Letters

 
Published: Sunday 30 April 1995

Paddy thrashers

I am interested in knowing more about paddy thrashers. I happened to read a news item, Cheap solution to labour (February 15, 1994). Please give me the address of the Kerala Agro Industries Corporation (KAIC), as I would like to get more information on the subject.

N Baskar,
Pattaliram,
Madras - 72

You can get in touch with:

N.K. Gopalakrishnan
Managing Director, KAIC
Trivandrum - 695023
Tel No 73188 ...

Just right for us

I have recently read a few issues of Down to Earth and I am really impressed by the contents. I appreciate your efforts in dealing in depth with the subjects pertaining to science and environment. For administrators working in field jobs, it is important to be aware of the latest in science and environment. I plan to try some experiments during my stay here and later also. For that I found the contents of the magazine very useful. I also appreciate the fact that you are selling it at a very affordable price, thus extending the reach.

Anshu Bharadwaj, IAS Karnataka ...

Biased billing

Your story on the Forest Bill (January 31, 1995) was disappointing. I consider DTE to be a national magazine, and feel that to the extent it should have brought forth views, opinions and experiences of NGOs, state forest departments and village institutions from across the country on the forest bill. Instead, your issue restricted itself to covering a handful of Delhi residents. Doesn't this reflect a form of centralisation that your very report on forest bill is critical of?

G. Raju, Vikram Sarabhai Centre for Development Interaction, Ahmedabad - 380052 ...

Rural solutions

We were very impressed by the article on Watersol Toilet and Biogas Plants (February 28, 1995). It is indeed an innovative device which subserves the interest of the rural poor.

We are working in the agricultural sector and have adopted a few villages under this scheme. We intend to implement the scheme of Watersol toilets and bio-gas plants in Baramati taluka, district Pune, Maharashtra. Please let us know the address of the Delhi-based NGOs from whom we can get suitable advice.

Jagannath Budhwant
Agricultural Development Trust
Baramati 2564

You can get in touch with:
Energy Environment Group,
H - 12 Old Double Storey,
First Floor,
Post bag no. 4,
Lajpat Nagar IV,
New Delhi 11 00 ...

Clothing the empire

The letter by T L Arens published in Down To Earth (December 31, 1994). ends with the remark that the Southern countries should determine their own development priorities "without waiting for the consumption habits to change in the North". I am sorry that he does not see the fallacy of his argument.

Southern countries can hardly determine their priorities independent of the interests which develop within their own societies as a result of trade with the North. Fattened by export earnings, these interests gain legitimacy and status because they symbolise eco- nomic growth. This newfound lifestyle is inevitably a copy of the North. So, if a Northerner cannot defecate without 17 litres of water, the same practice becomes ot symbol of the good life in the South. Sadly, Southerners cannot see how a Northern cut in water consumption would help conserving water here.

Arens' other question is less transparent. He asks, "Should the us consume fewer cotton garments from Southern countries?" Apparently, he wants to know how this might help the garment-supplying countries of the South.

Initially, it won't; indeed nothing would, as the South is caught in a trap of unequal terms of trade negotiations. The high consumption of garments in the North ostensibly seems to promote economic growth in the South. Actually this growth is achieved by a Southern country cheapening the costs of its labour and natural resources, bringing about deeper imbalances within its own society.

Ultimately, a Southern country's extra earnings through increased exports to the relentlessly consuming North are frittered away by the devaluation of its'ca acitytob Iuy higher technology from the N6rtfh, The latter is constantly ahead oflis'ih developing such technologies beca 'use the basic necessities of life come to it so cheaply from the'South, leaving it an enormous surplus time.

The centuries of colonial rule provided one such vast block of surplus time. GATT IS going to provide another, though we all seem to agree, in this instance, not to call it a Second "colonial rule"!

KRISHNA KUMAR , Department of Education , University ofDelhi, Delhi - 110 007 ...

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