If you still want to beat the dead horse that is fine. However there are no more refugees, so just say out right you hate Bhutan. And don’t hide behind non existent causes.

you said “Earthquake news: China cracks under
International pressure
“The Buddhist in me tells me I should feel compassion for all life, but I do find it more and more difficult in this case.”

If you have an evil heart, you do NOT deserve to be a buddhist as Dalai does not deserve to be buddhist. Those dead souls are coming after you tonight. I suggest you hide before you will join them.

I respect your opinions because im democratic,and i dont hate other nations or people.
Why hasnt greece apologized to the exiled macedonians in 1948 when general Metaxas cilled and exiled over 500.000 Macedonians?That is what every civilez country should do if they call them selfs democratic.

Respect and all the best to you.

Could you post information of organizations that we can donate money to help?

I also urge people to donate. It does not matter how much from $1 to $$$$$$$$$. We have to help these victims.

thanks

This is not very bright thinking, particularly because it has no relation to facts, as the statistical data show. The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s statistics demonstrate clearly that there has hardly been any rise in food consumption in India in the years the country was registering relatively high rates of economic growth. An array of Indian economists of diverse persuasions agree that the per capita consumption of food has, in fact, declined in India in this period (while overall food grain consumption has moved up marginally).

The US president’s observation was preceded a day earlier by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressing the same sentiment. That makes the whole affair look like considered orchestration, possibly to head off international criticism of the US for being a prime cause of the unconscionable price rise, especially of cereals that the poorest so desperately rely on.

Some economists here have indeed argued that (in an election year) the US government is seeking to avoid taking responsibility for the very high price of food worldwide, including in markets of the developed world. They suggest that US domestic policies have much to answer for in sending world food prices soaring.

Dr Mahendra Dev, the incoming chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), argues that in the middle of this decade the consumption of food grains in the US has gone up as much as 11 times as against an insignificant two percent increase in India in the same period.

Where is the evidence of escalation in food consumption in India that American leaders speak of, experts here wonder. According to the CACP chief, the consumption pattern for food in developed countries is three or four times higher than in India. Besides, in the US, food crops acreage has been made over to the production of bio-fuels in a significant manner, affecting the global availability of food grains and hence contributing to high prices. The rate of growth of food grain production in India was zero between 1996-97 and 2004-05, and the population growth rate was higher in the same period, leading to a decline in per capita production of food grains, says Dr Dev. This was a factor for reduced consumption of food grains per capita.

The rising incomes for a section of the population in India have caused increased demand for non-cereal foods including dairy and meat products, according to the CACP chief, but not to the extent of causing a significant increase in demand for cereals as cattle feed. At the same time, the bottom 40 percent of the population remains at poverty levels (consumption 2,400 calories a day). In addition to the National Sample Survey (NSS) data, micro-survey data from the states bring the point home.

Dr Himanshu of the Centre for Studies in Regional Development at JNU, who has studied NSS data extensively for consumption patterns of food, is quite clear that in the last 20 or 25 years, cereal consumption per capita has declined in India, including in the years of relatively high growth rates.

ACCORDING TO him, there has been some diversification to non-vegetarian food and dairy products (raising demand for animal feed), but this has not been of an order that would have any significant impact on world food demand. The income elasticity of food (the extent of rise in food consumption in response to rising incomes) in India remains very low, says the JNU scholar. “We are still consuming a lot less food than people in western Europe or North America”, he notes.

It is a convoluted argument, he says, that in India (or China) “we should consume less food so that food availability for American consumers is kept high and the prices kept relatively low even as they continue to grow obese”

The US bears the greatest responsibility for international food prices being as high as they are today, he argues. About 70 percent of US corn production used to provide cattle feed to yield meat and dairy products. But since biofuels are now substituting corn in the US in a significant way, cattle are being fed on wheat that was earlier used for human consumption. This has led to a spurt in demand for cereals in the US market. The international scarcity thus caused has contributed considerably to the price escalation. The speculative action in the Chicago futures market is also impacting international food grain prices, according to Himanshu

According to Prof Sunil Kanwar of the Delhi School of Economics, food availability in India has not moved up or down by any great amounts. There has been only minor fluctuation of a few grams per capita, not kilograms, for certain items of food. Therefore, the increase in international food prices cannot have been on account of the Indian demand, he suggests.

If India were to enter the international food market as a buyer, this will have an impact on prices but India has not done that for some time, says Prof Kanwar.

Prof K. Sundaram of the Delhi School of Economics has also observed that the per capita availability of food in India has been going down, although this is not necessarily the case with total cereal consumption in the country. Prof CP Chandrashekhar of JNU also maintains that the per capita availability of food in the country has been down since the 90s. In India and Africa, the consumption of cereals has been falling on average, he notes. So, why the dodgy economic arguments of the US President, experts here wonder.