the Indian government approved Foreign Direct Investment of up to 51% in multi-brand retail, …
Bloomberg – ‘India Allows Foreign Investment in Retail, Paving Wal-Mart Entry’ – India approved allowing overseas companies to own as much as 51 percent of retail chains that sell more than one brand, paving the way for global retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores …
indiablooms – ‘India opens retail to foreign players’ – New Delhi, Nov 24 (IBNS): India on Thursday decided to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in its closely-guarded multi brand retail market, paving the way for global supermarket giants to step into the $450 billion sector that was widely seen as one …
Tehelka – ‘Cabinet approves 51% FDI in multi-brand retail’ – The Cabinet cleared 51 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail on Thursday paving the way for global retail giants like Wal-Mart and Carrefour to enter India. The Cabinet also cleared 100 per cent FDI in single-brand retail. …
Newser – ‘India to allow more foreign retail investment, likely paving way for Wal-Mart’ – India’s Cabinet decided Thursday to allow more direct foreign investment in the nation’s huge retail industry, a move that could strengthen the country’s food supply chain and open India to giant global …
NetIndian – ‘Cabinet clears 51% FDI in multi-brand retail’ – After dithering for a long time, the Union Cabinet today cleared a proposal to allow 51 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail and raised the cap to 100 per cent in single brand retail. This will allow global retail giants like …
Boston.com – ‘India opens more to foreign multibrand retailers’ – AP / November 24, 2011 NEW DELHI—India’s Cabinet decided Thursday to allow more direct foreign investment in the nation’s huge retail industry, a move that could strengthen the country’s food supply chain and open India to giant global …
Retail Week – ‘Indian cabinet approves foreign investment in retail‘ – The Indian government has cleared the way to allow multinational retailers including Tesco, Carrefour and Walmart to enter its retail market. We provide a range of advertising opportunities. By advertising with us, you are guaranteed to reach the …
Atlanta Journal Constitution – ‘India opens more to foreign multibrand retailers’ – AP NEW DELHI — India’s Cabinet decided Thursday to allow more direct foreign investment in the nation’s huge retail industry, a move that could strengthen the country’s food supply chain and open India to giant global retailers such as …
Houston Chronicle – ‘India opens more to foreign multibrand retailers’ – NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Cabinet decided Thursday to allow more direct foreign investment in the nation’s huge retail industry, a move that could strengthen the country’s food supply chain and open India to giant global retailers such …
IBNLive – ‘FDI in retail cleared; multi brand 50 pc, single brand 100 pc’ – The Union Cabinet FDI in multi-brand retail and single brand retail despite division within the UPA on the issue.
Moneycontrol.com – ‘Cabinet approves 51% FDI in multi-brand retail’ – Indian retailers finally get a chance to rejoice as the Cabinet today cleared the bill to increase foreign direct investment to 51% in multi-brand retail and 100% in single brand. Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma said that he would give a …
Business Standard – ‘Too early to celebrate for Pantaloon retail’ – Valuations may prove to be a hurdle, while real gains will take time to yield. Stocks of organised retail companies like Pantaloon Retail and Shoppers Stop have been in action in the recent past on hopes that foreign direct investment (FDI) in the …
BusinessWeek – ‘India Allows Foreign Investment in Retail, Paving Wal-Mart Entry’ – Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — India approved allowing overseas companies to own as much as 51 percent of retail chains that sell more than one brand, paving the way for global retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. …
Washington Post – ‘India to allow more foreign retail investment, likely paving way for Wal-Mart’ – NEW DELHI — India’s Cabinet decided Thursday to allow more direct foreign investment in the nation’s huge retail industry, a move that could strengthen the country’s food supply chain and open India to giant global retailers such as Wal-Mart. …
STLtoday.com – ‘India opens more to foreign multibrand retailers’ – AP | Posted: Thursday, November 24, 2011 10:36 am | Loading… India’s Cabinet decided Thursday to allow more direct foreign investment in the nation’s huge retail industry, a move that could strengthen the country’s food supply chain and open India to …
