As drought looms in India, fear for its cattle

August 13, 2012

2012rain

August 13: Armed with the latest monsoon rainfall data, weather experts finally conceded this month that India is facing a drought, confirming what millions of livestock farmers around the country had known for weeks.

For over three months, even state agencies have been providing free fodder to those most vulnerable to a shortfall in India's annual monsoon -- farmers who eke a living out of small landholdings and the milk provided by cattle.

At the end of April, Bhimrao Chavan and his wife abandoned their land in western India and headed for a camp that doubles as a centre for the provision of free fodder. Their scrawny cattle and a couple of goats amble around a hut made of straw, leaves and plastic sheeting that Chavan and his family share.

At first, there was just a handful of families at the makeshift settlement on the outskirts of a small town some 320 km (200 miles) southeast of Mumbai in the state of Maharashtra. But as the monsoon rains failed to show week after week through June and July, turning fields across the region from luscious green to parched white, the numbers there swelled.

Today, the Mhaswad settlement has the air of a refugee camp, teeming with some 6,500 people and nearly twice as many animals: cows, bullocks and goats that would have gone for slaughter or faced starvation had they not made the journey.

"The most important thing for me is keeping my cattle alive as that is my only source of income. Without them we can't survive," said 40-year-old Chavan as he cut sugarcane into small pieces for his cattle in the early morning sunlight.

India is heavily dependent on the capricious annual monsoon, which brings about 75 p ercent of the rainfall that the country receives, to irrigate crops and fill its reservoirs.

Although agriculture accounts for just 14 percent of the economy's output, a successful monsoon can be life-changing for some 600 million people - half of the population - who depend on farming for a livelihood. Monsoon failures have led to millions of deaths over the past century and buffeted the economy.

DEVASTATING BLOW

Just over halfway through this season, the rains are 17 percent below normal, and the weather office has forecast that the El Nino weather pattern will bring more disappointment in the few weeks that remain.

The drought, India's first since 2009, will not bring a shortage of staples as the nation's grain stores are overflowing with rice and wheat, and sugar output is set to exceed demand for a third straight year.

But it will deal a devastating blow to grain crops used for animal feed. That would badly hit the vast majority of the country's farmers who - with cattle and small landholdings their only assets - struggle to survive at the best of times.

Monsoon failures are so threatening that the government keeps a "Drought Manual". In this weighty document, "cattle wealth" is described as the mainstay of the rural economy, but it is precarious because when seriously depleted its recovery is very slow, with stocks growing at just 1-2 percent a year.

Chavan's family of 12 is typical: their annual income is usually around 90,000 rupees, a tiny enough sum, but this year it will be even lower because there has not been enough rain to plant crops on their 3 acres (1.2 hectares) of land at the village of Pulkoti not far from the fodder camp. Neighbours who did sow have seen their crops wither and die.

"Until next year we will only get money by selling milk," said Chavan's wife, Lilabai, as she stood barefoot in the dusty camp as farmers around her milked their cows and collected dung for fuel and manure.

"We were thinking of selling our livestock because we didn't have money to buy fodder. Fortunately, the camp was started, otherwise by now our animals would have been slaughtered."

RIPPLE EFFECT ACROSS COMMUNITIES

The government has promised to provide all vulnerable farmers with animal feed. But Maharashtra is not the only state hit hard by the drought - the others are Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan in the north, Gujarat in the west and Karnataka in the south - and, saddled with sharply slowing economic growth and a yawning fiscal gap, the government will be hard-pressed to deliver.

Indeed, there are very few camps like the one at Mhaswad in Maharashtra, and fodder prices have surged on short-supply.

Just 50 km (30 miles) away, for example, Rajesh Hanmantrao Deshmukh has taken a 60,000 rupee loan to buy fodder for his 10 buffaloes. In a good year he would expect to earn 100,000 rupees, but this year he expects to lose that much.

"Keeping buffaloes is now a loss-making business," Deshmukh said as he bought cane from a state-subsidised depot. "I used to get fodder from my farm but this year the farms are empty."

Others cannot get loans, which has led to distress selling of livestock for slaughter - and, with it, a drop in prices.

This year's disaster will have a ripple effect across rural communities of Maharashtra, forcing many to migrate from the hardscrabble hinterland to the financial capital, Mumbai.

"Nothing has changed in rural areas despite all the progress. When drought strikes, young people have to migrate," said Ashok Galande, a resident of Pulkoti village who sold his pair of bullocks during a drought in 1972 and moved to Mumbai.

"Drought cripples everything at the village. In big cities you can find work for a livelihood," said Galande, who has found life tough since returning to his rural roots last year.

To generate employment, the state government is trying to expand the scope of a national job guarantee scheme, but many local businesses that rely on farmers are suffering already.

"Sales are only five percent of normal," grumbled seed and fertiliser seller Janardan Narle in Mhaswad. "Why would farmers buy seeds, fertilisers or pesticides when there is no rainfall?"

Cloth merchant Amar Rokade's takings have dropped by about 60 percent this monsoon season and he has sacked two of his three workers, while motor-cycle dealer Sanjay Bhagwat says his sales have fallen by 50 percent.

They are both worried that worse is to come in the months ahead when, normally, they would be enjoying brisk sales during the Hindu festivals of Dusshera and Diwali.

"If the rains fail in the next two months in our areas, then it will hammer our festival-season sales," said Bhagwat.


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March 18,2024

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New Delhi, Mar 18: The Election Commission on Monday afternoon issued orders for the removal of six Home Secretaries - including the top bureaucrats from Gujarat, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh.

