Neuromarketing In The Era Of Hyperactive Competition

By M H Ahssan

Market conditions are no longer just competitive, but hyperactive. And at the epicentre of this hyperactivity lies the consumer – caught in a perpetual flux as the constantly shifting dynamics rumble through his/her cognitive faculties. HNN explores the growing trend that is revolutionising the world of branding – Neuromarketing

To say that there is a surfeit of competition is stating the obvious. But how do companies ensure that consumers prefer them over the rest during that vital moment of truth, when the consumer is at the store within picking distance of their brand, or for that matter, their competitor’s. There are enough and more cases to highlight the fact that consumers walk the other way at the very last minute, leaving their preferred brand out in the cold. Shubhra S Kumar is one such consumer. When Kumar entered a large format retail store last week, she had already made up her mind on what she wanted to buy — three casual shirts, all Pepe. But when she walked out, her shopping bag did not have a single shirt from her preferred brand. Instead she had picked up a rather lesser-known brand Rig, without any salesperson pushing it down her throat. Why? Kumar states the obvious, that she found the range of Rig attractive in the key parameters of colours, finish and design.

For a new and growing tribe of experts in the field of marketing, this vague explanation is perfectly clear. For this is a set that probes for a deeper meaning using medical technologies like the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to explore last minute changes in consumer behaviour. Did Kumar’s brain pick up signals from a hyperactive competitor at the point of sale? Did the mind play tricks, or did it take a short cut in the purchase decision process? Called Neuromarketing, it’s the new, advanced, marketing technique that’s catching on like forest fire. To put it simply, Neuromarketing studies the marketing stimuli among consumers using techniques that are perfected not in business schools, but in medical universities — sensory, motor, cognitive, affective response and so on.

Be doubly sure, this is no brain wave, but a technique that’s finding a remarkable acceptance in the marketing departments of large corporations. An Internet search of the term ‘Neuro marketing’ throws up 2.5 million results. And the companies that are currently using Neuromarketing to mine for insights to their increasing roster of marketing challenges include the top-notch marketing corporations ranging from automobile companies to beverage makers. You name them, they have tried it. In fact, as we were going to press with this issue, a source told BE about a large scale, and extremely successful Neuromarketing exercise, being undertaken by a leading consumer goods company in India (more about that later).

When the next big thing, does become The Big Thing, CMOs could come with the prefix of ‘Dr’ to their names. Because understanding Neuromarketing, could mean bringing the expertise of understanding the human brain to the marketing world. For example, when consumers avoid the brand in question, a Neuromarketer could conduct an fMRI analysis to understand which areas of the brain actually influence such aversive behaviour. Or it can identify certain genetic codes that separate the risk takers from the conservatives and help companies design campaigns that trigger the risk takers to take action and prefer their brand over the competition.

If experts in the field are to be believed this data can be tracked in a manner that’s completely non-invasive. “Neural activity results in the generation of electro-magnetic signals that can be captured by sensors. These signals are processed and then analysed statistically to draw behavioural patterns of consumers,” explains P C Kutty, J Eddie chair professor at the FRM school of business. He adds that the accuracy of these measurements, that can be filtered down to the order of milliseconds (one-thousandth of a second) has attracted the interest of researchers who are demystifying the decision-making process.

N Swami, a senior executive from an MNC that’s tried out Neuromarketing points out that another area of interest that’s gaining ground among Neuromarketers, is to track the connection between the codes passed by the optical nerves to the brain. Some questions that are being asked by marketers include, do consumers exhibit a bias to products that they see more often, through exposure to advertisements and product displays, or do they pick brands that they see first at the store shelves. Other questions that are being explored include, does a product being placed on the left stand a better chance of being picked — considering that in countries like ours, consumers are trained from a young age to look from left to right (remember, before crossing the road).

At another level, the science of Neuromarketing is also being used to track which is the best possible marketing channel strategy, how consumers react to different pack sizes and price points at various points, which distribution strategy works better in triggering the positive response, which distribution mechanism sends confusing codes to the brain and so on. R Banerjee at the The Retail Institute points out that even different retail chains can trigger different stimuli among consumers. “The same consumer may buy your product at one retail point, but choose your competitor at another retail destination. This can happen despite the space allocated to your brand remaining the same” he says. That’s because different retail chains can have a different influence on the perception and evaluation of the product.

Other factors that influence the decision making process include the brain retrieving the episodic memory, past experience with the brand, sensory memory (memory that is stimulated through the senses) and so on. Analysis by neuromarketers help in establishing which parts of the brain show the maximum activity while selecting or rejecting a brand. These findings help marketers find out what are the influencing factors behind consumer susceptibility and helps in positioning the product in such a manner that it results in developing a judgement bias in favour of the product and also develop even the right product and price strategy for the entire portfolio of offerings.

Take the case of a large consumer goods manufacturer who’s supposedly running one of the largest Neuromarketing programmes that the country has seen. In this case, the company saw a remarkable decline in several of its key categories particularly in some retail formats, that too in particular states in the last three months. As a part of its critical salvage operations, the company also initiated a Neuromarketing exercise that has in a short span delivered much more than what the company bargained for. What triggered this amazing turnaround?

Exclusive: The power of your vote

By Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

India’s problems are complex. And unfortunately these are compounded by vote-bank politics. Instead of uniting the different sections of society, many politicians divide it to keep their vote banks intact. If people are united, politicians won’t be able to get votes through divisive politics. In such a situation, the only way for them to win votes would be through good performance.

As citizens, we must protect our country from those who manipulate issues for their personal gains and who lead by playing vote-bank politics. Those with vested interests support insensible decisions and oppose sensible ones. We have to steer clear of such leaders. We must encourage broad-minded politicians and leaders to come forward and take charge, and to educate and uplift the society – spiritually, morally and socially.

We need leaders who are satya-darshi (truthful), sam-darshi (equanimous), priya-darshi (pleasant), paar-darshi (transparent) and door-darshi (visionary). So, before we elect our leaders, we should examine their qualifications.

We must elect leaders who will do away with policies based on caste, creed, religion and region; who will ensure that every child gets a multi-cultural, multi-dimensional education.

We need leadership with a mission and a vision, leadership with a spirit of sacrifice, compassion and commitment. We must choose leaders who have a long-term vision and short-term plans to achieve it. They should have great personal integrity, and place the country before themselves.

Unfortunately, most of our politicians lack a sense of sacrifice and inclusiveness. Irrespective of the party they belong to, people perceive politicians as insincere. Today, people are fed up of them. This is when apathy sets in among people. They dismiss politics as a whole and withdraw from their basic duty of voting.

Our votes are an important tool to bring about a change in the system; they give us an opportunity to raise our voice against injustice. But many of us have developed a chalta hai attitude, because we fail to see the power of our votes. This attitude is dangerous for the country. By not voting we are encouraging the status quo.

Each one of us must not only vote but also encourage others around us to vote. When good, intelligent and well-educated people don’t vote, they play into the hands of politicians, who use money and vote bank politics to seize power. People should not lose hope. Good politicians exist. And they must be given a chance to do the best they can for the country, for its people.

We have seen the shortcomings of capitalism, communism and socialism. Now is the time for humanism and spiritualism. Politics without humanism and spiritualism is bound to be dirty. Many people believe that spiritualism is not for this world, that it is not a practical tool to bring about societal transformation. But that’s a misconception. Mahatma Gandhi was spiritual. He conducted satsangs every day and played an important role in bringing freedom for our country.

That is why today we need leaders who have a spirit of sacrifice, and who are spiritual in their outlook, to enter politics.

Change Begins With Your Vote

By M H Ahssan

There’s Growing Public Disgust With Corrupt And Incompetent Politicians. Now’s The Time To Make Your Voice Heard. Our Future Rides On It.

After Independence, India could easily have gone the ruinous way of so many former colonies. You don’t need to look beyond our neighbourhood for evidence — at Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal. Large swathes of Asia and Africa have been under the control of generals, dictators and decrepit monarchies, and are less familiar with democracy than they are with despotism. We have so far managed to prove wrong Winston Churchill’s imperialist prediction that once the British left, India would succumb to its “old hatreds and Oriental tyrannies”.

To the West, India’s 60-year-long engagement with democracy remains one the modern political wonders of the world — particularly in the way it swarms the polls every five years. How is it that this sprawling, populous, chaotic country, which is defiantly diverse — in its religion and culture, its geography and history —has stayed true to its Constitution through good times and bad (barring a brief 21-month interregnum in the Seventies)? If democracy has been hardwired into our political ecology, the credit in large part should go to the founding fathers of the Indian nation, visionaries like Gandhi and Nehru, to whom democracy, like freedom, was non-negotiable.

Unfortunately, it’s now become fashionable among a section of people to say, The problem with India is its democracy. Look at China — once it decides to do something, nothing and nobody can come the way.” But while the naive and the cynical extol the virtues of a bulldozer approach that brooks no opposition, most us Indians, even at the end of a gruelling day, like our freedom. We cherish our right to free speech (as Amartya Sen said, we are terminally argumentative), our right to choose our own gods, and our right to decide who should represent us. All of these are important to us. As Indira Gandhi rudely discovered, much as we would like our trains to run on time, we love our freedoms even more.