Newser – ‘India to allow more foreign retail investment, likely paving way for Wal-Mart’ – India’s Cabinet decided Thursday to allow more direct foreign investment in the nation’s huge retail industry, a move that could strengthen the country’s food supply chain and open India to giant global …
Wall Street Journal (blog) – ‘FDI in Retail: If Wal-Mart Builds It, Will Indians Come?’ – The Indian government deserves credit for doing what , for at least five years, it has been contemplating: setting the stage for the creation if a modern retail industry. It is unlikely that the Cabinet was seized by Adam Smith-like …
Houston Chronicle – ‘India opens more to foreign multibrand retailers’ – NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Cabinet decided Thursday to allow more direct foreign investment in the nation’s huge retail industry, a move that could strengthen the country’s food supply chain and open India to giant global retailers such …
Zee News – ‘Cabinet clears FDI in multi-brand retail’ – New Delhi: In a major decision, the government Thursday approved 51 percent FDI in multi-brand retail paving the way for global giants like WalMart to open mega stores in cities with population of over one million. The nod from the Union Cabinet came …
This permission, given by a ruling political coalition that has allowed food inflation to rage on unchecked for the last three years, which has regularly pushed up the prices of petrol (gasoline) and diesel, and whose record on tackling corruption and graft is shamefully weak, will not go unchallenged.
‘Germany is not head of the class of the Union’
A 'debt meter' shows the level of Germany's debt, which is currently over 80 percent of GDP. By European standards, that is nothing to boast about. Photo: Der Spiegel / Carsten Koall
About the euro and Germany, and about Europa and the Germans, there’s not a lot that can be read on the matter that helps clear it up. We need some help from inside Europe to do that – instead of clueless yammering about ‘markets’ from American economists, or instead of smug garbage about Euro politics from barmy Brit commentators, and instead of overaged tripe about the EU from the World Bank and the IMF. Without further ado, here’s the help.
Jacques Attali, the influential former advisor to Mitterrand, has sent a blunt warning to Angela Merkel, the German Bundeskanzlerin. Writing in Slate.fr Attali has said that Merkel either must agree to the purchase of defaulted European bonds by the European Central Bank and the issuance of European bonds, or she will end up holding the smoking gun of Europe’s suicide. In a translation of Attali’s short but astringent article, helpfully provided by Sign and Sight, we are told that he rids Germans of their most cherished illusions. “Germany is not head of the class of the Union, who winds up having to pay for the sins of all the others. Its public debt is close to 82 percent of its gross domestic product, practically as bad as France. Ten of its banks, all owned by the government, which provide twenty percent of the credit outside of the financial markets, are currently in very poor condition. Germany’s energy consumption will increasingly rely on Russian gas, which today represents 37 percent of its imports. Its demographics are so catastrophic, that Germany will already have less inhabitants than France in 2060, and 44 percent of the Germans are over 65 in comparison to 35 percent of the French, which will make it particularly difficult for Germany to repay its debts.” Over to you, Angie, if you dare.
"We are deeply ashamed," the German parliament declared in a joint statement issued on Tuesday condemning the crimes committed by a neo-Nazi terror cell. Photo: Der Spiegel / Michael Gottschalk / dapd
Here is part of the French original:
Elle n’est pas le bon élève de l’Union, qui refuse de payer pour les erreurs des autres. Sa dette publique est de 82% du PIB, pratiquement égale à la dette française; dix de ses banques, toutes publiques, qui fournissent 20% des crédits au secteur non financier allemand, sont en très mauvaise situation. Sa consommation d’énergie dépendra de plus en plus du gaz russe, qui représente 37% de ses importations. Sa démographie est catastrophique au point que, en 2060, il y aura moins d’Allemands que de Français et que 44% de la population allemande aura plus de 65 ans contre seulement 35% en France, ce qui rendra particulièrement difficile le remboursement de la dette publique allemande. Enfin, l’avenir de l’industrie allemande n’est pas si prometteur qu’elle le croit: selon une récente étude anglaise, sur les 100 entreprises les plus innovantes du monde, 11 sont françaises et seulement 4 sont allemandes.
