India-Arab Trade+GM Food & Doctors+ORGANICS+TOBACCO+Renewable Energy

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NEWS Bulletin from Indian Society For Sustainable Agriculture And Rural Development

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1. India-Arab trade to rise to $100 bn

 

On GMOs & ORGANICS----

2. Docs meet Ramadoss over GM food issue

3. BioFach events may help India to boost its organic exports

 

On TOBACCO---

4. Government postpones implementation of pictorial warnings on tobacco products till May ’09

 

6. Fertiliser industry seeks freedom, timely subsidy

 

On RENEWABLE ENERGY----

7. Powering the northeast region -- Promoting energy generation from new and renewable sources

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India-Arab trade to rise to $100 bn

 

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/indiaarab-trade-to-rise-to-100-bn/393351/0 ASHOK B SHARMAPosted: 2008-12-02 23:24:30+05:30 ISTUpdated: Dec 02, 2008 at 2324 hrs IST

 

New Delhi, Dec 2 : India's trade with the Arab world will receive a shot in the arm with the launch today of the India-Arab Forum for cooperation even as the Indian external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherjee and the Secretary General of the League of Arab States, Amre Moussa, agreed that bilateral trade had the potential to increase much beyond the the last year's level of $30 billion

 

Moussa said "Minister Mukherjee talked about $500-600 billion in trade and investment. I would venture to talk about reaching the goal of $100 billion in the coming two to four years if we continue to progress in the same active pace." Both leaders, however agreed that the bilateral trade can further increase to $500 billion in 10 years.

 

Inaugurating the six-day long India-Arab Forum – Partnership through Culture, Mukherjee declared: "We believe the Forum will emerge as a mechanism to strengthen and diversify our relations in various fields such as culture, trade, energy and human resources. The brick that we have laid today will be transformed into an edifice which does justice to our close and long-standing relations".

 

The Forum is organised by the apex industry body, FICCI, Indian ministry of external affairs and the League of Arab States.

 

Expressing India's unstinted support for the Palestinian cause, Mukherjee voiced concern at the lack of progress in the peace talks. In this context, he underlined the need to take the Arab peace initiative forward. "The end of the year, the target date for a settlement, is already upon us and there does not seem to have been much progress….We feel that Annapolis process needs to be taken forward".

 

He said : "nearly five million Indians live in the Arab world and it is a matter of great satisfaction and pride for us that Indians have contributed significantly to the development of the countries which they rightly consider as their second home. Increasingly, the profile of the Indian community in this region is changing and today almost 20% of Indians are professionals."

 

Moussa, described the launch of the Arab-India Forum as marking "a new era in our relations in the spheres of political, energy, environment, media, science and technology, human resources, culture and education…..Today's event marks a new dawn towards effective, synergetic and strategic partnership".

 

The remarkable growth in the Indian economy and the Arab economies,

Moussa said had driven a huge interest in cross-border investments. In 2007-07, the total trade exchanges between India and the Arab countries – excluding oil trade – reached $30 billion from $8.8 billion in 2000. The vast complementarities in the areas of food, food processing, education, tourism, healthcare, construction, real estate, banking and financial sectors showed enormous potential for further deepening relations between India and the Arab world, he pointed out.

 

He said that Arab countries were now seeking to work closely with India in various fields of investment and trade. Arab countries, particularly the Gulf states had become a destination for Indian labour force whose number now exceeded four million working in various fields of production with remittances amounting to $24 billion, he said.

 

Moussa said that the signing of the Arab-India Cooperation Forum marked a new era in our relations in the political, economic and cultural fields as well as in trade, investment, energy, environment, media, science and technology, human resources development, culture and education. Through its plan of action, the Forum had set a framework of wide ranging activities in fields of cooperation such as the organization of an annual Arab-India Partnership Conference, frequent meetings of the heads of different universities in India and the Arab countries, an Arab-India festival that includes seminars, exhibitions, film festivals and cultural performances as well as the establishment of a joint high level committee to be convened at various levels to discuss bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual concern, he said.

 

He informed that the Arab summit scheduled in Kuwait in January 2009 would discuss economic, social and development issues with the aim of establishing programmes and practical mechanisms to effectively implement Arab development strategies. The three-day summit would discuss and identify the role of governments, private sector and the civil society organizations. It would discuss the impact of global financial crisis, projects pertaining to transport and movement of Arab investments and the need to set up Arab Customs Union in the near future in accordance with a set schedule. He said that the year 2010 would be declared as the Year of Arab-India Friendship. ---

 

 

Docs meet Ramadoss over GM food issue

 

www.financialexpress.com/news/Docs-meet-Ramadoss-over-GM-food-issue/394290/ ASHOK B SHARMAPosted: 2008-12-05 23:49:21+05:30 ISTUpdated: Dec 05, 2008 at 2349 hrs IST

 

New Delhi, Dec 4 : Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss is now faced with a new problem of have to resolve the issue of the release of genetically-modified (GM) food crops. A group of doctors from various areas of medical therapy have urged the minister to intervene and halt the release of GM food crops likely to pose health hazards.