It is true that no political or economic system in the world is perfect. If communism was the anti-god that failed, the recent collapse of Wall Street has caught capitalism — once again — with its hand in the till. It is also true that, just as you can get yourself the sturdiest car in the world and then hand over the keys to a dangerous driver, you can have the best political/economic system but with mediocre and/or morally bankrupt people to run it.

We are all painfully aware that far too many of our so-called “leaders” are corrupt, sectarian, regressive, and in the extreme, even murderous. In their list of priorities, personal aggrandizement figures way above the welfare of the people they are meant to represent. In the past few years, the pages of this paper have been depressingly full of their shameful conduct. Inside Parliament, when they weren’t selling their votes for money, they were accepting cash to ask motivated questions. Outside Parliament, they were caught taking bribes to give contracts. An MP was held for human trafficking using forged passports. In the outgoing Lok Sabha, there were 120 MPs with criminal records — many of them with multiple charges ranging from murder, kidnapping and rape to robbery, fraud and extortion. The number of serious cases alone added up to 333.

As for the parliamentary workload of our MPs, consider the fact that in all of 2008, the Lok Sabha met for just 32 days — the lowest in our parliamentary history. What a fall when you consider that in the 1950s, it met for almost 140 days in a year. The attendance of many MPs has been abysmal — when farmer suicides were being discussed there was barely a quorum in the House. In the absence of contemporary laws, the judiciary has had to step in once too often to fill the void, which is not what it’s really supposed to do. This paper has chronicled in gory detail the plummeting standards of the legislature across the country, and how our MPs and MLAs have failed miserably in their primary role, which is to legislate. And what did one of the state Assemblies do when this paper criticized it for dereliction of duty? It charged us with breach of privilege.

Question is, can we afford to throw the baby out with the bathwater? Clearly, we can’t. Sure, we can debate what form of democracy would suit us best — and every few years the idea of a US-style presidential form of government is faithfully exhumed as an alternative to the parliamentary system we’ve inherited from the British. But as the excesses of the Bush years have shown, every form of democracy has its flaws. To return to our analogy of car and driver, a good set of wheels is of little point if there’s a wheeler-dealer in the driving seat. It’s obvious that the answer lies in finding a safe pair of hands.

The first step towards that is to vote. And yet, so many of us end up not exercising this basic right — either out of apathy or cynicism. Many of us would perhaps take the time and trouble to get ourselves registered as voters and when E-day comes, make that journey to the booth — if we believed our vote would make a difference. But we have convinced ourselves that our little say would make a smaller ripple in the electoral pool than would a drop in the Indian Ocean. Forget about swaying the verdict nationally, we don’t think we could even swing it in our own constituency.

The question we then need to ask ourselves is, do we give up without fighting the fight? More importantly, is this a fight that’s not even worth fighting? Do we hand over the keys to our House to a bunch of unworthies by default? If the answer is yes, then we’re consciously choosing to walk away from the possibility that our vote might — just might — help build a stronger, safer and more equitable India for our children and our grandchildren. There is some wisdom in the old finger that curls to point chestwards and says, “We get the government we deserve.”

As a enewspaper, HNN has written about the good, the bad, and the ugly—because that’s life. But we have never stopped believing in the power of good—or, as A R Rahman said at the Oscars, in “the power of hope”.

When we launched our Vision India initiative, sometime back, the idea was to focus our collective attention on the need for better leadership. We truly believe this country is blessed with incredible potential — both human and natural — and that there is enough and more talent to overcome the considerable challenges that stand in our way. What we need are leaders who can help realise our full potential rather than impede progress.

Without meaning to sound immodest, we believe Lead India struck a chord among the urban middle class. It seemed like an idea whose time had indeed come. Did we believe our hunt for a new generation of leaders would throw up a future Prime Minister? Not really. Our objective was at once more modest and more ambitious — paradoxical as that might sound. We weren’t looking for a person who could be Manmohan Singh’s successor’s successor; we were instead hoping to create a larger consciousness about the desperate need for many more clean, efficient and enlightened political leaders.

We structured Lead India as a talent hunt, and in the final stages, took it to television, in order to enlarge the circle of interest around what to us was an idea both serious and powerful. In the months since the culmination — around Republic Day of 2008 — of our first Lead India campaign, we have repeatedly been asked by readers, “What are you doing next? Please don’t give up, please don’t lose heart.” The thought of “giving up” has not once crossed our mind. The overwhelming response that our subsequent Teach India initiative has received—in the form of over one lakh volunteers—has only reinforced our belief that there is an army of good men and women out there who want a better future not only for their own children but for all children. They have shown by their actions that they will walk that extra mile for the India of their dreams.

Today, we rededicate ourselves to the idea of honest, thoughtful, decisive governance with the launch of the second edition of Lead India. This time around, there will be no televised talent hunt. We don’t need one — there is no bigger reality show in this country than a general election.

We have therefore decided to build this year’s Lead India around the election. It will be HNN endeavour to help you, through our extensive research and analysis, to choose your MP well. Our aim is only to set the compass, not dictate the choice. The average Indian voter is savvy, and we wouldn’t presume to tell him/her whom to vote for.

For starters, we will seek to define the qualities of a good MP: Is it the number of hours he spends in Parliament, the quality of his speeches, the questions he asks? Or the knowledge and commitment he brings to the House committees on which he serves? Or the toilets and roads he helps build in his constituency? Is his primary responsibility to constituency or country?

On a broader plinth, we will compare, across parameters, the performance of the Congress-led UPA government with that of its predecessor, the BJP-fronted NDA. And in the weeks leading up to the elections, we will focus on the key issues the next government will need to tackle, in the short as well as long term.

Does The Times of India believe it can influence the outcome of the election? We would be deluding ourselves if we did. We may be the largest English language paper in the world, but we reach out to a small percentage of the country’s voting population — our readership is overwhelmingly urban, educated, middle-to-upper class (although our concerns are universal). For decades, this segment felt that its voice was of little consequence, that our politicians were more interested in the rural vote, the slum vote, the minority vote, the Dalit/OBC vote. Vote banks have been and will continue to be an unavoidable part of any democracy. What’s changed in recent times is that the expanding middle socio-economic class has become an influential demographic in Indian polity; it can no longer be taken for granted. (It’s a sad fact that it took an attack on south Mumbai’s two best-known hotels to finally shake the home minister out of his job.)

We’d like to emphasise that this paper is not aligned to any party or politician; all we want is for the citizens of this country to have the best possible 543 women and men in the Lok Sabha, irrespective of caste, creed and sexual preference. We fervently hope that at least the major parties will choose their candidates well. It’s time they said no to history-sheeters, and if they don’t, we hope voters will. It would be foolish of us to believe that politics can overnight be rid of money and muscle-power, but as voters, our message needs to be loud and clear: merit and integrity matter.

Every election is important, but some, perhaps, more so than others. Just as it was in the US, this year’s election could be crucial for India. The country faces a distressing economic situation — brought on in large part by global forces—and a serious security threat. The 26/11 attack showcased — in a deeply sad and horrifying manner — the collapse of governance. The anger on the street was trained as much at the politician as it was at Pakistan.

But seven days of anger will not redeem us. Candlelight vigils and human chains have an immediate emotional flicker, but do not last beyond next morning’s headline. The most powerful instrument of change, of sending a message to our politicians, is one that is huge, messy, but largely consensual: the electoral process. If you really want to make a fundamental, longterm difference, you need to vote.

As Martin Luther King famously said in his ‘I have a dream’ address, there is a “fierce urgency of now”. India is truly at a crossroads, we cannot afford the luxury of a wrong turn. About 40% of our population is aged under 18, and 70% under 35 — India needs to get its future right.

The election of Barack Obama has come as a beacon of hope to the world. Change is possible, if we truly believe it to be. To quote A R Rahman once more, “All my life, I had a choice between love and hate. I chose love, and here I am.”

We too have a choice — between hope and hopelessness. Which would you rather choose?

Nurturing entrepreneurship in India’s villages

By M H Ahssan

The world’s great cities and the professionals who live in them are linked more tightly to one another than they are with their own rural hinterlands. Yet true prosperity starts in the countryside.

It’s not surprising that well-travelled professionals living in global cities, such as New Delhi, New York, Paris, Rio, and Shanghai, have more in common with one another, in lifestyle and values, than they do with rural citizens in their respective nations. In general, villagers, particularly in the emerging world, have benefitted less from globalization than urbanites have. Seventy percent of India’s citizens, for instance, live in rural isolation, largely disconnected from the benefits of their nation’s fast-paced economic growth.

These are globalization’s forgotten frontiers, where more must be done to connect urban markets with rural ones in order to speed their development. How this happens will vary from nation to nation. In China, for instance, the government actively spurred the village economy, largely through agricultural-reform measures implemented during the 1980s. By contrast, India’s government has only a limited ability to bring about real change in the country’s villages. Private entrepreneurs might well be more effective.