What is it about Deutschland, Germans and the idea of Europe that invariably gets all tangled up in knots? Eurozine has presented an interview, originally carried by the magazine Esprit, with Jan-Werner Müller who talks about “German contradictions”.
This situation now has to be addressed by leaders who are clearly not great believers in moral-historical justifications for European unity, and who often obfuscate the issues: Germany’s foreign minister has just called for ‘more Europe’ while a Christian Democratic minister recently even demanded the creation of the ‘United States of Europe’ – without saying what in practice this would mean. So I fear that Germany has no real road map of how it wants to relate to Europe, other than preserving what has already been achieved in the way of economic gains and personal freedoms (e.g. travel), while at the same time minimizing the costs.
To be sure, there are also some voices who advocate a much more assertive global role for Germany in conjunction with core Europe (of course France in particular) – for instance the political theorist Herfried Münkler, who in a recent article in Der Spiegel openly expressed his concern that Europe is being destroyed by its periphery (e.g. Greece), instead of adopting a global strategy to increase its power. He explicitly called for ‘all power to the centre’ so as to re-empower European elites and for Germany to exercise more leadership, rather than hoping for some illusory democratization of the EU as it is. This is a coherent stance that may well become attractive for a German government, especially if the current approach of muddling through makes neither Germans nor other Europeans really happy – and fails to solve the Euro crisis.
Quiet numbers tell district tales – rural and urban India, part 2
Street scene in a northern Mumbai (Bombay) suburb
The urban-centric bias of the Government of India and its principal ministries and agencies has influenced national policy for the last two Plan periods, and is a tendency that will continue for at least the duration of the 12th Plan and possibly beyond, for as long as the fixation with high annual economic growth rate continues.
Yet, if there are 53 cities whose populations are a million residents and more, and these are considered essential for the stimulation of economic efficiencies, then there are 355 districts whose rural populations are a million residents and more, whose agricultural outputs and surpluses not only provide them livelihoods, but feed the favoured residents of 53 million-plus cities and of 7,935 towns.
That is why it is worth examining, in greater detail, these rural districts and the people who inhabit them, insofar as the small data sets released by the Census of India 2011 will allow. The first indication that measures of the rural population describe an India quite different, in movement and settlement, from the force that shapes towns and cities is seen in the composition of the top of the list.
Slum settlement in north Mumbai (Bombay). There were malnutrition deaths of children in this particular slum in 2010. Behind looms the largest waste dump for this enormous city.
There are no familiar metropolitan names here, no powerful centres of commerce and influence which are so commonly found in contemporary reportage of the Indian condition. Of the 30 districts with the most rural populations, there are 8 in West Bengal, 8 in Bihar, 8 in Uttar Pradesh, 2 in Andhra Pradesh, 3 in Maharashtra and 1 in Karnataka. Of the top five West Bengal has 4 – South 24 Parganas (6.06 million), Murshidabad (5.69 million), Paschim Medinipur (5.22 million), Barddhaman (4.64 million) and Bihar’s Purba Champaran ranks fifth (4.68 million).
These districts and their rural residents describe India’s dependence on its diverse agricultural systems, its natural resources, its stock of traditional knowledge. The list of the top 10 districts with the highest rural populations is completed with Purba Medinipur (West Bengal), Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh), Madhubani (Bihar), Muzaffarpur (Bihar) and North 24 Parganas (West Bengal). The 30 districts with the largest rural populations have between 3.43 and 6.06 million residents in each.
Their historicity as the locus of population density in the subcontinent – as recorded in the early census reports from the late-19th century onwards, and described in lyrical detail in the Census of 1911 – has been overtaken by the market that the 53 million-plus cities represent, and the reckless pampering of urban growth at the expense of rural resilience. There ought not to have been a battle for financial resources between the 160.5 million residents of the million-plus cities, and the 693.9 million rural residents of the million-plus districts – but that is the bias with which the 12th Plan will approach both constituencies of Indians.
