COMMON PROPERTY RESOURCES

Kashipur Michael Madhusudan Mahavidayalaya ,Adra,Purulia,West Bengal organized a seminar on “Challenges of Common Property Resources” during 22-24 September,2011.It was an UGC sponsored seminar. Fourteen participants presented  their papers . Prof.Raj Kumar Sen-former president of Indian Economic Association and Bengal Economic Association presented his paper on “Common Property Resources in India with reference to forests:Some current issues” where he emphasized on NSS 54^th round data on CPR and also showed its adverse sides.He also,noted the role of CPR for tribal in forest.

Prof.Biswajit Chatterjee of Jadavpur University and President of Bengal Economic Association presented his paper on “Climate Change and Trade-Some reflections”.

Dr.Debesh Bhowmik of International Institute for Development Studies,Kolkata wrote on “The conceptual fallacy of common property resources” where he focused on the issues on the fallacy arose in the theme since CPR created debates on origin of property rights and open access resources and contradictory aspects of its concepts and definitions. NSS 54^th round data suffer from the concepts since they used forest,waste lands,ponds and tanks,rivers,canals etc as CPR.

Prof.Kausik Gupta of Rabindra Bharati University  presented paper on “Issues in Common Property and watershed management”.He focused on the sustainable resource management with watershed development.

Saswati Biswas of North Bengal University emphasized on social space and declining CPR on the paper “Declining common property resources:Its implication for social space”.

Prof.Apurba Kumar Chattopadhyaya of BiswaBharati University said on “Common Property Water Resources in India:Some issues in Irrigation Management” which emphasized on the conjunctive use of ground water and surface water for sustainable development of water resources.

Rajib Pandey and Shashidhar Jha of Ministry of Environment and Forests, on the paper entitled “Common Property Resources and Climate Vulnerability Analysis of Lower Himalaya Communities” ,addresses climate change vulnerability of rural indigenous mountainous community based on the climate vulnerability index.It also discusses the associated critical issues in terms of climatic impact resilience and adaptation mechanism of these mountainous rural communities in context of CPR.

Prof. Dhirendranath Konar of Kalyani University presented paper on “Preservation of Common Property Resources” where he stressed on minimum reservation of CPR.

Somnath Hazra,Ashok Singha ,Abhik Saha ,Mohan Reddy of CTRAN,Bhubaneswar,presented paper on “Forest and Common Property Resource Management in Orissa:Is REDD + a viable option?” where they showed that collection of firewood   from CPR is the most intense cause of GHG emission and REDD+ is a win-win combination of livelihood promotion and GHG mitigation strategy.

Kshirod Chandra Mahato ,Prof of Kashipur Michael Madhusudhan Mahavidyalaya, presented the paper on “Environmental Thinking in Folk culture of Manbhum” and Narugopal Dey of the same college,presented on “Role of Rivers in BankimChandra’s Novels”.

Basistha Chatterjee,Niladri De and P.Ghosh of Asian School of Business Management,EIILM, Kolkata and Adventist Development and Relief Agency,Adra , presented their paper on “ Impact of participatory vegetation monitoring on growth management of major forest trees in panchayet soil conservation division,Bishnupur:A survey based study” which suggest that PVM proved to be an efficient forest management tool for conservation as well as development.

Prof.Suvranshu Pan and Ramanuj Goswami of M.M.M,Adra and Rabindra Bharati on “Pros and cons of common property resources with special attention on land and water management along with watershed development in India” said on eight parts of the topic,namely,introduction, concept and feature,link with sustainability along with the relationship with PPR,property right regimes,gradual degradation of resources,question of equity,some  suggestive measures and conclusions.  

Lastly,Abhay Sankar Sahu of the same college on “Challenges of Embankments in the Sundarbans” emphasized the protection of embankment (CPR).

The seminar enthused the students of the college and other staff as well because it has a great reality in that locality.