Recently, I trudged through the mire of a government-run food auction yard, or mandi, in Bangalore, the global economy’s offshoring capital. Piles of supposedly fresh produce lay everywhere, rotting in the sun and competing with mangy dogs and scampering mice for my attention. Huddles of impecunious farmers, wearing the traditional dhoti, looked on with resignation. A government agent, pen tucked behind ear, offered a pittance for the produce on display.

The farmers’ day had started before dawn. Chugging along on narrow so-called highways, they came to the auction yard in ramshackle public buses, bullock carts, trucks, and even tractors. Their produce unloaded, they accepted whatever they got. After snatching a few hours’ sleep in a shady corner, they retraced their steps home.

In India, agricultural mandates have long required farmers to sell their produce through such wholesale yards. Although meant to free poor farmers from the clutches of local moneylenders, the mandi has become a monopoly. The farmer remains exploited, but now by local political interests.

But let’s change the scene from a city market in India to a rural village in China. Not long after I visited Bangalore, I crisscrossed parts of Henan—the name means “south of the Yellow River” (Huanghe). The province, one of China’s most populous, is home to more than a hundred million people. I started in Zhengzhou, the capital, a major industrial center and railway junction, and traveled to Chengguan, a county seat with 100,000 inhabitants. Chengguan was scrupulously clean; municipal services were apparent even in the predawn hours. The city bustled, but there was no squalor in the streets. I then headed to the very small village of Qiu, with a population of no more than a few thousand. The paved roads, in better condition than the Massachusetts Turnpike and other highways I know at home, led right up to the cornfields on the edge of the village. Qiu itself, if not quite prosperous, had none of the desperation so obvious in many Indian villages.

Rural development is crucial for the overall development of a nation’s economy. China’s economic revolution started with the reform of its village enterprises; foreign direct investment followed. Agricultural development in rural areas generated economic surpluses that in turn fed light manufacturing in rural and semiurban areas and, ultimately, industrialization in urban ones. A virtuous cycle ensued. The economic surplus promoted reinvestment in new technology and released human capital for broader development. This was China’s path, as it was Indonesia’s, and Vietnam has taken it since 1989.

India, however, has not. The nation’s government has failed to invest in its villages. The farmers who sold their produce in a mandi in Bangalore live a daily struggle for existence in their home villages. Today, 89 percent of all rural households do not own a telephone, and 52 percent have no domestic power connection. The average village is two kilometers away from an all-weather road, and 20 percent of rural habitations must walk for miles to obtain safe drinking water, have access to it for only a few hours a day for much of the year, or have no access at all.

Where India’s government has failed, social and business entrepreneurs are accumulating a better track record. The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), for example, centered in Gujarat, has economically empowered hundreds of thousands of women, helping them to become economically self-sufficient by providing small loans to start myriad businesses catering to health care, elementary education, and the like. Companies such as Hindustan Unilever and Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) have long had distribution networks that provide some investment, goods, and services to Indian villages beyond the government’s reach.

India should take a page from China’s playbook and fix its villages, but not in the way China has. China’s strong government was able to force the rapid dissemination of rural agricultural reforms. India’s weak one cannot accomplish anything remotely comparable. Instead, India should seek to empower its villagers and nurture entrepreneurial activity, while also taking advantage of its strengths in the private sector. Corporations need a seat at the table of village reform—even multinationals, because the task of reform is so enormous. Outright foreign direct investment, by Düsseldorf-based Metro AG, for example, should be welcome, as should joint ventures, like the one between Bharti Enterprises and Wal-Mart Stores. Such businesses, together with local ones, can lay the foundations for a modern agricultural supply chain linking the village farmer with the urban market.

Only then will India, and not just its global cities, rise.

Needed, innovative ideas to spur the economy

By M H Ahssan

India need not go by the global mantra of unlimited fiscal expansion. It should rather creatively target government spending.

Political parties have a great opportunity to come up with truly innovative and inclusive ideas to re-energise India’s economy as the western world slips into the worst recession since the great depression of 1930. Even as political parties prepare to release their election manifestos over the next week or so, it will be interesting to see how leading formations like the UPA and NDA respond with new ideas to the unprecedented situation developing in the global economy.

Even if the full impact of job losses and economic distress is yet to be felt uniformly across the country, especially in rural India, the climate of growing distress and insecurity will force political parties to come up with new ideas to mitigate the impending crisis.

In some sense, this is an inflexion point for India’s political economy which is waiting for the political class to introspect and look carefully within and come up with ideas specific to local culture and situations.

Globally, the new mantra is unlimited fiscal and monetary stimulus. But it may be foolish to blindly follow the herd. Strangely, as the IMF exhorts the world to expand the fisc to lift the global economy, rating agencies like S&P are busy downgrading the outlook for every economy that is expanding the fisc. Except, of course, that of the United States. The US enjoyed the highest rating at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency when America had a huge fiscal surplus and it is still rated AAA when the US fiscal deficit is projected to expand to an unprecedented 15% of GDP! Simply because it runs the printing machine for a currency which the world habitually accepts.

So the short point is, emerging economies like India will have to think for themselves. It is here that the innovativeness of the Indian intelligentsia and its political class will be tested. One important component of this will be how the Indian government targets its increased spending at the Centre and state levels. If the gross borrowings of the Centre and states together has increased from some 7% to 12% of GDP since 2007-08, we surely need to figure out how the extra 5% of GDP or $50 billion is being spent. It must stimulate the economy in some way or the other.

The current global crisis provides the biggest opportunity to creatively target spending by the Centre and states. One successful example is the way the government set aside Rs 5,000 crore for replacement of old state transport buses that had been fully depreciated in the books decades ago. According the Cabinet Secretary, KMChandrasekhar, orders have been placed by various states for 14,000 buses which are to be delivered in the next few months. “I am informed by the Chief Secretaries of various states that the companies supplying the buses don’t have the capacity to supply so many buses before the June deadline. So the deadline may get extended after a new government is in place”, said Chandrasekhar. This is one fiscal stimulus scheme which appears to be delivering quick results. India needs a hundred such targeted schemes which will deliver results within six months.

Public sector banks could play a big role by setting up special loan appraisal division for small entrepreneurs and self-employed businesses. For instance, the thousands of decrepit taxis and smaller commercial transport vehicles—over 25 years old— plying in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai etc could be offered replacement loans by banks. The repayment period could be made longer and part of the interest component subsidised by the government. This would not only raise demand for vehicles in the immediate future but also raise productivity in a big way, besides improving energy efficiency.

The Centre and states could work together in many other ways. For instance, the home ministry can work with state home departments to refurbish thousands of police stations and other infrastructure across the country. This would increase the offtake of cement and metals and other items that the small scale industry provides. In short, there is a need for hundreds of such small ideas that can bear results in the immediate future. India has the advantage of volumes. Every small idea, in terms of value, can multiply in millions.India is fast urbanising and waste management and environmental pollution is a huge issue. This is also a unique opportunity for public policy.

The Congress party can revive Rajiv Gandhi’s aborted plan for cleansing the Ganga. The original effort did not fully succeed because it became a bureaucratic, top-down project. The same idea can be revived in a bottomup fashion by involving village panchayats and municipal bodies in small towns. The idea must be to create thousands of small infrastructure related to waste management, for the millions of inhabitants alongside the Ganga. Ganga has a powerful cultural connotation and if conceived well this could well turn out to be a grassroots movement. The existing funds under NREGA or JNURUM could be used in the Ganga project. Both the main political parties of the country, Congress and BJP, are struggling to become relevant in the Gangetic belt. Even politically, a massive effort related to improving the infrastructure around the Ganga could provide the right socialeconomic fillip. Any takers?

Vital ingredient for bird flu drug found in India

By Sakshi Aiyyer

Shikimic Acid Used For Making ‘Tamiflu’ Has Been Discovered In 7 Plants Species Of Western Ghats

Shikimic acid, the most vital ingredient used to make Oseltamivir, (Tamiflu) the only known drug to combat the deadly bird flu, has been found in trees in the Western Ghats.

Scientists from Bangalore have found at least seven plant species that yielded shikimic acid from the Western Ghat forests, known as one of the world’s 10 hottest biodiversity hotspots.

The team from University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, said it scanned through 210 plant species to shortlist “a few promising species whose leaves yielded shikimic acid level higher than 1%”.

Presently, the majority of the acid’s global availability is met by China because it is extracted from the fruits of the Chinese star anise tree, that contains up to 5% of the acid. But the 10-metre tree attains its seed-bearing stage after six years of growth, making it unlikely that the growing market demand of the acid would be met by the single source alone.

The fruits of this tree are traditionally used in China for culinary and medicinal purposes as they contain 2%-7% of shikimic acid, the highest reported estimate from plants.

Interestingly, the trees discovered by Indian scientists have yielded 1%-5.02% of the acid, with a plant species called Araucaria Excelsa yielding almost 5.02% of shikimic acid. The most significant advantages of the newly identified Indian sources is that the estimates are from leaves and not fruits as is the case with star anise.