Lower income group housing in Mumbai (Bombay). Such housing is a small step up only from living in a slum as water is scarce, sanitation is poor and waste disposal is usually absent.
Odious as the urban flavour to national planning is, rural transformation and conurbation has been a feature of demographic change in India for well over a century. One hundred years ago exactly, the report of the Census of India 1911 attempted to encompass the dimensions of such change. “With the spread of railways and the general improvement in means of communication, the smaller towns are growing in importance as distributing centres, but the process is a slow one and comparatively little progress in this direction has yet been made,” said the section on ‘Area, Population and Density’ in Volume I of this landmark census. “The small market town so common in Europe and America is rarely found in India. Nor as a rule do the smaller Indian towns possess the other amenities associated with urban life in Europe, such as a better class of schools and public institutions of various kinds.”
[This is the second of a small series of postings on rural and urban India, which reproduces material from my analysis of Census 2011 data on India’s rural and urban populations, published by Infochange India. See the first in the series here.]
Fotografias de Dili, Timor-Leste
Update: a few more photographs in the gallery, take a look.
A small gallery of photographs from Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste.
Dili, storefronts
Quiet numbers tell district tales – rural and urban India, part 1
South Mumbai, from a foot overbridge at the busy Nana Chowk junction, looking towards Tardeo.
The regular release of data by the Census of India is slowly building up the picture of human development and social sector gaps over the last decade. When read together with the large body of field and social science study on national and state experiences with development routes, the insights that Census 2011 provides can be a powerful tool for planning and public participation.
New data on urban and rural populations, gender ratios on literacy and in the 0-6 years population bands are already providing early indicators of leading and lagging districts, building up a detailed picture of how each of the country’s 640 districts is faring.
Data from early and provisional Census 2011 releases has led most commonly to comparisons of urban size, the speed of urbanisation that has taken place in the leading economic clusters of India, and has prompted forecasts about the size of India’s economy based on the trend of continuing population growth in existing and new urban centres.
This however is only a part of the Census 2011 picture. The numbers are provisional and their verification is a slow process, to culminate in the district level handbooks which will contain the primary census abstracts for every panchayat and block in India.
Rickshaw pullers in Delhi, near a Ring Road junction leading to Hauz Khas, take a break for a drink of water and a chat.
With the data releases coming during the final stages of the consultation rounds for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17), the Census has the potential to inform and guide the policy-making process, provided of course the correct inferences are drawn from what is available.
The vast numbers which characterise the Indian census lead the popular focus to the immense scale of demographic movement in the country, which can be seen in the increase, from 2001, in the urban population from 286.1 million to 377.1 million, in the rapid addition to the already large group of towns in India, from 5,161 in 2001 to 7,935 in 2011 – an astonishing addition which has meant the transformation, at the rough rate of five a week for 10 years running, of 2,774 settlements into towns, however loosely the term ‘town’ is used.
Children entering their classrooms in the morning, East Delhi.
Less impressive numerically but very significant economically is the increase, in the last 10 years, of the number of urban agglomerations. For the Census, an urban agglomeration is a continuous urban spread comprising one or more towns and their adjoining outgrowths. These have increased in number from 384 in 2001 to 475 in 2011 and are 91 chaotic, new, barely-municipal reminders that the flow of people from rural tehsils to urban wards has strengthened even further in the last decade. The central government sees much good in this transformation, and foregrounds the economic benefits of this change by employing a one-way lens.
What happens when such a lens is used to assess such a change can be seen in its treatment by the ‘Approach Paper to the Twelfth Five Year Plan’, finalised by the Planning Commission of India in August 2011 and released in September. “It is well known,” said the Approach Paper, “that agglomeration and densification of economic activities (and habitations) in urban conglomerations stimulates economic efficiencies and provides more opportunities for earning livelihoods. Possibilities for entrepreneurship and employment increase when urban concentration takes place, in contrast to the dispersed and less diverse economic possibilities in rural areas.”
[This is the first of a small series of postings on rural and urban India, which reproduces material from my analysis of Census 2011 data on India’s rural and urban populations, published by Infochange India.]