 

The group under the umbrella - Doctors for Food and Bio-safety - in a memorandum to the minister said : “Bt brinjal is a first-of-its-kind food with the Bt gene and is allowed nowhere else in the world. Reports indicate that we are just a few months away from Bt brinjal coming on to our plates, if the biotech industry has its way. You are aware of the fact that some illegal GM food in the form of imported products have already been discovered in supermarket shelves in the countryâ€

 

Bt Brinjal has antibiotic (neomycin and streptomycin) resistance marker genes which when consumed can cause resistance to many life-saving drugs and make them ineffective, the group said. The doctors opposed the development of GM medicinal herbs like Jivanti (holostemma adakodien), Brahmi (bacopa monniera), Ashwagandha (witharia somnifera) and Creat - kariyat or Indian chinacea (andrographis paniculata).

 

Ramadoss has already been cornered by NGOs when the government recently soft-pedalled on the pressures from the tobacco industry and deferred implementation of pictorial warning on tobacco products. He also earned the ire of NGOs when the proposal for mandatory labeling of GM food recommended by the expert committee of stakeholders constituted by the health ministry was not implemented and referred to the newly set up Food Safety and Standards Authority for review. Ramadoss was in the centre of controversy in his face-off with the then director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, P Venugopal.

 

The group of doctors which included the president of Ayurvedic Medical Association of India, VG Udayakumar; National Siddha Pharmacopeia committee, Sivaraman; president, Orissa Homeopathic Druggists Association, RN Dutta; environmental epidemiologist, SG Kabra convener, Environmental Health Action Group, GPL Singh and director, Initiative for Health, Equity and Society, Mira Shiva alleged that health ministry representatives did not regularly attend meetings of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) which approved the trials and release of several GM crops. --

 

BioFach events may help India to boost its organic exports

 

www.financialexpress.com/news/BioFach-events-may-help-India-to-boost-its-organic-exports/392497/0 ASHOK B SHARMAPosted: 2008-12-01 23:36:24+05:30 ISTUpdated: Dec 01, 2008 at 2336 hrs IST

 

New Delhi, Nov 30 : Circa 2009 is likely witness a series of events across the world for promotion of organic products, which may afford India an opportunity to increase its share in the growing global market.

 

Growing by about $5 billion a year, the estimated size for the global organic market in 2007 was $40 billion. India's share of exports is only 0.02% and efforts are on to increase it to 0.25% in the next few years and to 2.5% by 2012.

 

The Germany-based BioFach is slated to organise a four-day global organic trade fair in Nuremberg beginning February 19, 2009. This would be followed by a three-day event in Mumbai from April 29 and a similar three-day event in Shanghai in China from May 27. BioFach's global organic trade fairs are also slated to be hosted in Boston in September 24-26, in Tokyo in October 7-9 and in Sao Paulo in Brazil in October 15-17.

 

"This is a unique opportunity for India to showcase its organic products and bag contracts for exports," said the executive director of MR Morarka Foundation, Mukesh Gupta. MR Morarka Foundation is one of the institutions in India engaged in promoting organic farming.

 

According to Organic Monitor, 30.4 million hectare land across the world are farmed organically. Australia has the largest area under organic farming at 12.3 million hectare followed by China at 2.3 million hectare, Argentina with 2.2 million hectare and the US with 1.6 million hectare.

 

India, at present, has a low recorded area under organic farming at only 340,000 hectare which is slated to increase to 2 million hectare by 2012, according to the estimates of the International Competence Centre for Organic Agriculture (ICCOA). Due to low recorded area under organic farming, only 580,000 tonne of organic products were certified in 2008-07 and the Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) recorded organic exports to the tune of 47 million euro.

 

India has a large area of cropped land, which is organic by default. A little over 40% of the cropped area is irrigated according to the government's estimate and only in these areas is chemical agriculture in vogue. The remaining 60% area has remained organic by default due practically due to no or negligible use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Farmers in these regions follow traditional farming practices. Particularly, Uttarakhand and north eastern India still follow traditional organic practices. No sincere efforts have been made to certify this 60% cropped area as organic. Had it been so, India could have topped other countries in area under organic farming.