Reporting their finding in the latest issue of the medical journal ‘Current Science’, the scientists said a total of 193 angiosperms (flowering plants) belonging to 59 families and 17 gymnosperms (plants in which the seeds are not enclosed in an ovary) belonging to five families were collected for the study. “Only 7 of the 193 angiosperm species yielded shikimic acid in excess of 1% while the rest yielded no or low shikimic acid. The most promising species were Calophyllum Apetalum (4.10% shikimic acid). All the 17 gymnosperms had detectable levels of shikimic acid with six species accumulating greater than 1%. Among these, Araucaria Excelsa yielding almost 5.02% of shikimic acid,” the scientists said.

They said that since so much of the acid is being used for industrial and pharmaceutical uses, it is imperative that newer sources of this chemical are identified. It is estimated that nearly two-thirds of the requirement of shikimic acid is being sourced from plants while the remaining one-third is obtained from genetically engineered E Coli.

The team added, “The leads presented here appear more promising than most others. In few of these species, the estimates are comparable to those reported from star anise. Because the estimates are from leaves, the sheer volume of the biomass offered by the leaves would render it economically feasible.

This finding of the new source of shikimic acid can potentially be used to meet the emerging needs of both the domestic and international markets.”

Union health ministry sources said, “Getting the raw material to make Tamiflu in India has been our biggest hurdle. At present, it is found only in China and Germany.” Tamiflu, the drug which blocks the replication of the flu virus, is presently being stockpiled by most countries as a precautionary measure in case of an outbreak of the bird flu among humans.

The price of shikimic acid has, therefore, skyrocketed. Pharma companies in India say the acid, which used to cost $40 a kg earlier, now costs around $1,000 per kg.

IPL vs Elections

By M H AHSSAN

Which of the two IPLs were you voting for? The Indian Premier League or the Indian Political League? In other words, were you for the general elections, even if it meant cancelling this year’s IPL, or would you have cast your ballot the other way round: never mind the polls, give first preference to cricket?

Following the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore, high-profile cricket fixtures such as the IPL matches are seen as high-risk terror targets, requiring massive security bandobast. However, with the national elections scheduled for more or less the same timeframe as the IPL events, it was felt there weren’t enough security personnel to afford adequate arrangements for both the polls as well as the cricket.

This had put a gloomy question mark on IPL 2009, entailing an enormous loss of revenue for the cricketing fraternity, not to mention the chagrin of diehard fans who swear by the slogan that cricket is their birthright, and they shall have it, no matter what. The resultant contro-versy had virtually split the country into two: those whose first preference is the electoral process, and those who’d opt for IPL, even if it meant postponing the polls. When you boil it down, the bone of contention hinged around a single issue — which is more central to Indian democracy: elections or cricket?

Put that way, the proposition sounds absurd, a confirmation of the view that India is a literally cricket-crazy nation, with an emphasis on the word crazy. Obviously, in a democracy — any democracy — the political process as represented by polls is and has to be far more important to the scheme of things than a mere sport, even a sport that has achieved the status of a national passion. Such a truism, however, might not be as patently true as it might first seem.

It has been said that the great ongoing mela that is the Indian polity has come to be underwritten by three things: the holding of elections, Bollywood films and songs, and, last but not least, cricket — and it’s often difficult to say which of these three is the most compelling factor that helps keep us together. Which set of Indians has the most enthusiastic fan following today: Sonia Gandhi/L K Advani; Amitabh Bachchan/Shah Rukh Khan; Rahul Dravid/M S Dhoni? A moot point.

In aspirational and role-model terms, cricketers increasingly seem to cast a stronger spell on the public imagination than political netas certainly, and maybe even film stars. One of the main reasons for this could be that — more than elections, or rags-to-riches Bollywood fantasies — cricket has come to be identified as part and parcel of the continuing manthan, the great social churning of the Indian cauldron. The rise to stardom of rural or semi-rural lads from obscure backgrounds, youngsters like Virender Sehwag and the Pathan brothers, testifies to the increasing democratisation of what at one time used to be dismissed as an ‘elitist’ sport. Players such as Sehwag, the Pathan brothers, Dhoni himself, have emerged — to borrow a phrase from basketball — the real slam-dunk millionaires, inspirational heroes for both slum-dwellers and salon socialites.

Of course Indian cricket is plagued by its own politics, as everything else is in our country. But having said that, the game, in order to ensure spectator interest, not to mention megabuck sponsorships, has to be seen to bear the stamp of meritocracy. Electoral politics, on the other hand, is more and more being shown up to be dynastic and blatantly opportunistic, where merit counts for less than nothing and caste, connections and captive vote banks are everything.

The poll dates, of course, shall not be juggled around for the sake of IPL. But, equally, why juggle around the IPL for the polls? If security personnel are a problem, why not raise a special ‘blue helmet’ force for the purpose, inducted from IPL-represented countries. All volunteers welcome. Except maybe from Pakistan.

What will Obama do with KBR?

By M H Ahssan

President Barack Obama will almost certainly touch down in Baghdad and Kabul in Air Force One sometime in the coming year to meet his counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will just as certainly pay a visit to a United States military base or two.

Should he stay for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or midnight chow with the troops, he will no less certainly choose from a menu prepared by migrant Asian workers under contract to Houston-based KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root and once a subsidiary of Halliburton.

If Obama takes the Rhino Runner armor-plated bus from Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone, or travels by Catfish Air’s Blackhawk helicopters (the way mere mortals like diplomats and journalists do), instead of by presidential chopper, he will be assigned a seat by US civilian workers easily identified by the red KBR lanyards they wear around their necks.

Even if Obama gets the ultra-red carpet treatment, he will still tread on walkways and enter buildings that have been constructed over the last six years by an army of some 50,000 workers in the employ of KBR. And should Obama chose to order the troops in Iraq home tomorrow, he will effectively sign a blank check for billions of dollars in withdrawal logistics contracts that will largely be carried out by a company once overseen by former vice-president Dick Cheney.

Questions for the Pentagon If Obama wants to find out why KBR civilian workers can be found in every nook and cranny of US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, he might be better off visiting the Rock Island Arsenal in western Illinois. It’s located on the biggest island in the Mississippi River, the place where Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk nation was once born.

The arsenal’s modern stone buildings house the offices of the US Army Materiel Command from which KBR’s multibillion dollar Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program contract (LOGCAP) have been managed for the last seven years. This is the mega-contract that has, since the September 11, 2001 attacks, generated more than $25 billion for KBR to set up and manage military bases overseas (and resulted, of course, in thousands of pages of controversial news stories about the company’s alleged war profiteering).

Even more conveniently, Obama could pop over to KBR’s Crystal City government operations headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, just a mile south of the Pentagon and five miles from the White House. On Crystal City Drive just before Ronald Reagan National Airport, it’s hard to miss the KBR corporate logo, those gigantic red letters on the 11-story building at the far corner of Crystal Park.

Many people who know something about KBR’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan might want Obama to question the military commanders at Rock Island and the corporate executives in Arlington about the shoddy electrical work, unchlorinated shower water, overcharges for trucks sitting idle in the desert, deaths of KBR employees and affiliated soldiers in Iraq, million-dollar alleged bribes accepted by KBR managers, and billions of dollars in missing receipts, among a slew of other complaints that have received wide publicity over the last five years.

But those would be the wrong questions.

Obama needs to ask his Pentagon commanders this: Can the US military he has now inherited do anything without KBR?

And the answer will certainly be a resounding “no”.

Keeping a Volunteer Army Happy
Tim Horton is the head of public relations for Logistical Supply Area Anaconda in Balad, Iraq, the biggest US base in that country. He was a transportation officer for 20 years and has a simple explanation for why the army relies so heavily on contractors to operate facilities today: What we have today is an all-volunteer army, unlike in a conscription army when they had to be here. In the old army, the standard of living was low, the pay scale was dismal; it wasn’t fun; it wasn’t intended to be fun. But today we have to appeal, we have to recruit, just like any corporation, we have to recruit off the street. And after we get them to come in, it behooves us to give them a reason to stay in.

Even in 2003, the US military was incredibly overstretched. For the Bush administration to go to war then, it needed an army of cheap labor to feed and clean up after the combat troops it sent into battle. Those troops, of course, were young US citizens raised in a world of creature comforts. Unlike American soldiers from their parents’ or grandparents’ generations who were drafted into the military in the Korean or Vietnam eras and ordered to peel potatoes or clean latrines, the modern teenager can choose not to sign up at all.

As Horton points out, the average soldier gets an average of $100,000 worth of military training in four years; if he or she then doesn’t re-enlist, the military has to spend another $100,000 to train a replacement.

“What if we spend an extra $6,000 to get them to stay and save the loss of talent and experience?” Horton asks. “What does it take to keep the people? There are some creature comforts in this Wal-Mart and McDonald’s society that we live in that soldiers have come to expect. They expect to play an Xbox, to keep in touch by e-mail. They expect to eat a variety of foods.”

A quarter-century ago, when Horton joined the US Army, all they got was a 14-day rotational menu. “We had chili-mac every two weeks, for crying out loud. What is that? Unstrained, low-grade hamburger mixed with macaroni. Lot of calories, lots of fat, lots of starch, that’s what a soldier needs to do his job. When you were done, you had a heart attack.”