The EU crisis pocket guide
The Transnational Institute has produced a terrific pocket guide on the financial crisis in the European Union, called, not surprisingly, ‘The EU Crisis Pocket Guide’. It’s a very handy alternative to reading about 257,000 words of confusing and jargon-heavy tripe authoritative commentary written by hopelessly compromised economist-blokes commentators and observers of the financial scene.
‘The EU Crisis Pocket Guide’ tells you, as straight as a punch to the chin, how a crisis made in Wall Street was made worse by EU policies, how it has enriched the 1% to the detriment of the 99%. It doesn’t stop at that – quite unlike the boring and largely clueless economist blokes who take great delight in pointing out a problem but have little to say about how to solve it, keeping the 99% in mind.
In keeping with the civilised socialist tendency therefore, ‘The EU Crisis Pocket Guide’ outlines some possible solutions that prioritise people and the environment above corporate profits.
You are well encouraged to download the booklet from these links:
Pocket guide: 12 page (PDF, 403KB) or Pocket guide: 8 page (PDF, 399KB)
What ‘The EU Crisis Pocket Guide’ contains: How a private debt crisis was turned into a public debt crisis and an excuse for austerity; The way the rich and bankers benefited while the vast majority lost out; The devastating social consequences of austerity; The European Union’s response to the crisis: more austerity, more privatisation, less democracy; Ten alternatives put forward by civil society groups to put people and the environment before corporate greed; Resources for further information.
I am much obliged to the peerless Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal for calling our attention to this absolute gem of a guidebook. Links, if you didn’t already know, promotes the exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. You are well advised to read it regularly.
Here are some of the eye-openers from this Pocket Guide, things we suspected but which the dibbly-dobbly economist blokes and their corporate sponsors never admitted:
Much of the so-called debt crisis was caused not by states spending too much, but because they bailed out the banks and speculators. European Union government debt had actually fallen from 72% of GDP in 1999 to 67% in 2007. It rose rapidly after they bailed out the banks in 2008. Ireland’s bank bailout cost them 30% of their national output (GDP) and pushed debts to record levels.
As austerity cuts swept Europe, the numbers of the wealthy in Europe with more than $1 million in cash actually rose in 2010 by 7.2% to 3.1 million people. Together they are worth US$10.2 trillion. The five biggest banks in Europe made profits of €28 billion in 2010. There are 15,000 professional lobbyists in Brussels, the vast majority of them representing big business.
European Union’s answers to the problem? More austerity. In the UK, 490,000 public sector jobs are being cut; in Ireland, wages for low paid workers have been reduced; in Lithuania the government plans to cut public spending by 30%. The EU is planning to impose requirements by 2013 that means that no European member state countries can have a budget deficit of more than 3% of GDP or a public debt of more than 60% of GDP which will mean even more austerity.
Alternatives from the 99% – Clearly, there is a strong need to break with the dangerous free market fundamentalism that has created and worsened a social crisis of vast proportions. Here are some proposals for alternatives – put forward by many civil society groups – that could create a fairer and more just world.
FAO 2011 October Food Index down, food prices still up, what’s going on?
FAO has released its Food Price Index for October 2011, saying the index has dropped dropped to an 11-month low, declining 4 percent, or nine points, to 216 points from September. Indeed the index has dropped, declined and has certainly not risen. But does this mean food prices for the poor in many countries, for labour, for informal workers, for cultivators too – has the cost of food dropped for any of them?
The answer is a flat and unequivocal ‘No’. FAO has said so too: “Nonetheless prices still remain generally higher than last year and very volatile.” At the same time, the Rome-based food agency has said that the “drop was triggered by sharp declines in international prices of cereals, oils, sugar and dairy products”.
The FAO has said that an “improved supply outlook for a number of commodities and uncertainty about global economic prospects is putting downward pressure on international prices, although to some extent this has been offset by strong underlying demand in emerging countries where economic growth remains robust”.