 

Organic certification in India is largely governed by EU-recognised standards and the National Programme for Organic Production has accordingly evolved the procedures, which are implemented by APEDA. The standards formulated by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), Swiss and US standards are also implemented in India. The cost of certification is high and beyond the reach of ordinary farmers and for this reason, a system of group certification has been evolved. -----------

 

Government postpones implementation of pictorial warnings on tobacco products till May ’09

 

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/government-postpones-implementation-of-pictorial-warnings-on-tobacco-products-till-may-09/392499/ ASHOK B SHARMAPosted: 2008-12-01 23:37:51+05:30 ISTUpdated: Dec 01, 2008 at 2337 hrs IST

 

New Delhi, Nov 30 : The government has decided to defer the implementation of mandatory pictorial warnings on tobacco products, at least till the end of May 2009. Earlier, it was slated that the pictorial warning of health hazards would figure on all tobacco products from November 30, 2008.

 

According to an estimate, tobacco kills more than a million people in India and four to five million people worldwide every year. Implementation of pictorial warnings on tobacco products has been deferred at least seven times due to pressure from the industry. More than 70 cases were filed against the government's tobacco control policies in various courts across the country.

 

The group of ministers (GoM) headed by the external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherjee had agreed for two mild images of a scorpion signal depicting cancer or an x-ray plate of a man suffering from lung cancer as pictorial warnings to deter people from smoking.

 

These pictorial warnings provide smokers with helpful information on health effects. Later, the GoM met again in an emergency meeting to review its decision a week before the pictorial warnings provision was about to become mandatory Apart from Pranab Mukherjee, the information and broadcasting minister, PR Dasmunsi, minister of state for labour and employment, Oscar Fernandes, commerce and industry minister, Kamal Nath, culture and urban development minister, Jaipal Reddy and health and family welfare minister, Anbumani Ramadoss, constitute the GoM.

 

It is not that India is the only country ready to take the initiative for mandatory warnings on tobacco products. Several nations have implemented strong health warning label requirements. Canada's health minister recently proposed enlarging the labels from 30% of the package face to 60%. In Thailand, the label carries the message - Smoking Causes Impotence. Australia was the first nation to require that "how to quit" information be printed on every pack. South Africa, Singapore and Poland also have strong warning labels.

 

As per the World Health Organization's (WHO) MPOWER Report (2008), despite conclusive evidence, relatively few tobacco users understand the full extent of their health risk. Graphic warnings on tobacco packaging deter tobacco use, yet only 15 countries, representing 6% of the world's population, mandate pictorial warnings (covering at least 30% of the principal surface area) and just five countries, with a little over 4% of the world's people, meet the highest standards for pack warnings. -----

 

Fertiliser industry seeks freedom, timely subsidy

 

www.financialexpress.com/news/Fertiliser-industry-seeks-freedom-timely-subsidy/393508/ ASHOK B SHARMAPosted: 2008-12-03 00:57:21+05:30 ISTUpdated: Dec 03, 2008 at 0057 hrs IST

 

New Delhi, Dec 2 : The fertiliser industry has urged the government to free the industry from the clutches of trade controls. Pending the finalization of a proposal for effective reduction of regulation of the industry, the government should offer timely subsidy in cash. The subsidy bill should be raised to over Rs 1,00,000 crore and there should be no further issue of bonds in lieu of cash, members of the industry said.

 

According to a study done by the Fertiliser Association of India (FAI), “The subsidy of about Rs 70,000 crore released so far in 2008-09 is grossly inadequate to meet the estimated need of over Rs 1,00,000 crore. The decline in global prices could have resulted in reduced subsidy requirement for the year. But the depreciation in the value of rupee in comparison to dollar has taken away most of the gains arising out of reduction in international prices.â€

 

FAI said that as subsidy constituted 80% of the total delivered cost, it needed to be released in time.

 

The total consumption of nitrogen, phosphate and potash fertilisers reached an all-time high of about 23 million tonne in 2007-08. In 2008-09, fertilser consumption is expected to grow by 7%. Stagnant domestic production of nitrogen and phosphate fertilisers against a sharp increase in demand resulted in a steep increase in imports since 2004-05.

 

The import of urea increased from 0.6 million tonne in 2004-05 to a record high of 6.93 million tonne in 2007-08, while the import of DAP increased from 0.6 million tonne to 2.7 million tonne. A small amount of DAP is produced in the country as raw material - rock phosphate - available from domestic sources meet only 10% of the manufacturing needs. About 90% of rock phosphate are imported by the industry for producing DAP. Industry also imports some raw materials for producing urea. The entire amount of MoP fertilizers is imported.