Today, says Horton, expectations are different. “Our soldiers need to feel and believe that we care about them, or they will leave. The army cannot afford to allow the soldier to be disenfranchised.”

When I visited with him in April 2008, Horton took me to meet Michael St John of the Pennsylvania National Guard, the chief warrant officer at one of Anaconda’s dining facilities. St John led me on a tour of the facility, pointing out little details of which he was justly proud – like the fresh romaine lettuce brought up from Kuwait by Public Warehousing Corporation truck drivers who make the dangerous 12-hour journey across the desert, so that KBR cooks have fresh and familiar food for the troops.

Stopping at the dessert bar St John explained, “We added blenders to make milkshakes, microwaves to heat up apple pie, and waffle bars with ice cream.” The “healthy bar” was the next stop. “Here,” he pointed out, “we offer baked fish or chicken breast, crab legs, or lobster claws or tails.”

“Contractors here do all the work,” St John added. He explained that he had about 25 soldiers and six to eight KBR supervisors to oversee 175 workers from a Saudi company named Tamimi, feeding 10,000 people a day and providing take-away food for another thousand.

“They do everything from unloading the food deliveries to taking out the trash. We are hands off. Our responsibility is military oversight: overseeing the headcount, ensuring that the contractors are providing nutritional meals and making sure there are no food-borne illnesses. It’s the only sustainable way to get things done, given the number of soldiers we have to feed.”

Horton chimes in: “I treat myself to an ice-cream cone once a week. You know what that is? It’s a touch of home, a touch of sanity, a touch of civilization. The soldiers here do not have bars; all that is gone. You’ve taken the candy away from the baby. What do you have to give him? What’s wrong with giving him a little bit of pizza or ice cream?”

Between a chili-mac military and a pizza-and-ice-cream military, the difference shows – around the waistline. Sarah Stillman, a freelance journalist with the website TruthDig, tells a story she heard about a PowerPoint slide that’s becoming popular in Army briefings: “Back in 2003, the average soldier lost fifteen pounds during his tour of Iraq. Now, he gains ten.”

Stillman says that the first warning many US troops receive here in Baghdad isn’t about IEDs (improvised explosive devices), RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), or even EFPs (explosively formed projectiles). It’s about PCPs: “pervasive combat paunches”.

Privatizing the US Army
KBR has grossed more than $25 billion since it won a 10-year contract in late 2001 to supply US troops in combat situations around the world. As of April 2008, the company estimated that it had served more than 720 million meals, driven more than 400 million miles on various convoy missions, treated 12 billion gallons of potable water, and produced more than 267 million tons of ice for those troops. These staggering figures are testimony to the role KBR has played in supporting the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries targeted in former president George W Bush’s “global war on terror”.

And in the first days of the new Obama administration, the company continues to win contracts. On January 28, 2009, KBR announced that it had been awarded a $35.4 million contract by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the design and construction of a convoy support center at Camp Adder in Iraq. The center will include a power plant, an electrical distribution center, a water purification and distribution system, a waste-water collection system, and associated information systems, along with paved roads, all to be built by KBR.

How did the US military become this dependent on one giant company? Well, this change has been a long time coming. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, a consortium of four companies led by the Texas construction company Brown & Root (the B and R in KBR) built almost every military base in South Vietnam.

That, of course, was when Lyndon B Johnson, a Texan with close ties to the Brown brothers, was president. In 1982, two years into Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Brown & Root struck gold again. It won lucrative contracts to build a giant US base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, a former British colony.

In 1985, General John A Wickham drew up plans to streamline logistics work on military bases under what he dubbed the Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), but his ideas would remain in a back drawer for several years. In the meantime, Dick Cheney, as secretary of defense in the administration of the elder George Bush, loosed the American military on Iraq in the First Gulf War in 1991, and hired hundreds of separate contractors to provide logistics support.

The uneven results of this early privatizing effort left military planners frustrated. By the time Cheney left office, he had asked Brown & Root to dust off the Wickham LOGCAP plan and figure out how to consolidate and expand the contracting system.

President Bill Clinton’s commanders took a harder look at the new plan that Brown & Root had drawn up and liked what they saw. In 1994, that company was hired to build bases in Bosnia and later in Kosovo, as well as to take over the day-to-day running of those bases in the middle of a war zone.

By the time Donald Rumsfeld took over as secretary of defense under the younger George Bush, he had embraced the revolution that Wickham had begun, and Clinton and Cheney had implemented. At a Pentagon event on the morning of September 10, 2001, one day before three aircraft struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld identified the crucial enemy force his assembled senior staff would take on in the coming years: The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk. You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. The adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.

We must ask tough questions. Why is DOD [Department of Defense] one of the last organizations around that still cuts its own checks? When an entire industry exists to run warehouses efficiently, why do we own and operate so many of our own? At bases around the world, why do we pick up our own garbage and mop our own floors, rather than contracting services out, as many businesses do?

He outlined a series of steps to slash headquarter staffs by 15% in the two years to come and promised even more dramatic changes to follow. While the invasion of Afghanistan the following month was conducted by military personnel, Rumsfeld’s ideas started to be implemented in the spring of 2002. Indeed, the building of bases in Kuwait in the fall of 2002 for the coming invasion of Iraq was handled almost entirely by KBR.

Today, there is one KBR worker for every three US soldiers in Iraq – and the main function of these workers, under LOGCAP, is to build base infrastructure and maintain them by doing all those duties that once were considered part of military life – making sure that soldiers are fed, their clothes washed, and their showers and toilets kept clean.

While many stories have been written about the $80,000 annual salaries earned by KBR truck drivers, most of the company’s workers make far less, mainly because they are hired from countries like India and the Philippines where starting salaries of $300 a month are considered a fortune.

Outsourcing the kitchen patrol
The majority of KBR’s labor force, some 40,000 workers (the equivalent of about 80 military battalions), are “third country nationals” drawn largely from the poorer parts of Asia. In April 2008, I flew to Kuwait city where I spent time with a group of Fijian truck drivers who worked for a local company, PWC, doing subcontracting work for KBR.

My host was Titoko Savuwati from Totoya Lau, one of the Moala Islands in Fiji. He picked me up one evening in a small white Toyota Corolla rental car. The cranked-up sound system was playing American country favorites and oldies. Six-feet-tall with broad, rangy shoulders, short-cropped hair, and a goatee, Savuwati had been a police officer in Fiji. He was 50 years old and had left at home six children he hadn’t seen in four years. When he got out of his car, I noticed that he had a pronounced limp and dragged one foot ever so slightly behind him.

We joined his friends at his apartment for a simple Anglican prayer service. Deep baritone voices filled the tiny living room with Fijian hymns before they sat down to a meal of cassava and curried chicken parts and began to tell me their stories.

Each had made at least 100 dangerous trips, driving large 18-wheeler refrigeration trucks that carry all manner of goodies destined for US soldiers from Kuwaiti ports to bases like LSA Anaconda. They slept in their trucks, not being allowed to sleep in military tents or trailers along the way.

Savuwati had arrived in Kuwait on January 14, 2005, as one of 400 drivers, hoping to earn $3,000 a month. Instead, his real pay, he discovered, was 175 Kuwaiti dinar (KWD) a month (US$640), out of which he had to pay for all his food and sundries, even on the road, as well as rent. Drivers were given an extra 50 dinar ($183) allowance on each trip to Iraq.

“I came to Iraq because of the large amount of money they promised me,” he said, sighing. “But they give us very little money. We’ve been crying for more money for many months. Do you think my family can survive on fifty KWD?” He sends at least 100 dinars ($365) home a month and has no savings that would pay for a ticket home at a round-trip price of roughly $2,500.

I did a quick calculation. For every trip, if they worked the 12-hour shifts expected of them, the Fijians earned about $30 a day, or $2.50 an hour. I asked Savuwati about his limp. On a trip to Nasariyah in 2005, he told me, his truck flipped over, injuring his leg. Did he get paid sick leave? Savuwati looked incredulous. “The company didn’t give me any money. When we are injured, the company gives us nothing.” But, he assured me, he had been lucky – a number of fellow drivers had been killed on the job.

The next day, I stopped by to see the Fijians again, and Savuwati gave me a ride home. I offered to pay for gasoline and, after first waving me away, he quickly acquiesced. As he dropped me off, he looked at me sheepishly and said, “I’ve run out of money. Do you think you could give me one KWD [$3.65] for lunch?” I dug into my pocket and handed the money over. As I walked away, I thought about how ironic it was that the men who drove across a battle zone, dodging stones, bullets, and IEDs to bring ice cream, steak, lobster tails, and ammunition to US soldiers, had to beg for food themselves.

This, of course, is the real face of the American military today, though it’s never seen by Americans.

Obama’s Army
Pentagon commanders often speak of a “revolution in military affairs” when summing up the technological advances that allow them to stalk enemies by satellite, fire missiles from unmanned aerial vehicles, and protect US soldiers with night-vision goggles, but they rarely explain the social and logistical changes that have accompanied this revolution.