Once again, the FAO is speaking in two or more voices. It should stop doing so. A very small drop in its food price index does not – repeat, does not – indicate that prices for food staples in the world’s towns and cities has dropped and people can afford to buy and cook a square meal a day for themselves and their children. Not so at all.
I am going to contrast what FAO has said about its October food price index with very recent reportage about food and food price conditions in various parts of the world.
FAO: “In the case of cereals, where a record harvest is expected in 2011, the general picture points to prices staying relatively firm, although at reduced levels, well into 2012. International cereal prices have declined in recent months, with the FAO Cereal Price Index registering an eleven month-low of 232 points in October. But nonetheless cereal prices, on average, remain 5 percent higher than last year’s already high level.”
Business Week reported that rising food prices in Djibouti have left 88 percent of the nation’s rural population dependent on food aid, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network said. A ban on charcoal and firewood production, which provides about half of the income of poor people in the country’s southeast region, may further increase hunger, the Washington- based agency, known as Fewsnet, said in an e-mailed statement today. Average monthly food costs for a poor urban family are about 33,907 Djibouti francs ($191), about 12,550 francs more than the average household income, Fewsnet said. Urban residents in the Horn of Africa nation don’t receive food aid, it said.
FAO: “According to [FAO’s November 2011] Food Outlook prices generally remain ‘extremely volatile’, moving in tandem with unstable financial and equity markets. ‘Fluctuations in exchange rates and uncertainties in energy markets are also contributing to sharp price swings in agricultural markets,’ FAO Grains Analyst Abdolreza Abbassian noted.”
A Reuters AlertNet report quoted Brendan Cox, Save the Children’s policy and advocacy director, having said that rising food prices are making it impossible for some families to put a decent meal on the table, and that the G20 meeting [currently under way in Cannes, France] must use this summit to agree an action plan to address the food crisis. Malnutrition contributes to nearly a third of child deaths. One in three children in the developing world are stunted, leaving them weak and less likely to do well at school or find a job. Prices of staples like rice and wheat have increased by a quarter globally and maize by three quarters, Save the Children says. Some countries have been particularly hard hit. In Bangladesh the price of wheat increased by 45 percent in the second half of 2010. In new research, Save the Children analysed the relationship between rising food prices and child deaths. It concluded that a rise in cereal prices – up 40 percent between 2009 and 2011 – could put 400,000 children’s lives at risk.
FAO: “Most agricultural commodity prices could thus remain below their recent highs in the months ahead, according to FAO’s biannual Food Outlook report also published today. The publication reports on and analyzes developments in global food and feed markets. In the case of cereals, where a record harvest is expected in 2011, the general picture points to prices staying relatively firm, although at reduced levels, well into 2012.”
IRIN News reported that food production is expected to be lower than usual in parts of western Niger, Chad’s Sahelian zone, southern Mauritania, western Mali, eastern Burkina Faso, northern Senegal and Nigeria, according to a report by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and a separate assessment by USAID’s food security monitor Fews Net. “We are worried because these irregular rainfalls have occurred in very vulnerable areas where people’s resilience is already very weakened,” said livelihoods specialist at WFP Jean-Martin Bauer. Many Sahelian households live in a state of chronic food insecurity, he said. “They are the ones with no access to land, lost livestock, without able-bodied men who can find work in cities – they are particularly affected by a decrease in production.” A government-NGO April 2011 study in 14 agro-pastoral departments of Niger noted that pastoralists with small herds lost on average 90 percent of their livestock in the 2009-2010 drought, while those with large herds lost one quarter. Those who had lost the bulk of their assets have already reduced the quality and quantity of food they are consuming.
FAO: “Food Outlook forecast 2011 cereal production at a record 2 325 million tonnes, 3.7 percent above the previous year. The overall increase comprises a 6.0 percent rise in wheat production, and increases of 2.6 percent for coarse grains and 3.4 percent for rice. Globally, annual cereal food consumption is expected to keep pace with population growth, remaining steady at about 153 kg per person.”