 

Another reason for stagnant fertiliser production is that no new investment has been made in the sector. FAI has called for a scheme for conversion of fuel oil-based plants to gas or LNG based units.The data relating to freight need to be updated and permissible increases need to be reflected in the notified freight rates under the uniform freight policy.

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Powering the northeast region

 

Promoting energy generation from new and renewable sources

 

www.financialexpress.com/news/Powering-the-northeast-region/392896/ ASHOK B SHARMAPosted: 2008-12-02 23:35:03+05:30 ISTUpdated: Dec 02, 2008 at 2335 hrs IST

 

Rural electrification in the remote northeastern region of the country, including Sikkim, poses a great challenge. Some initial efforts have been made by promoting energy generation from new and renewable sources, but more needs to be done.

 

So far, 708 remote villages and hamlets have been electrified through renewable sources and projects in 1,167 remote villages and hamlets are under implementation in various northeastern states. The Rural Electrification Corporation has identified 2,710 remote villages and hamlets where grid connectivity is neither feasible nor cost-effective. The state governments have been requested to prepare proposals for electrification of these villages.

 

A special 10% budgetary allocation has been made by the Union government for the electrification of the northeastern region under various renewable energy programmes since 1997-98. Rs 48.3 crore was allocated in 2007-08 as budgetary support. Small hydropower projects are also being developed both in grid-connected as well as decentralised mode for which a special incentive package has been developed. So far, 126 small hydropower projects with an aggregate capacity of 185 mw have been set up in the region and 77 projects aggregating 93 mw are under implementation.

 

In 2007-08, seven new projects of 8 mw aggregate capacity were sanctioned in Arunachal Pradesh. One existing project in Manipur, Gelnel, of 300 kw capacity has been taken up for renovation and modernisation. A number of electricity generating water mills and pico hydro projects are being set up in villages of Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Manipur. Assam has announced a policy for setting up small hydropower projects involving the private sector.

 

Solar photovoltaic (SPV)-based home-lighting systems have found their way to the northeast. The Union government sanctioned 23 SPV power plants in Meghalaya in 2002-03 for the electrification of 24 villages. Of the SPV power plants commissioned in 2004-06, one with a capacity of 26 kw caters to two villages: Nonghali and Nongtyrklang in Mawryngkneng block of East Khasi Hills district. The village council has set up a village committee to look after the functioning of the plants. A monthly charge of Rs30 per light point is being collected, of which the village committee retains Rs 15 and the remaining amount is deposited with the Meghalaya Renewable Energy Development Authority.

 

Some 80% of the villages in Tripura were to be covered through grid-based electrification. However, only 55% of the population has access to electricity. In 2003-04, the Union government sanctioned two projects for basic lighting facilities in 30 villages and 488 hamlets through SPV home-lighting systems and about 12,000 home-lighting systems have been already provided.

 

In 2007-08, 8,100 solar home-lighting systems, 320 street-lighting systems and 32,208 solar lanterns were allocated under the SPV demonstration programme to the northeastern region. Support has been given to install six solar water heating systems of cumulative capacity of 4,500 litre per day in Sikkim. The proposals to install 20 water heating systems in Mizoram and solar dryers of 500 kg per batch capacity for drying turmeric—one each in 20 villages in eight districts—are being considered by the Union government.

 

In Assam, 15 test projects in remote villages are under implementation to provide electricity through biomass gasifiers, coupled with 100% producer gas engines, cooking energy needs to improve cook stoves, cattle dung-based biogas plants and motive power through biofuel operated engines.

 

Three biomass gasifier systems with an aggregate capacity of 600 kwe were installed in Nagaland in 2007-08 to meet electricity needs. The National Biogas & Manure Management Programme is being implemented in northeastern India and 1,719 family biogas plants have been set up in 2007-08.

 

The wind power programme in the region is not viable due to low potential. Assessments for wind potential were carried out in 24 sites and 23 stations were installed in the region, of which three were closed down in Tripura and two in Assam after completing two years. All stations were found to be less windy except P Leikul in Assam.

 

However, in 2006-07 the Union government approved setting up 20 new stations with 50 m masts in all northeastern states, including Sikkim. Small wind energy systems, namely water pumping windmills, aero-generators and wind-solar hybrid systems are being implemented in Assam and Sikkim. Three windmills have been set up in Assam and 10 aero-generators have been set up in Sikkim. ---

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