The poll panel also directed the transfer of West Bengal's Director-General of Police, the top cop of a state that has seen several instances of poll-related violence in recent years. The poll panel further said a shortlist of three potential replacements had to be prepared and submitted by 5 pm.

The re-shuffle, not an uncommon move by the Election Commission before major polls, also includes the transfer of the Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand Home Secretaries, as well as senior officials attached to the offices of the Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh Chief Ministers.

In addition, Iqbal Singh Chahal, who is Commissioner of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, and other officials in municipalities across Maharashtra, have been removed too.

All of this comes less than a month before the 2024 Lok Sabha poll; the ECI on Saturday said voting will begin on April 19 and run over seven phases till June 1.

This is, in fact, the first bureaucratic re-jig by the ECI since it announced polling dates.

The ECI's move comes after a meeting of Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and his two associates, the newly-appointed Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu. This step comes as part of the poll panel's commitment to ensure a level playing field for all political parties in the forthcoming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, as well as by-polls for 26 seats in 13 states.

Sources said the personnel removed were found to be holding dual charge in the offices of the respective chief ministers of each state, and this could compromise, or be seen to be compromising, required neutrality, particularly in relation to law-and-order before, during and after polling.

Bengal's ruling Trinamool has not yet reacted to the removal of DGP Rajiv Malik, who is seen by some to be close to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's party. In the past, the state government has questioned the last-minute re-shuffle of senior civil service and police officials so close to an election, arguing it actually hampers prep work since the new faces need time to adjust to the post.

Bengal has frequently witnessed violence during polling season; in June last year over a dozen people were killed across the state as voting for a panchayat election was underway.

The Trinamool accused the opposition of instigating violence and criticised central forces for their failure to protect voters, while the Congress claimed the state had let thugs loose on the people.

While announcing the dates on Saturday, the Chief Election Commissioner said the poll panel would take a very dim view of any violence during the election. Mr Kumar said the ECI is prepared to come down hard on any such incident. "We're putting political parties on notice," he declared.

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News Network
March 22,2024

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday produced Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal before the Rouse Avenue court and sought a 10-day custody in the excise policy-linked money laundering case. "Kejriwal was the kingpin of the scam," the ED reportedly told the court after the AAP chief was produced before Special Judge Kaveri Baweja around 2 pm amid tight security. 

ASG S V Raju was appearing for the agency, while Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi is representing Kejriwal. 

Raju in his argument said Kejriwal was "directly involved in formulation of the (liquor) policy... he was involved in handling of proceeds of crime as well in the Goa election campaign."

"The expert committee was constituted but it was a sham committee. The policy was made in such a manner that it would enable the taking of bribes and recoupment of people who gave the bribes," the ED counsel said. 

Kejriwal was produced in the trial court shortly after he withdrew from the Supreme Court his plea against arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in the excise policy-linked money laundering case. Kejriwal's counsel said he would contest the remand proceedings before the trial court and then come back to the apex court with another petition.

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March 25,2024

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will face Kerala BJP chief K Surendran in the high-profile Wayanand constituency this Lok Sabha election.

Wayanad, a Congress stronghold, has been with the party since 2009. Mr Gandhi won it in 2019 and retained his Lok Sabha membership, having lost his Amethi seat to Union Minister Smriti Irani.

His rival this time, Mr Surendran, has the significant task of challenging the Congress-Left binary in Kerala's political landscape. Both the Congress and the Left are in a national alliance though they remain rivals in this southern state.

Surendran has contested all three Lok Sabha elections since 2009 and also four Assembly elections. In 2021, he contested from Konni and Manjeshwar seats simultaneously. 

In 2019 general elections, Mr Surendran finished third in Pathanamthitta constituency behind the Congress and the Left. He had lost the 2016 assembly polls from Manjeswaram by merely 89 votes. He also contested a bypoll in 2019, but lost it as well.

He was appointed to head the BJP Kerala unit in 2020 and became the face of the protests against the entry of young women into Sabarimala years ago.

Mr Surendran, who is from Kozhikode, figured in the BJP's fifth candidates' list, which also named actor Kangana Ranaut and former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.

Wayanad is the second Kerala seat to see a battle of titans after Thiruvananthapuram, where Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar will face the three-time Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

The BJP has also fielded former vice-chancellor of Sree Sankara Sanskrit University K S Radhakrishnan from Ernakulam and actor-turned-politician G Krishnakumar from Kollam. T N Sarasu, a former educator, will contest from Alathur in Palakkad.

The highlight of the BJP's fifth list was the electoral debut of actor Kangana Ranaut from Mandi in her homestate Himachal Pradesh. The list, which named 111 candidates in 17 states, also featured new joinees like industrialist Naveen Jindal and Mr Gangopadhyay.

Mr Gangopadhyay, who joined the BJP recently after taking voluntary retirement, is the first former judge to join electoral politics. He has been fielded from Tamluk in Bengal and will face Trinamool's Debangshu Bhattacharya, a youth leader who had penned the party's "Khela Hobe" song.

Varun Gandhi, a sitting MP from Pilibhit, has been dropped and his seat has gone to Jitin Prasada, who switched to the BJP from the Congress in run-up to the election. His mother Maneka Gandhi has been fielded from her current seat, Sultanpur.

Actor Arun Govil, who played Ram in popular TV series Ramayan, will contest from Meerut. Union ministers Ashwini Kumar Choubey and General VK Singh too were part of the list.

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