Daily News Mail - News of 02/04/2015

Mustafa Kamal quits ICC post

• International Cricket Council president A.H.M. Mustafa Kamal has announced his resignation to protest the “denial” by the international body to let him give away the trophy to the champions in the World Cup and also the “controversial” umpiring during the Bangladesh-India quarterfinal match at Melbourne.
• He made the announcement at a press conference soon after his return from Australia.
• Mr. Kamal, who is also Bangladesh’s Planning Minister, said his decision was “final” and “not negotiable.” His resignation was in protest against the “flagrant violation” of the ICC rules and constitution.
• Citing the constitution, he said only the president had the right to hand over the trophy to the winners of a match. “I was supposed to present the trophy to the winners after the Melbourne final on March 29. But I couldn’t do that.” He was not allowed to do so because an issue was made out of some of his comments after the Bangladesh-India quarterfinal match.

A retrograde move

• India’s efforts to curb the growth of tobacco consumption have suffered a severe blow, with the Centre deferring its own rule requiring packaging of tobacco products to have enlarged pictorial warnings from April 1. Regrettably, Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda has turned the clock back by accepting the untenable logic of the Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate Legislation that the issue should be decided after consulting industry stakeholders. 
• Under the amended Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008, tobacco products were required to carry stark images of diseases caused by the substance across 85%of the package area, against the current 40%, to act as deterrents. This forward-looking move is consistent with India’s obligations under the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Moreover, there is a vast body of evidence showing that pictorial warnings have more impact than text. Images of harm prompt smokers to strongly think of giving up the habit, and deter young people from using tobacco. This is particularly true of low and middle income countries, including India, where such warnings can influence behaviour among the less-educated.

What's Agricultural Produce Market Committees(APMC)?

• An agricultural produce market committee is a marketing board established by state governments of India.
• APMC acts run on two principles: Ensure that intermediaries (and money lenders) do not compel farmers to sell their produce at the farm gate extremely low price so that farmers are not exploited. All food produce should first be brought to the market yard and then be sold through auction.
• Under APMC Acts; A State is geographically divided and Market (Mandis) are established at different places within the states. Farmers have to sell their produce through the auction in mandi. To operate in Mandi, a trader has to get license. Wholesale, retail traders (e.g. shopping mall owner) or food processing company etc cannot buy farm output directly from farmer. They’ve to get it through the Mandi.

Pros and cons of APMC

The APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committees) is a relic of the past that forces the farmers to sell their produce only to middlemen approved by the government in authorized Mandis (markets). Thus, if you are a vegetable producer and I'm a supermarket, I cannot directly buy from you. Both of us need to go through a broker. This increases prices for the end buyer and unnecessarily adds redtape.

The system was put in place to protect the farmers from the "evil corporations". A lot of our policies are indirectly related to our insecurities from being ruled by a Corporation (East Indian Company). Government worried that the farmers would be cheated by the end buyers and the Mandis would provide them better prices. This is ok, if you also ensure that the brokers in Mandi don't collude in price fixing and hoarding. 

Govt reiterates need to phase out APMCs

The Union government has reiterated the need to phase out the system of  Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs).

Ram Vilas Paswan, the Union minister of food & public distribution, told this newspaper here recently, “The government is looking to set up a nationwide spot market for agri commodities. The exact nature is still being worked out. But such a market will come into existence sooner than later.”

Early this year, business chamber Assocham had said the APMC Act needed to be scrapped. The cumbersome rules, it said, had resulted in cartelization of mandi intermediaries, fleecing both consumers and farmers.

“Phasing out of APMCs would be gradual for which the (national goods and services tax (GST) needs to be implemented. Once GST is in place, issues in transporting goods from one state to another would be resolved. This will ultimately help in phasing out APMCs,” said Paswan. There are currently 7,500 operational APMC mandis across the country. The governments of Bihar and Kerala have scrapped their APMC Acts, allowing direct sale of agricultural commodities into mandis. Other states have continued with the Act, which restricts farmers within the ambit of one mandi to transport their produce to others.

Karnataka has initiated mandi modernisation with active interest from India’s second largest commodity futures trading platform, the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX). Farmers are allowed to transport goods to any mandi of their choice.

Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, though, have objected to scrapping of APMCs. Paswan said the Centre was in talks with states to resolve the differences. “Our Karnataka experience suggests that the government must look into the age old APMC Act per se. While we require spot mandis with modern infrastructure in place and without any restriction on farmers for trading, the APMC Act in the current form is not needed. First, we need to build a modern trading system and then, phase out the old one gradually,” said Samir Shah, managing director and chief executive officer of NCDEX.

Yemen Crisis

I am sharing a newspaper clip which focused on Yemen Crisis, it is specially for Hindi medium students. Please click on the image to enlarge it.

Please click on the image to enlarge it.