18 September 20, 2013 244.6% Rise in Onion Prices The uptick of wholesale prices to a six month high of 6.1% in August, largely fuelled by a 244.6% increase in onion prices, is bad news for the economy. Not only does it set back hopes of a rate cut to boost investments in the monetary policy review by the RBI at the end of the week, it also highlights the government’s continuing inability to manage the food economy and rein in volatility of food prices. Blaming bad weather doesn’t cut much ice. The rising prices of essential food items like rice despite good monsoons are mainly due to the large stocks accumulated to meet the needs of the food security Act. The continuous increase in minimum support prices for rice and wheat by the government has also proved counterproductive as it has discouraged a shift in cropping patterns to vegetables or the diversification of production to livestock, fish and poultry. Consequently, prices of vegetables and high protein foods like milk, eggs, fish and meat have shot up, making them unaffordable to the poor. Inadequate storage facilities and the failure to modernise the food supply chain have also added to the problem. Curbing volatility in food prices and improving supply would require strong measures by both state and Union governments. States have to reform the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee Act to allow for contract farming, direct marketing and setting up markets in the private sector. Adequate credit has to be ensured for setting up cold storage chains. The bias against large organised retailers, including foreign chains, has to be dropped. Given their global supply chains, they would have cooled domestic prices by realigning their procurement orders. The government should also shift to direct cash transfers from food subsidies, thus reducing the need to build huge stocks. It is pertinent that onion prices have remained high for almost a year with no signs of an end to the supply shortage. A kitchen staple across the country, the price of the bulb is not only linked to the health of the economy but also to political fortunes. It will be recalled that soaring onion prices had cost the BJP government in Delhi in the 1998 elections. With assembly polls only a few months away, the onion could come back again to sting political ambitions. While addressing the convocation of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Bhubaneswar’s Centre for Management recently, President Pranab Mukherjee remarked on the deteriorating state of the economy. The rupee had depreciated by 18%, there was high food inflation and manufacturing growth had slowed down, he pointed out. The President’s critical observations did not escape the government. Congresspersons feared it reflected Mukherjee’s annoyance that some sections in the Congress had been trying to blame the downslide in the economy on the policies taken by the government during 2009-12, when Mukherjee was finance minister. The Congress is keen to clear up the misunderstandings and hurt feelings on this score and to keep the President in good humor. Times of India
EDITORIAL
Smiling Amongst the Haters BY SUSHILA RAO Here’s the silver lining to the xenophobic and inappropriate tweets after Nina Davuluri became the first Indian-American to win the crown: people are talking about diversity and inclusiveness. Presciently enough, that’s basically what Nina Davuluri wanted. Miss America hopefuls must espouse a platform that will become the overarching theme for their yearlong speaking tour, if they win. Miss Davuluri’s platform is “celebrating diversity through cultural competency”. In other words, she wants to promote effective interaction in cross-cultural contexts. The offensive tweets directed at Miss Davuluri followed the predictable trend of an obnoxious but vocal minority airing its discomfiting kneejerk reactions. What made her antagonists particularly galling – and spectacularly culturally incompetent – was the multiple levels of indiscriminate hostility that they exhibited. Was it her skin color (brown=not American enough) that rankled? Or was it an expression of misdirected contempt for working-class, brownskinned immigrants (hence, the 7-11 and motel owner jibes)? Were her detractors blithely equating brown people with terrorism, with the alarming suppositions that brown=Arab=Al Qaeda=terrorist? It was certainly a show of American stupidity that some couldn’t figure out Davuluri is of Indian descent, not exactly a nation on the US terrorism watchlist. These Twitter trolls don’t merit any more publicity. However, showcasing and shaming them serves a purpose. Herein lies the enduring genius of America’s free speech model: hate speech sows the seeds of its own destruction by spawning a valuable backlash. It propels the US towards a better place as it strives to be a “post racial” society. But here’s something else we should be talking about: such blinkered reactions to unconventional beauty role models are hardly unique to America. In recent times, pageants have become a veritable
India’s Euro-centric beauty standards have arguably been even worse. Some question whether Miss Davuluri would even have a chance to win Miss India because of her dark skin tone. battleground for exposing and enforcing mainstream notions of national and ethnic identities. In Vladimir Putin’s fair Russia, Miss Russia 2013 – ethnic Tatar beauty Elmira Abdrazakova – was barraged with thousands of hate messages and ethnic slurs from alleged Russian nationalists. Accused of “not looking Slavic enough”, Miss Abdrazakova eventually shut down her social media pages. Some detractors demanded a ban on ethnic Tatars and Shors from participating in beauty contests, and others decreed, “a gypsy woman cannot be the face of Russia”. One critic obligingly explained that owing to her “oriental parts of face”, Miss Abdrazakova could aspire to be Miss Uzbekistan or Miss Tajikistan, but not Miss Russia, which apparently requires a European countenance. Meanwhile, in Fiji in 2012, a mixed-ethnicity Miss Fiji with straight hair was castigated for not being “Fijian enough”. The choice
of Torrika Waters, who is partEuropean and part-Fijian, was denounced by many indigenous Fijians, who felt that her mixed heritage did not represent Fiji accurately. She was also criticized for not having a buiniga, the colloquial term for the naturally frizzy hair indigenous to Fiji. And what of staggeringly diverse India, where public reaction has oscillated between euphoria about Miss Davuluri’s breakthrough, and scorn for “bigotry” endemic in America? India’s Euro-centric beauty standards have arguably been even worse. Some question whether Miss Davuluri would even have a chance to win Miss India because of her dark skin tone. Moreover, xenophobia and racial profiling of Indians from the north of the country – whose features are often distinctive from the majority of India’s population – is rampant. There is not one prominent mainstream film actress of northeastern descent. Make no mistake; in the 60-year-long history of Miss India, there hasn’t been one northeastern winner, or even one who deviates from the (relatively) light-skinned prototype. And let’s not pretend that a nonconventional Miss India wouldn’t elicit debilitating backlash. Slurs like “blackie” and “chinkie” for fellow Indians are routinely used without provocation, without inhibition, and importantly, without repercussion. While in school, I recall teachers and strangers alike accosting an Indian classmate with dark skin and a curly mane of hair, inquiring whether she was visiting “from Africa”. Granted, “racism” has unique connotations in India, which is beset with starker linguistic, caste and communal divisions, but the overarching point stands: seeking to represent “authentic” Indian beauty abroad continues to be an exclusionary enterprise. The national conversation after Miss Davuluri’s win has turned into a teachable moment. Let’s hope other nations, including India, are also learning this lesson. Guardian
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