It is high time the government comes out from its usual “promising-
doing” gap and form some effective agriculture and rural policies
and implement them further. Otherwise the country is certain
to suffer from lack of food
The nineties was a tumultuous
decade in many respects –
blood curdling violence juxtaposed
by determined peace initiatives,
unimaginable endurance
against the evil of man’s division of
his own fellow-men (the abominable
“apartheid”), the ultimate success of
the human spirit in breathtaking
breakthroughs in science and technology,
and a determined bid by the
first world to nudge the second and
the third towards economic “reforms”
that sought to dismantle trade
barriers and pry open markets all over
to make trade “free and fast”. For India,
it was a sort of “tryst with economic
destiny”! The haste with
which New Delhi hurried through an
agreement to eliminate the quantitative
restrictions (QRs) on import of
many goods two years ahead of
schedule, succumbing to the pressure
of the US and WTO is indeed
intriguing. The government had earlier
reached an agreement with all of
India’s trading partners, other than
the USD, that all QRs would be removed
by 2003. Yet the new provisions
were put in place by April
2001. The elimination of QRs on
many products helped the US, European
Union (EU), Japan, Australia
and Canada.
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