Today, US soldiers are drawn from a video-game culture that embraces computers on the battlefield, even as the US Army bears ever less relation to the draft armies that did the island hopping in the Pacific in World War II or fought jungle battles in Vietnam. Indeed, the personnel that Obama will soon visit in Iraq and Afghanistan is generally supplied with hot food and showers around the clock in combat zones in the same way they might be on a Stateside base – by workers like Savuwati.

Undoubtedly, an Obama administration could begin to cut some of the notorious fat out of the contracts that make that possible, including multi-million dollar overcharges. Obama’s potential budget trimmers could, for example, take whistleblowers inside KBR and the Pentagon seriously when they report malfeasance and waste.

But could Obama dismiss KBR’s army, even if he wanted to? Will Obama really be willing to ask American volunteer soldiers to give up the bacon, romaine lettuce, and roast turkey that they have come to expect in a war zone? And even if he could do so, those are only the luxuries.

Keep in mind that, on US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, every single item, from beans to bullets, is shipped using contractors like PWC of Kuwait and Maersk of Denmark. In the last two decades, the US military has even divested itself of the hardware and people that would allow it to move tanks around the world, relying instead on contractors to do such work.

The White House website states that “Obama and Biden support plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families.”

As part of the same policy statement, the site claims the new administration will reform contracting by creating “transparency for military contractors,” as well as restoring “honesty, openness, and commonsense to contracting and procurement” by “rebuilding our contract officer corps”.

Nowhere, however, does that website suggest that the new administration will work toward ending, or even radically cutting back, the use of contractors on the battlefield, or that those 92,000 new soldiers and Marines are going to fill logistics battalions that have been decimated in the last two decades.

What we already know of the military policies of the new administration suggests instead that President Obama wants to expand US military might. So don’t be surprised if the new LOGCAP contract, a $150 billion 10-year program that began on September 20, 2008, remains in place, with some minor tinkering around the edges to provide value for taxpayer money.

KBR’s army, it seems, will remain on the march.

TELANGANA: A TALE OF UNMITIGATED MISERY

By M H Ahsan

The spectre of drought is a constant feature in Telangana especially. since no attempts have been made to fight it on a long term basis with the implementation of permanent anti-drought measures. The problem is made worse as irrigation is underdeveloped, there has been no industrialization nor has any skill development taken place in the region. The result is that a majority of the people, the poor and the landless are at the mercy of nature. Only a copious monsoon can assure them of at least three months of wages. Or else, they leave their hearths and homes and migrate to distant cities in search of livelihood.

Figures vary on the number of people migrating from the drought prone districts of Telangana: the more severe the problem the greater is the exodus from almost all areas of the state to the nearest urban conglomeration: from the North Telangana to Maharashtra from South to Hyderabad, and from West to Karnataka. According to estimates, during any year, the poorest and the driest district of Mahabubnagar sees the exodus of five lakh labourers, well-known through­out India for their hard work. Better known as “Palamur labour”, they have worked in every major project construction in India and yet they have remained half-fed, half-clothed, forced to live the life of nomads, going back to their native village not only to return to the old people they had left behind but to their soil to which they belong; A soil that remains dry most of the year, which does not provide them sustenance and yet to which they return year after year, season after agricultural season, with hope. According to estimates, as many as 12 lakh people have migrated out of Mahabubnagar in 1997 as monsoon failed.

Though the Indian Meteorological Department predicted an optimistic monsoon this year for the country, as far as Andhra Pradesh is concerned, the conditions are precarious. The onset of monsoon itself was delayed and even after onset, there were no widespread rains and drought conditions prevailed till the end of June. Only during the first week of July, there were rains, although the quantum received was low. Again, drought conditions prevailed during second and third weeks of July, rendering most of the rain fed crops unsown. There were long dry spells ranging from 15 to 18 days in almost all the agro-climatic zones of the State, which stunt crop and drastically reduce its growth.

The South-West monsoon normally sets in the first week of June in the State. But the monsoon in 1997 set in on June 12 and it was well below normal. The most affected region was Telangana with 45 per cent rainfall deficiency while overall deficiency for the State worked out to 38 per cent. The deficit in Coastal Andhra was 34 percent and in Rayalaseema 36 per cent.

The region-wise assessment of rainfall shows that North Telangana received 290 mm rainfall as against a normal of 472 mm as on August 6, 1997, a deficit of 39 percent. South Telangana was the most affected receiving only 201.5 mm rain­fall as against a normal of 350 mm, which was a deficit of 42 per cent. The deficit in North Coastal Andhra was 32 per cent, in South Coastal 37 percent, and in Rayalaseema 36 per cent.

Up to August 27, the State as a whole received 275 mm of rainfall against 441 mm of normal, a deficit of 38 per cent of normal. The districts of North Telangana received a deficit of 44 per cent. This region received 356 mm rainfall as against normal of 641 mm. South Telangana received 247 mm as against the normal of 459 mm with a deficit of 46 per cent. The region-wise split-up reveals that north coastal Andhra received 381 mm as against 488 mm of normal, a deficit of22 per cent. Similarly, South Coastal Andhra also received a rainfall of 190 mm as against the normal of 318 mm the deficit being 40 per cent (Table I). Rayalaseema region which receives a normal rainfall of 233 mm has received only 160 mm recording a deficit of 31 per cent. Revival of the south west mon­soon rains in mid-September did not do much to undo the damage since the crop was a total failure and could not be retrieved. To some extent the late rains filled up the water sources and recharged the groundwater but that was not enough.

The rain deficit in comparison to the normal annual rainfall showed that Telangana’s deficit was the highest with 45 per cent. The rain deficit in coastal Andhra districts was 30 per cent and in Rayalaseema 31 per cent, according to official estimates put out by the office of the Relief Commissioner. The rainfall deficit district-wise showed the deficit in Telangana districts ranged from 31 per cent in Khammam to 58 per cent in Mahabubnagar which was the worst affected (Table 2).

While the Union Agriculture Minister Chaturanan Mishra was taken on a whirlwind tour of the drought-affected areas in Mahabubnagar, Nalgonda and Rangareddy districts in the first week of September, the Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu assured the people that there won’t be any problems in the Krishna and Godavari delta regions but the upland areas would need attention. He did not utter a Word on the trauma being undergone by the people in Telangana. He undertook an aerial tour of Karimmigar in the second week of September and said that the state was in the grip of “severe drought”. It was not until September 13 when he announced that 755 mandals out of 1,110 mandals in the state that Naidu spoke of the drought situation in Telangana.

An analysis of the government’s figures on the number of mandals affected by drought as determined by the new norms laid down by the revised drought manual shows that 84.5 per cent of mandals in Rayalaseema were drought-hit; 76 per cent in Telangana and 59 per cent in coastal Andhra (Srikakulam district not included as the statistics were not available).

The government admitted that about 250 mandals were reeling under severe drought conditions with a majority of them being in Telangana but the govern­ment did not declare the areas drought-hit which would automatically devolve several benefit to the affected people in terms of employment, subsidized food grains and odder, postponement of loan and tax collections.

According to official figures, about 755 mandals out of 1110 in the state faced severe drought conditions. Six out of23 districts have received less than 50 per cent of the normal rainfall. In others, rainfall varies between 40-60 per cent but in view of the late onset of monsoon this year, the damage to crops even in districts which received normal rainfall is expected to be considerable in view of long spells of dry weather after the start of agricultural operations in the wake of monsoon rains.

Initial reports of the situation in the entire state said that against 8.16 lakh hectares of area under paddy during the previous kharif season, only 6.20 lakh hectares could be brought under the crop in 1997 kharif. In most of the areas, transplantations were delayed. Under dry crops, only 28.85 lakh hectares were sown this season, as against 47.34 lakh hectares during the previous season. According to Official statistics, agricultural production in the state is likely to come down by 25 per cent on account of adverse seasonal conditions. Paddy trans­plantation was completed only in 9.30 lakh hectares of land as against 28 lakh hectares. The average was 36 per cent of the normal area for paddy, 65 per cent for pulses, 50 per cent for dry crops and 36 per cent for oilseeds. Groundnut crop was taken up in 6.53 lakh hectares as against the normal area of 11.88 lakh hectares.

According to statistics, the total dry crops coverage in the State stood at 21 lakh hectares as against a normal area of 53 lakh hectares. The corresponding figure of dry crops for 1996 was 37 lakh hectares, which means that an extent 16 lakh hectares was not covered. Most of the dry crops are grown in Telangana Minor irrigation sources such as tanks and wells have dried up due to scanty rainfall and there has been no transplantation of paddy in areas irrigated by minor irrigation sources that which are mostly in Telangana.

While there is quibbling among officials as to when a drought should be declared and what criteria to follow, the most reliable indicators are the pee themselves. Among the people-oriented indicators of drought are: mass migra1 of people, widespread distress sale of cattle, and increased dacoities which attributed to near-famine conditions prevailing leading to unemployment and he the people driven to desperation. Even under normal conditions at least five I agricultural laborers migrate to other areas from the drought-prone Mahabubnagar district which is-the poorest and most backward, during the off-season in search of work. In 1997 it is estimated that 12 lakh persons have migrated.