INDIA'S SERVICE SECTOR

India's share of service sector in GDP has been increasing an unprecedented rate since 80s and 90s onwards.In 1990-91,India's share of service sector was 42.7% which stepped up to 57.3% in 2008-09.On the other hand, the share of agricultural sector was 31.4% which decreased to 17.0% and the share of industrial sector was 25.9% which shifted to 25.8% during the same period.The sectoral change is asymmetric and unbalanced in context of Indian economy because 70% of India's population still depend on agriculture.A few decades ago, agricultural surplus produces industrial new projects which enables industrial growth.India's industrial growth is severely uneven and not sustainable to India's development.It ranges from 5-6% only.The agricultural growth stands only 3% on an average.On the contrary,the service sector growth appears to be 7-8% during recent decades. 10-12% of the population depend on industry and 15-20% population depend on service sector.Moreover,international trade from service sector is discouraging because trade balance of the sector is negative.But,the expansion of service sector in home economy is encouraging.The low growth of industrial sector could not earn much from trade except from electricals ,chemicals,IT,engineering,hides and skins, garments, textiles etc. And the agricultural sector's export earnings from food and horticulture and fisheries are likely to be mentioned but not rosy prospect.I wish to mention that the potentiality of Indian agriculture has been suffering from sickness due to lack of declining investment,no perspective plan,treating it a non-priority sector and non productive asset because other developing and industrial countries target industry or service sectors as the leading sectors for generating higher growth.But,India's scenario is rather different.It is fundamentally an agricultural country.If the Indian planners could not treat it a sector as prime importance and could not think the people dependent on this sector,then sustainable development path will surely distort its stability and growth .The growth and employment pattern will hamper ,the fundamental macro economic relations between variables like growth and inflation , employment and inflation, income distributional pattern of the economy.Ultimate,poverty and hunger could not be solved.Inequality will be widened.Trade deficit will increase and so to debt burden.The vicious circle of problems will be clouded over in the Indian economy.Is India progressing towards service-led economy?

GIVE ME 200 BILLION DOLLAR,I SHALL BANISH INDIAN POVERTY INTO ARABIAN SEA

I remember that IMF reported a few months back that India had no target based plan for  poverty eradication either by domestic finance or by foreign finance.India spent more than 60 years to fight against poverty but still its poverty head count ratio is more than 25% .On the contrary,China ,taking the same period,it was able  to eradicate poverty ratio just 11% only.How it was possible?Because,they had target rate of reduction of poverty ratio and the income generating techniques for the poor.If we imagine Indian Poverty Reduction Policies, we will see that all policies are short term or very short term of which there are no permanent solution for poverty stricken people who may be up the poverty line.Some of which were taken for infrastructural development from which some poor people benefited (say building roads,canals,social forestry,cash crop loans,IVJ,JRJ, and so many.)Very recently , 100days work - a political poverty eradication policy , which has no productive outcome in terms of GDP increase - is considered the prime policy and is also a temporary and short run policy.Assume PMRJ,PMSJ,IAJ,etc and many small projects for rural development which are disintegrated policies for sustainable development,cannot be treated as permanent cure for poverty reduction.India,since long, stopped in taking IMF - World Bank loan for poverty alleviation due to conditionality .And India is not entitled to take loan from HIPC initiatives.So,India  is permitted to take loans for projects.Above all,India is committed to declare its target in the MDG from where we see India's goal.We are lucky enough.But,if we examine poverty data,we see all targets of poverty reduction became unsuccessful.Even today, all politicians  agree that high inflation hampers poor peoples' purchasing power,but they ignore control on inflation.They say that they had no magic power to control inflation.How, awful and tragic.Until and unless we can assure permanent solution for income generation of the poor,we will fail to solve the genesis of the problem.In the  rural development,focus should be given on cluster work of productive sources of investment by which  poverty ratio can be dwindled.Moreover,the investment leakage in every poverty reduction strategies is visible.Corruption of public funds is everywhere.No body can protest except Anna Hazare.Poor India is depriving the poor.Thus , the distribution of income is becoming uneven.In the era of globalisation,the privatisation drive accelerated this space too.In the long run,we will observe a huge gap between the rich and the poor. The role of the public sector is becoming dim.If we clarify the capital assets of the poor and the rich,the situation is worse off than before.Why? The distribution of capital asset shifted in favour of the rich.Is there any policy to halt this process?Politician needs the poor for their existence but not for policy making.

