Hungry Planet

We are facing what could be a start of a perfect disaster – rising food prices, increasing demand with a disproportionate supply, disruption in agricultural output due to effects of global warming and the increased urge of people to feed cars rather than people, by production of fuel from food. The reality of a worst food crisis are being rekindled by a combination of these factors. More and more people will go to sleep with hunger every night as their survival skills are put to test. Once again, richer nations like EU and the middle east can buy food at any market price and because of this, it is the poorer nations in Africa, which will face the crisis, as people starve and governments are helpless.

Rise in demand

The world population has reached about 6.65 billions this year, thanks to a sustainable way of producing food using agriculture. If not for agriculture, the population growth could have been largely different and unsustainable as we would have run out of other species to feed ourselves. As the per capita income of the developing world, particularly BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India & China) increase, the demand for cereals, dairy and meat have increased drastically. This has also increased the demand for grains needed to feed the cattle.

It will still be a few years to get to a comfortable position than what we are in now, but the trend is clear and the high prices are the future as more urbanization leads to lesser agricultural land and costs associated with food production increases due to constraints like limited availability of water, higher prices of fertilizers (effect of high oil prices), reduction in the workforce involved in agriculture. This coupled with the ever changing climatic conditions leads to droughts or floods resulting in a highly unreliable yield.

Surging oil price

The crude oil prices was forecasted to be around $50 a barrel in 2008. However the current price hovers around $120.

The difference between the projected and the actual cost is appalling. It is still unclear how the entire world could not foresee such high prices of oil. The price rise has invalidated the economic plans of a majority of oil importers. Oil prices have been spiraling upward due to the ever increasing demand and the decision of OPEC countries to limit the production to 25 million barrels a day.

At the current rate, it will not be surprising if the barrel reaches $200 by the end of next year. This will have devastating consequences in the economies worldwide. Due to the uneven demographics, food has to be transported from the area of production to different parts of the world. Increasing oil prices have a direct influence on the shipping costs and hence affects the overall cost of food. The cost of the fertilizers produced form petroleum based products also increases the cost of agricultural production.

Global warming

Though there is a lack of concrete evidence correlating the changes in the climate to food production, the earth’s atmosphere is changing rapidly due to irresponsible human activities. Australia experienced its worst drought for over a century, and saw its wheat crop shrink by 60%. China’s grain harvest has also fallen by 10% over the past seven years.Shifting monsoons and changing precipitation patterns are likely to affect the food production and yield. Rise in temperatures due to global warming will affect the rate of evaporation and precipitation and can increase the intensity of floods and droughts. The melting icecapsfor example, in Himalayas could result in the Ganges becoming a seasonal rather than a perennial river. The consequences of this can be devastating for the farmers who are dependent on the waters of Ganges for agriculture.

But amidst all these, the rising food prices have brought back the focus on agriculture. Significant number of countries will work towards increasing agricultural output and achieving self sustainability. However these efforts should also be directed at improving the productivity and the yield of the crops rather than just increasing the land allocated for farming. Though the short term scenario looks bleak, the situation could improve with the better planning and encouraging government policies.

‘The Lord’ is 35

Sachin Tendulkar turns 35 today !!

Wishing him the very best. He has been there for 19 years at the international level and has displayed fantastic sportsmanship few could ever dream of . Its a treat to watch him play. I believe, I am blessed to be born in a era when he is playing and sincerely hope to see him play for a few more years.

Stats (as of today) :

——M       I   NO  Runs   Highest   Ave   100   50

Tests : 147 238  25  11782    248*   55.31   39   49

ODIs    417 407  38 16361    186*    44.33   42   89

Total runs : 28,143 – 81 centuries and 138 fifties

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During the recent Australian tour when India won the Commonwealth Tri-series, there was a placard which aptly described his game

“Commit all your crimes when Sachin is playing, because even the lord is watching“

Tango… for the future

Bored of traffic congestions ????

With the number of cars sold increasing each year, road and parking space are a becoming priceless commodity. So how do we tackle this issue ?