For a more deeper perspective and the extent of the suffering of the people is necessary to study district-wise the overall picture of the drought.

Mahabubnagar
Mahabubnagar district received only 220 mm rainfall against the normal 432­mm up to August end. Almost all crops withered away with 654 irrigation sour received no water. An estimated 5000 bore wells and about 80,000 irrigation WI dried up. Due to shortage of fodder thousands of cattle were sent off to slaughter houses. In certain areas drinking water was available once in five days and Jadcherla town it was supplied once in 10 days. “Drought pensions” were sanctioned to 10,000 persons by the government in the district while scores of villages turned into ghost habitations with all able bodied persons migrating to distant cities with their young ones leaving behind the old who could not travel.

Mahabubnagar district bore the brunt of drought this year, with agricult1 alone reporting crop loss of Rs 400 crores. The district Collector sent several reports on the alarming situation in the district. Against 9.15 lakh hectares of la taken up for cultivation during kharif season, only 4.45 lakh hectares were taken up this year. Out of the cultivated area of 4.45 hectares, crops in 3.75 hectares were damaged due to scanty rainfall. Normally paddy is cultivated in 1.24 lakh hectares in the district, but this time it was cultivated only 38,304hectares,out of which the crop in 26,m hectares got damaged. As against normal area 2.71 hectares, jowar was sown in 1.37 hectares out of which the .crop in 1.27 lakh hectares got damaged. Similarly, castor was grown in 47,087 hectares as against the normal area of 1.37 lakh hectares and the crop in, 38.247 hectares was damaged due to continuing dry spell. Cotton is normally grown in 79,928 hectare, but this time it was sown in only 49,977 hectares.

Not many efforts were made to change the situation of almost continuous drought in Mahabubnagar district. This district receives one of the scantiest rain­fall and yet whenever drought situation has arisen some temporary measures are adopted but no long-term programmes implemented to reverse the drought condi­tions nor efforts were made to mitigate them through the well-known measures such as watershed development, and harnessing rain water run-off. According to a study, the district uses only five per cent of the rain water for irrigation and drink­ing purposes while the rest flows unutilized into Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers.

Sheer neglect has marked the planning by irrigation department. Several major and medium irrigation projects planned for mitigating the drought conditions have remained on paper. For instance, the Priyadarshini Jurala project, Bhima first and second phases, Nettempadu, Koilsagar, Peddamarur and Kalwakurthy lift irrigation schemes which were expected to irrigate 4.5 lakh hectares apart from providing protected water supply to hundreds of habitations have not been taken up. Successive governments have shown little concern or sympathy with the people of Mahabubnagar.

Medak
Fodder scarcity has become a major problem in Medak as inadequate rains have prevented farmers from growing fodder and barren grasslands have affected cattle and sheep in this district with one of the highest cattle population.

Warangal
According to experts, drought conditions have been spreading to several non ­drought areas in Warangal. Failure of rains for the past six years in parts of Warangal has forced fanners to leave their land fallow which is increasing monsoon after failed monsoon. All the 50 mandals in the district were severely affected. The water level in minor irrigation sources like Parkal and Ramappa lakes and Salivagu project is much below the normal with Lakkavaram Lake and Malluruvagu project recording zero level till July 15. Lakkavaram and Parkal lakes have almost dried up with little in flows into them. It is feared that the groundwater resources would be threatened if such dry conditions continue. In agriculture, paddy transplanta­tion was possble in only 15,000 ha as against the normal area of 1.03 lakh ha. Jowar, greengram, groundnut and cotton crops in thousands of hectares of land were affected by the drought.

The Warangal Collector reported that all the 51 mandals in the district were drought-hit. About 46 per cent of shortfall in rain during the South West monsoon had left 56 per cent of the normal sown area to be left fallow causing a crop loss of Rs 276.95 crores. In real terms, two lakh hectares were left fallow out of the normal 3.53 lakh hectares sown. Out of 1.53 lakh hectares sown in 1997 kharif lack of rains had damaged crops over 38,000 hectares. Special arrangement were made to transport fodder from Palampet to Jangaon, the worst affected revenue division in the district.

Nalgonda
The district faced this kind of drought for the first time in 12 years. The most affected district after Mahabubnagar was Nalgonda. With the exception of only two mandals out of 59 in the district all the mandals have been affected by drought. Only five mandals received normal rainfall. More than half of the villages faced severe shortage of drinking water. All tanks dried up, and with the groundwater level receding, more than half of bore wells too dried up. Crops were raised in only half of the total cultivable area and there was acute scarcity of fodder. Milk collection in the district fell by 15 lakh litres daily due to the monsoon failure and fodder scarcity.

Nalgonda threatened to turn into a desert as land cracked for lack of rain, tanks and small irrigation sources dried up, emaciated cattle were drive to Hyderabad’s slaughter houses and mass exodus of people began. Newspapers reported that in Mallepally village in the drought-hit Deverakonda Assembly constituency of the district, Mallaiah, a marginal farmer of Peddadisarlapally village was taking home an emaciated cow along with its calf which he bought for a throwaway price of Rs 1800. In normal times this pair would have cost Rs 3600. Many farmers, unable to grow fodder, sold away their bulls and buffaloes for a paltry Rs 1500 or Rs 2000. With even dry crops like bajra, jowar and groundnut not sown, there was no possibility of farmers being left with fodder for their cattle. Local farmers said most of the cattle were being sold to contractors of various slaughter houses in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Although this was a regular phenomenon, the sale of cattle for slaughter was more pronounced due to drought this year. The district’s cattle population is 15 lakh but the fodder stock was sufficient for only three lakh heads of cattle.

In 24 out of the 59 mandals in the district, the rainfall was less than 60 per cent in 30 mandals, it was 26 per cent to 30 per cent less in five mandals and 5 per cent less in five mandals. There are 549 small irrigation sources in the district, out of which only 124 tanks received water for irrigation. In the rainfed areas, crops on 7.35 lakh acres are sown in normal years in the district, but only four lakh acres were sown in 1997 due to inadequate rains. With fields drying up in 21 out of 59 mandals there was a drastic fall in paddy cultivation in 1997. Paddy was transplanted in 28,660 hectares of land as against the normal cultivation of 1.39 lakh hectares. Only 19 per cent transplantation could be completed. In the rainfed area, 57 per cent transplantation was completed but with long spells of drought the yield is expected to be low. The Nalgonda district agricultural authorities have estimated that the loss of crop production due to the drought is about 1.23 lakh tonnes valued at Rs 7,333 lakh. .

Dry crops under rain-fed area were planted in only 1.83 lakh hectares as. against the normal cultivation of 2.92 lakh hectares.

Nizamabad
Out of 36 mandals in the district as many as 31 have been declared drought hit. Severe drought combined with irregular and low quality power supply saw the farmers of this district attack electricity sub stations and the staff. They were frustrated that due to lack of power they were unable to use whatever water there was in their borewells to save their crops. There has been only 40 per cent of the normal rainfall in the district resulting in the drying up of 1600-odd minor irrigation tanks in the district. The medium irrigation projects like Ramadugu and Pocharam were nearly dry. The command area crops have been affected as the Nizamsagar dam level reached its lowest level in several years.

Karimnagar
This district was the only “fortunate” one in Telangana which was visited by the Chief Minister to study the drought situation in mid-September when the drought was clear to everyone. For the first time since Sriramsagar Dam was constructed in 1970 it dried up in August leaving no water even for fish which died in hun­dreds and thousands. According to government officials, fish worth Rs one lakh died for lack of water. The dam had dried up in 1987 but that was in summer. For the first time it dried up during monsoon.

The State government took its own time to come out with a realistic plan of action to tackle the serious drought situation and the drying up of the Sriramsagar reservoir which threatened paddy crop over severallakh hectares. Although the drought conditions were obvious in late July itself as rains had totally failed, the government waited until September 13 to declare formally the district as “drought hit.” 25 out of 56 mandals were declared as “drought-hit.”

Revenue minister T Devender Goud has gone on record saying in August ­end that 274 mandals had been identified as having abysmally low rainfall, but he did not dec1!’ire them as “drought-hit”. Relief measures continued to elude these regions reeling under drought. Once a district is declared drought-affected, the government has to waive interest on all agriculture loans and reschedule their recovery, give 25 per cent subsidy on seeds and fertilizers and take up on war-footing relief measures such as digging of bore wells, provision of drinking water and supply of fodder for the cattle.

As many as 37 out of 46 revenue mandals experienced drought in Khammam while major and minor irrigation tanks got minimal inflows. The crop area fell by about 50 per cent in as many as nine of the 46 mandals in the district where the scarcity conditions are acute. The agriculture under the minor irrigation sources, which could not receive sufficient water so far this year, has been affected. About 40,000 hectares of agriculture land lay barren in the absence of sufficient rains. Minor and lift irrigation schemes irrigate an ayacut of about two lakh hectare in the district. There are 382 such schemes, which come under the minor irrigation department. Besides, 300 small tanks irrigate a considerable area. Tanks irrigation an area of 70,000 hectares, canals 65,000 hectares, bore wells 5000 hectares and lift irrigation schemes irrigate 3000 hectares. As many as 43 of the total 46 mandals received low rainfall, of which 29 mandals registered less than 50 per cent of the normal rainfall. Ten mandals got rainfall ranging from 30 per cent to 50 per cent and two mandals as low as 20 per cent to 30 per cent during the current Kharif season. Wazed, Venkatapuram, Charla, Dummugudem, Aswaraopet, Vemsoor, Kallur, Mudigonaa Pinapaka, Manugur, Kunavaram and Konijerla are the worst affected mandals.