Left views on Anna Hazare

The movement of Anna Hazare has been enriching day by day against corruption and for introducing Lokpal Bill.It is a peaceful movement that everybody can understand.The movement may be on the Gandhian style although millions of people have accumulated to support Anna-the great hero.He became so popular that the UPA government was bound to think otherwise and had changed their direction of attacking strategies.On the other hand , the left parties criticised Anna Hazare on his path or style of movement and opined that the act is not changed in the field.It means that the movement requires MPs who will move against the corruption in the Parliament and would force the Government to pass the Lokpal Bill but the initial movement requires the maidan and for every fundamental protest needs paths or roads or maidan to attract the force of civil society or the general mass.Any party knows it very well.The tragedy is that the left parties fear to protest against corruption or corrupted government.When and how they will get the mass support,I do not know.They have lost the governments of Kerala and West Bengal and even lost  huge seats of MP,yet they are not supporting any honest movement that Anna is fighting now.How many people will support this type of strategy on the issue of corruption is debatable and questionable.I think this is a negative attitude towards the basic feelings of the people to protest against any unethical activities of the government.The left parties should analyse this issue otherwise.  

WestBengal = Pashchimbanga

Today,in the Assembly , all- party decided that the new name of West Bengal has been changed into Pashchimbanga.The Bengali name is unaltered.There are several views reported in this context.Most of them ,directly or indirectly opined that the leaders have done in their perspectives,yet , the word Pashchim is not disappeared since there is no state named Purbabanga or EastBengal. However,what will be the effects being changed the name of the state.Will it attract more funds to this state? Will it wonder the fame or heritage of the state? Will it improve the status of the state to the center? Will it inspire the human face of Bengal towards the path of development? Will this new name improve the human development of Pashchimbanga? Will it the new name be catalyst for change? Was it a really problem too? The answers may or may not be fictitious , on the contrary , it will emerge complex debates around the state.

Where we are !

We have been observing corruptions since long.Ministers were arrested.Trial is going on.Black money creates parallel economy.Everybody  agreed it whether he is a politician,or a social reformer or a citizen.Everybody is asking how to tackle this situation.Somebody agitate or someone protests.Protestors may be under the banner of a political party or may not be .What harm?They , all are saying the truth.The constitution says freedom of expression but where is the freedom.We fear about our freedom,about our identity , about our movement.We are bound  to act speechless.We should not have any opinion to highlight in this civil society.Politics are the last words and the politicians and their army will be commanding on all events and we should remain spectators.
Then whats our role? Our role is to adapt , is to negotiate , is to go hand in hand otherwise we will be abolished or will be thrown into prison.

RBI on Inflation

RBI declared increased repo rate and reverse repo rate by 50 basis points and rose to 8% to combat inflationary pressure. It also projected inflation 7% to sustain growth rate of GDP.India will also maintain the targeted fiscal deficit of 4.67% of GDP.It is the 11^th successive hike since 2009 to keep up growth with price stability to go along with the global slow  down.

The policy has the mixed reaction in different sectors of the economy.Some argue that to much increase in interest rate may sabotage growth that leads to a slow down.The present inflation of the economy is more that 10% that created projected GDP growth rate lower than previously assumed.The corporate sectors spokesmen said that this policy will hurt the auto-vehicle industry,company growth rate,slow down industrial investment rate and will affect sensex levels which had  started to fall.The real estate sector will suffer.

On the other hand, the new rate could not help the food price inflationary tendency downwards because the policy has no direct relation to combat food prices coming down.Therefore,the essential commodity prices will not move downward.   

7% inflation expectation with 9% or 8.5% growth rate of GDP is not the ultimate answer to the new policy. The fuel price hike increased the transport costs of all food articles and thereby increased food prices. The wages in agriculture increased which is not kept parity with price level.The contribution of agriculture in GDP is falling continuously. The investment in agriculture is becoming lower except in agricultural service sectors where monetary flow will be less and the market will be in favour  of new policy but could not affect prices of agricultural commodities downward. The dearer loan on housing sector may affect inversely because the real estate are going adverse more than expectation .The inflationary tendency of the industrial sector may reduce but the agricultural price hike could not be controlled through this policy framework. Now, the question of twin monetary   and fiscal policy in context of lower supply of money and higher developmental expenditure with lower non-developmental expenditure of the government may welcome to control the overall macro economic situation.