The Business Line reported that in India, food inflation inched up to 11.43 per cent in mid-October, sharply higher than the previous week’s annual rise of 10.6 per cent, mainly on account of the statistical base effect of the previous year. Inflation in the case of non-food items and the fuels group, however, eased during the latest reported week. According to data released by the Government on Thursday, an increase in the year-on-year price levels of vegetables and pulses contributed to the surge in the annual WPI-based food inflation for the week ended October 15, apart from the base effect. Sequentially food inflation was up 0.25 per cent.
FAO: “The continuing decline in the monthly value of the FAO Cereal Price Index reflects this year’s prospect for a strong production recovery and slow economic growth in many developed countries weighing on overall demand, particularly from the feed and biofuels sectors.”
Al Ahram reported that Egyptian household budgets had mixed news in September with prices for some basic foods tumbling month-on-month and others showing small climbs, according to state statistics agency CAPMAS. Figures released this week show the price of local unpacked rice fell 15.6 per cent to LE4.96 per kilo between August and September 2011. It was the commodity’s first decline in nearly a year, although the per kilo price remains 68 per cent higher than the LE2.95 that rice cost in October 2010. Chicken also fell 5.8 per cent to LE16.26 per kilo between August and September. Other staples, however, continued to rise; the price of potatoes climbed 14 per cent to LE4.89 per kilo, while a kilo of tomatoes gained a monthly 14.8 per cent to cost LE4.65.
At 21, the Human Development Report and its message of equity in 2011
Today, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will release its 2011 Human Development Report, the 21st in the annual series that lets us know how well – or not – the populations in countries are doing. Whether on education, health, income, poverty, cost-of-living the human development indices are now well-constructed and evolved measures of the well-being of people. Today, we’ll know a little more about how 7 billion people live on our Earth.
This year’s ediition is called ‘Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All’. The HDR website has said the report will call for the urgent global challenges of sustainability and equity to be addressed together – and that the 2011 HDR identifies policies on the national and global level that could spur mutually reinforcing progress towards these interlinked goals.
These introductory articles are uniformly boring and uniformly useless to all those who deal with real questions, hard quetions and tough decisions every day. They say things like “bold action is needed if the recent human development progress for most of the world’s poor majority is to be sustained” and things like “the benefit of future generations as well as for those living today”.
The excitingly squiggly colourful HDI lines that debuted in 2010
This is irritating, but has become part of the HDI furniture. For some perverse reason top politicians and top UN agency muckamucks seem unwilling to cut the waffling and get on with it. Anyway. we’re interested in the rest of the report, the data, the statistics, the methodologies, the background studies and a whole bunch of related research – so that’s what this and related HDI posts will dwell on in the weeks to come.
The HDR website has mentioned that the 2011 report will talk about living standards. Here’s a sentence I want to read more about when the big package opens up: “Yet the 2011 Report projects a disturbing reversal of those trends if environmental deterioration and social inequalities continue to intensify, with the least developed countries diverging downwards from global patterns of progress by 2050.” What are the numbers that led to this prickly insight, I would very much like to see.
Look for these in the 2011 edition:
UNDP HDR 2011 International Consultations
UNDP HDR 2011 Advisory Panels
UNDP HDR 2011 Human Development Seminars
UNDP HDR 2011 Commissioned Research
Let’s look back. A year ago, in 2010 November, UNDP when releasing the HDR 2010 said that “most developing countries made dramatic yet often underestimated progress in health, education and basic living standards in recent decades, with many of the poorest countries posting the greatest gains”. HDR 2010 cautioned that “patterns of achievement vary greatly, with some countries losing ground since 1970”.
Overall, HDR 2010 showed that life expectancy climbed from 59 years in 1970 to 70 in 2010, school enrolment rose from just 55 percent of all primary and secondary school-age children to 70 percent, and per capita GDP doubled to more than US$10,000 (sorry, but this last is a particularly meaningless number). Life expectancy, for example, rose by 18 years in the Arab states between 1970 and 2010, compared to eight years in sub-Saharan Africa. The 135 cuntries studied include 92 percent of the world’s population.