Although agricultural operations did not begin and migration had started in full earnest by August end, the government failed to instruct the districts to launch drought relief measures. Official figures of rainfall told the tragic tale: 30 per cent deficit in rainfall all over the state (as on August 31); the situation was worse in

Telangana, with 45 per cent deficit in rainfall until then. The Agriculture Department had submitted a detailed report on the agricultural situation but no action was taken as the Chief Minister was busy with other things. Similarly, the Revenue Department did not react to reports from the various drought-affected districts with the result that no planned, coordinated, substantial drought relief measures were undertaken till the middle of September. By then a large number of cattle were led to slaughterhouses and villages emptied of peop1e as they migrated to urban areas looking for a livelihood. A major problem in Telangana during drought is the scarcity of fodder. Several districts have a huge cattle population which is difficult to sustain in such times. Till August end the government had released only Rs 34.40 lakh to supply the fodder as against the Animal Husbandry department recomm_ndation for the release of Rs 5.37 crore for one month which itself is an underestimated figure. At this rate each drought hit mandal would get barely a lorry load of fodder a day.

As a result of the failure of the monsoon in Telangana, a very small fraction of land sown during normal monsoons could be cultivated. Out of a normal sowr area of 26 lakh acres under dry crop in the region, only 5.3 lakh acres were sown; ‘and as against 3.5 lakh acres under agricultural pump sets, a mere 58,000 acres were brough_ uhder (tultivation. That is, about 80 per cent of the normal sown area under dry crpps and 85 per cent of area under pump sets could not be cultivated in Telangana.

Inflow into the Sriramsagar (SRSP) Project across the Godavari river were the lowest in its history (Table 5). In the absence of water releases into SRSP canals, paddy crop in seven lakh acres in four districts, including five lakh acres in Karimnagar district alone, was endangered. The catchment areas of Godavari were receiving rain but the water was being impounded by the Jaikwadi dam, upstream of SRSP. While the state government made a big row about the construc­tion of Almatti dam in Karnataka and every now and then makes issue over low levels ofwater released from Tungabhadra and other project ,upstream on Krishna river in Kamataka, it has not raised the Jaikwadi issue with the government of Maharashtra It could not persuade Maharashtra to release 20 tmc ft of water from Jaikwadi project on upstream Godavari into SRSP which could have saved the crops. Acconding to estimates, farmers had invested at least Rs 2000 an acre for preparing the fields and for transplanting paddy. The estimated loss of paddy crop, at the rate of 20 quintals an acre, would be nearly Rs 500 crores.

The Major Irrigation Minister explained that Maharashtra had not agreed to the proposal since Maharashtra too was facing acute water shortage due to failure of rains. There was only 35 tmc water in the project as against its full capacity of 120 tmc. He said even if the Maharashtra counterpart released 10 tmc water, it would take more than 20 days to traverse 320 km to reach the Sriramsagar project in Andhra Pradesh. Besides evaporation and transmission losses, more than three tmc water wquld get stagnated at the barrages en route. The government explored no alternative(s; if a similar situation arose in either Coastal Andhra or Rayalaseema, it would have been under great pressure to act, to pay compensation and reduce distress of the people.

The Anjdhra Pradesh Government has replaced the old Drought Manual of 1981, which, was based on the outdated Famine Code of 1950, with a new one prepared by fl, committee headed by Mr. A V S Reddy, a senior IAS officer. The new manual based on the principle of relativity and therefore, is fair, scientific and objective. It has removed all the discretionary powers of the District Collectors in assessing the drought situation and instead made certain physical parameters, such as rainfall, mandatory for declaring ail area as drought-hit.

The new manual says, deficit rainfall in any two of the three other conditions­ sown area to be less than 50 per cent, crop yield less than 40 per cent, and continued dry spell-were compulsory for declaring a mandai drought-hit which would pave the way for state intervention to save the situation by automatically postponing collection of arrears of land revenue, loans, drainage cess, special land tax, rescheduling of agricultural loans and granting of fresh crop loans.

While the old manual merely stated “significant deficiency in normal rainfall as the criterion, the new one scientifically categories the mandals into three, categories; those receiving an annual rainfall of less than 750 mm, those received 750 mm to 1000 mm, and those with more than 1000 mm rainfall. The manual stipulates that the 15 per cent deficiency will suffice to declare the first category mandal as drought-hit, because “a little deficiency in them will have more, pronounced effect”.

For the second category the deficit recommended is 20 per cent, and the third 25 per cent. Without assigning relative significance of the rainfall received in different areas depending on the type of soils, the old manual described “rainy day” as one giving 2.5 mm of rainfall.

The new manual, on the other hand, fixed 2.5 mm for black cotton soils as these types of land have more retentivity-absorbing capacity and 5 mm for red soils which allow run-off instead of absorbing. If any mandal receives lees than the specified quantum during the season, the day will be treated as forming part of dry spell.

For declaring a mandal as drought-hit, compression in cropped area by 50 per cent and above for all principal crops including paddy is being observed as the norm. The area is to be declared “affected” if it reports reduction in crop yields of 50 per cent and above in respect of major crops, and 40 per cent for high input oriented crops, groundnut, Bengal gram, hybrid sunflower.

The A V S Reddy Committee stipulates that the government should use any part of the Calamity Relief Fund for permanent works as this particular fund was constituted to deal with emergency and extraordinary situations. It also permits flow from the fund to the dove-tailed programme.

It also stipulates that one-third of a landholding should be earmarked for growing fodder and for this legislation should be enacted. The committee also recommends use of techniques available with the National Remote Sensing Agency and the Andhra Pradesh satellite research application center. Their “vegetative index” can be guidance to an impending drought.

It is estimated that the season of monsoon activity in the state will have 50 to 75 days. The state is served by both the south-west monsoon active during June to September, and the north-east monsoon active in October-December. The state receives an average rainfall 600 mm during the south-west monsoon, and 200 mm out of the north-east monsoon.

In 1997 while the state was to receive 441 mm of normal rainfall by August end, it could get only 275 mm. Kharif operations have been limited to 50.34 lakh hectares compared to the normal area of 81.67 lakh hectares. The situation in Mahabubnagar and Prakasam districts was alarming with migration of agriculture labour, lack of fodder resulting in the distress sale of cattle and general fall in the purchasing power of the people.

If we were to consider the governmental concern, generosity and the prot­ness that attends on any calamity in a region other than in Telangana, the case of Telangana would be obvious. For instance, in the summer of 1997 widespread shortage 01 power and low voltage in Telangana burnt out hundreds motors of agricultural pump sets and crops withered away. Unable to bear the losses caused by crops least a couple of farmers committed suicide. Farmers became violent, attacked AP State Electricity Board staff, and even raided neighboring villages to get their share of power. All that the government did in the face of this tragedy was to say that the farmers were being instigated by naxalites. And yet when farmers in East Godavari protesting against increased water and power tariffs were caned by the police and one died, there was such a political uproar that not only the Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu apologized for the police action but gave a huge compensation to the farmers who suffered at the hands of the police.

Similarly, in the name of mitigating cyclones and the havoc wreaked by them, hundreds of crores of rupees have been spent in the coastal areas; international funding agencies help was taken, the Central government funds used and volun­tary agencies encouraged to work in the area. While admittedly severe cyclone devastates huge pockets, the damage wreaked by drought, the suffering caused to the people the dislocation suffered by them, and the setback they face is no less than the victims of cyclones. The tragedy of the drought victims is even more horrifying because they are the poorest of the poor; the nature’s vagary makes them poorer. Yet neither the government, nor any NGO, nor the generosity of an international donor has reached them with help other than token help. In fact, an allegation that has gained widespread currency and credibility, given the history of in jus tic I meted out to Telangana, is that the government has held back drought relief programmes for mitigating the people’s suffering because it wanted to con­serve the funds under the centrally-funded Calamity Relief fund to meet emer­gency needs should a cyclone hit the coastal areas during the north-east monsoon from October to December.

It is high time that the government gave serious thought to fight the drought conditions in Telangana. Long-term measures need to be taken to create irrigation potential, improve the region’s ecology, and harness the scanty rainfall. The drought of Telangana is as much a handiwork of nature as of the government’s callous. neglect for over four decades. Nature has been generous to Telangana, endowing it with two major rivers, many lakes and rich groundwater resources. Not so the succession of governments headed by politicians from coastal Andhra, and run by bureaucrats from coastal Andhra. For them, Telangana has become a colony – to be used, exploited, and kept under-developed to serve their needs.