One of the solutions could be cars like this – the Tango T600 which aims to transform the personal transportation of this century. The Tango T600 is an electric vehicle only slightly wider than a two wheeler. It can seat two, one behind the other, drives 80 miles a charge, fits in a two wheeler parking space, accelerates from 0-60 mph in 4 seconds. It can also be quick charged to 80% of its capacity in 10 minutes.

Increasing demand of fuel coupled with high prices and the need for reduction in green house gases will revolutionize the personal transportation of the future. Efficient electric vehicles transporting one or two people for short distances is a better alternative than driving around in a SUV or any other gasoline car. With advances in solar technology, we can hopefully integrate a small solar power plant (like fisker automotive) on the roof to auto-charge the batteries, while we drive. This concept is surely for the future.

More on this - here

Why is India poor…. continued

If you have not read the first part of this post , you can read it here . It is a brief about some of the factors which contributed to the growth and decline of India between 14th century till India’s independence.Though the invasions of foreign rulers and the colonial rule drained the wealth in India, we cannot ignore the fact that after independence, the path taken by India has not been successful in eliminating poverty and has failed in creating a good standard of living for majority of the people.

For half a century before independence, the Indian economy was stagnant. Between 1900 and 1950, economic growth averaged o.8 percent a year. After India’s independence, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his group of ministers created a socialist state by nationalising major industries in all the sectors with a firm grip on the private sector. The Fabian socialist policies followed by the government created an inefficient public sector, over-regulated private sector and an environment that discouraged foreign investment, thereby losing out on foreign technology and competition. This along with the mis-governance and corruption led to the failure of the socialist system.

During 1980’s, the government started the process of gradual liberalisation of trade, investment, and financial markets. Licensing requirements, import restriction were eased. According to the IMF publication, the external debt India had, started increasing from around 12% of GDP in 1980 to about 30% of GDP in 1991. The increase in the oil imports and oil prices, combined with the political uncertainty and reduction in the economic growth of the world, particularly US led to the currency crisis. The foreign exchange reserves were the lowest and India had to devalue the Rupee.

Fortunately, all these events pushed the Indian government to initiate sweeping reforms which opened up the Indian economy and allowed its integration with the world economy. This is the reason for the 8+% growth of the recent years. The chief architect of those reforms was the finance minister, Manmohan Singh, who is now the Prime minister.

China has been successful in growing at high rates because the central leadership has ensured economic growth as the topmost priority and has instilled “business above all” attitude in the bureaucracy. By marketing itself as a top manufacturing destination with the necessary infrastructure and minimal red tape, China has been successful in attracting huge inflow of foreign capital leading to high economic growth. Part of the success can be attributed to the single party leadership and its control over the entire country. Also, the reforms which led to the growth of the manufacturing sector was started in 1978 compared to 1991 in India.

However, we have to accept the fact that running the largest democracy in the world which is home to more than a billion people with a multitude of religions, cultures, languages and their inherent problems is not an easy task. It is like managing more than 20 countries with different cultures within a single country. For instance, the former Indian President was a Muslim, current Prime minister a Sikh, head of ruling party a Christian , opposition leader a Hindu and it is quite rare to find such a diverse group of people to co-exist and run the country in a democratic manner. Also feeding a billion people in itself is a gargantuan task. Added to that are poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, religious conflicts, unsafe borders, instability in neighbouring countries, boundary disputes, cross-border terrorism, internal state disputes, poor infrastructure and a coalition government at the centre with parties having differing ideologies. This can explain how chaotic the ground situation can be. And even amidst this, the government is trying to reach a growth rate close to 9%, which is a commendable task. If the reforms are pushed ahead along with investment in infrastructure, improved productivity / efficiency and an inclusive growth, we can be successful in ensuring that our future generations can live in a developed India.

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I would like to state that, I am not a historian . All the above listed info are my thoughts, of the info I was able to get on the respective topics. Pls feel free to add in or correct me in your comments.