Rice diplomacy with Bangladesh

After a diplomatic gaffe, the government has initiated rice diplomacy with Bangladesh days before Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are scheduled to visit the country.

Updated on: Jul 11, 2011, 22:55:45 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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After a diplomatic gaffe, the government has initiated rice diplomacy with Bangladesh days before Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are scheduled to visit the country.

Price of rice, country's staple diet, had increased by 42 % in March 2011 as compared to the previous year. India had promised to supply rice at price lower than international prices.

On Monday, an Empowered Group of Ministers headed by finance minister Pranab Mukerjee decided to export three lakh tonnes of non basmati rice to Bangladesh at a price of Rs 20,000 for a tonne.

The decision was taken after the Food ministry reported shortage of storage facility for rice because of a bumper crop and said most of the godowns were overflowing.

In all, the EGoM decided to allocate eight lakh tonnes of non-basmati rice for diplomatic purposes. It means the rice will be exported to countries at less than international price as a goodwill gesture, said a senior government official.

This also means lifting of a ban of export of rice, which was imposed in April 2008 when domestic prices of food started to increase because of high inflation. While food inflation has remained at a high of 7.61 %, the prices of food had been stable.

A formal announcement is likely to be made before Sonia Gandhi's slated visit to Bangladesh on July 25. Bangladesh is honouring former prime minister Indira Gandhi for providing military assistance in independence struggle of the country. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be visiting Bangladesh in September. Earlier this month, the off the record comments of Singh with media on Bangladesh were put on a government website causing a minor diplomatic row.

fostering ties

The move comes ahead of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visit to the country.

India has promised to supply three lakh tonnes of non-basmati rice at a price lower than international price.

The group of ministers decided to allocate eight lakh tonnes of non-basmati for diplomatic purposes to other nations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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