The visual designing coup of 2010
Within the pattern of overall global progress, the variation among countries is striking, said HDR 2010. Over the past 40 years – that is, tilll 2010 – the lowest performing 25 percent experienced less than a 20 percent improvement in HDI performance, while the top-performing group averaged gains of 54 percent. Yet as a group, the quartile of countries at the bottom of the HDI scale in 1970 improved faster than those then at the top, with an average gain of 61 percent. Somewhat zanily, HDR 2010 then advised us that “the diverse national pathways to development documented … show that there is no single formula for sustainable progress”. Umm, we did somehow notice that, all by ourselves actually.
What was enormously useful in HDR 2010 were three new indices that the world’s rambunctious and usually argumentative development community has still not grasped firmly with opposable thumbs. These are:
• The Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) – For the first time, this year’s Report examines HDI data through the lens of inequality, adjusting HDI achievements to reflect disparities in income, health and education. The HDI alone, as a composite of national averages, hides disparities within countries, so these adjustments for inequality provide a fuller picture of people’s well-being.
• The Gender Inequality Index (GII) – The 2010 Report introduces a new measure of gender inequities, including maternal mortality rates and women’s representation in parliaments. The Gender Inequality Index is designed to measure the negative human development impact of deep social and economic disparities between men and women.
• The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) – this is the equivalent of the 400-pound gorilla for all HDI-related stuff – it complements income-based poverty assessments by looking at multiple factors at the household level, from basic living standards to access to schooling, clean water and health care. About 1.7 billion people—fully a third of the population in the 104 countries included in the MPI—are estimated to live in multidimensional poverty, more than the estimated 1.3 billion who live on $1.25 a day or less.
So, while waiting for the goodies from HDR 2011, there are some questions that still smoulder from earlier editions. Here’s one: what does the evidence from the past 40 years tell us about the relationship between growth and changes in human development? The two-panel chart which accompanies this post (below) presents the basic result. The left panel shows a positive association — though with substantial variation — suggesting that growth and improvements in human development are positively associated.
Remember, however, that income is part of the HDI; thus, by construction, a third of the changes in the HDI come from economic growth, guaranteeing a positive association. That’s why a far more useful exercise is to compare income growth with changes in the non-income dimensions of human development (gift economies would be wonderful subjects). This has been done using an index similar to the HDI but calculated with only the health and education indicators of the HDI to compare its changes with economic growth. The non-income HDI is presented in the right panel of the chart – looking for the correlation? Remarkably weak and statistically insignificant, as they said so themselves.
That will deliver a smart kick in the collected pants of the G20 muckamucks when they assemble (what? again!) in France (Cannes) for a new episode of creative bullshitting fiscal sophistry. But, here’s the strange thing. Previous studies have found the same result. One of the first scholars to study this link systematically was US demographer Samuel Preston, whose landmark 1975 article showed that the correlation between changes in income and changes in life expectancy over 30 years for 30 countries was not statistically significant. As ideas such as ‘sustainability’ and ‘environmental’ began gaining traction from the early 1970s onwards – think ‘Limits to Growth‘ – more data became available, and other researchers obtained the same result. In a 1999 article, ‘Life during Growth‘, William Easterly found a remarkably weak association between growth and quality of life indicators such as health, education, political freedom, conflict and inequality. Easterly’s work was ignored by the bankers and their compradors for years thereafter.
Next, François Bourguignon, director of the Paris School of Economics, and several African and European colleagues concluded that “the correlation between GDP per capita growth and nonincome [Millennium Development Goals] is practically zero”. That should have been turned into a poster and hung on the wall of every bloody finance minstry from Abuja to Auckland. More recently, World Bank economist Charles Kenny recently confirmed the lack of correlation between improvements in life expectancy and growth, using both a large sample of countries over 25 years and a smaller sample covering a much longer period. I advise his still-serving colleagues to dust off his file and read his work, for the first time for them.
Well, ’nuff said. Let’s wait till the HDR 2011 starts streaming towards us, tweets and video and all.
Shaktichakra, the wheel of energies 