Q: WTF is the WTO fuss all about?

A: Read on. If you are among the hundreds who have written in seeking enlightenment. Or you would just like to know what the intriguing headlines and confusing verbiage really mean. Or you know but would like to see what I have to say on the subject.

Q: We have had chest-thumpers going "We have shown them!" and breast-beaters going: "What will they think?" about India's veto of the Trade Facilitation Agreement. What is the truth?
A: Neither. It is not about them. It is about us.

Q: What is the TFA or Trade Facilitation Agreement?
A: It is basically a set of mutual obligations the international community has agreed to adopt which will make international trade easier, faster and cheaper.

Q: What obligations?
A: Facilitation will happen along two axes:

• Uniform and simpler procedures, systems and rules for processing imports and exports.
• Improved infrastructure for goods handling at ports, airports and in back-offices.

Q: Will it cost a lot of money to fulfil these obligations?
A: Yes. Billions of combined dollars.

Q: Who will bear the cost?
A: Each country will bear its own costs. The developing and poor countries will bear about 80% because they are more in number and they have more to do to get where they need to.

Q: Will it bring a lot of benefits?
A: Yes. About a trillion combined dollars.

Q: Who will get the benefits?
A: Everyone. The industrialised countries will harvest about 80% of the benefits because at present they have most of the export pie.

Q: Still, if everyone benefits where is the problem?
A: As the great 20th century philosopher Jeeves sagely observed: "God is in the details". Costs are all up-front, so not many will be net beneficiaries in a hurry.

Q: Is it in India's interest to sign the agreement?
A: Of course it is.

Q: Why then is India the villain in this drama?
A: International trade broadly falls into three categories: industrial products, services and agricultural produce. The TFA does not deal with the last two which are currently of prime interest to India. These are also areas where, under the prevailing set of rules, developing countries have got the short end.

Q: Is India the only country in this space?
A: No but it is the face and vocal mouth of G33 which, as the name suggests, is a grouping of 46 developing countries, including some, like China, which have a foot in both camps.

Q: But isn't there already an Agreement on Agriculture?
A: Yes. And it caps agricultural subsidies at 10% of the output of a country. The problem is the cap is calculated at 1986 prices. There are also restrictions on accumulating food stocks. We agreed to all this in a monumental lapse of judgement*, and are now ruing it.

Q: Who are the beneficiaries of India's subsidised food?
A: Mainly some 800 million poor or near-poor. Including 400 out of the 500 million farmers from whom we buy staples at above market prices.

Q: Why do we buy high and sell low?
A: We buy high so the farmers can afford to farm. Sell low so everyone can afford to eat. Even so millions go hungry every day. We are working on more efficient ways of producing food and reaching it to everyone.

Q: But why do we have so many poor?
A: Because we have produced and continue to produce more people than the land can happily support.

Q: What are the rich countries scared of?
A: That we will buy wheat and rice for stockpiling from our farmers at high prices and - unable to store them safely or to sell locally even at low prices - dump them abroad driving prices down everywhere.

Q: Don't others dump?
A: America is the master of dumping.

Q: Why is it bad to give something cheaply to others?
A: The answer to that question is nuanced** and long. Merits a post of its own.

Q: What happens, au contraire, when we have a shortfall and drive up prices of food staples all over the world?
A: The rich lick their chops in glee, rake in the moolah and bless us secretly.

Q: Don't other countries subsidise agriculture?

A: They absolutely do. One estimate is:

• The U.S. provides $12 billion subsidy to its 2 million farmers.
• India provides $2 billion subsidy to its 500 million farmers.
• And Japan! Don't even get me started on Japan.

Q: How did we get painted into a corner then?
A: We were not smart enough.

Q: Isn't there a break from this subsidy cap business and a solution under discussion even now?
A: Yes there is. But we know that once we sign on for TFA, the main areas of interest to us, namely agriculture and services, will go on the back burner. According to how one reads it, this existing break could expire as early as 2017. And at the recent parleys the rich were unwilling to commit to an unambiguous extension till a permanent solution is found.

Q: How important was the 31 July deadline which got missed due to our obduracy?
A: There is no such thing as a real deadline in this business. When the food security issues are sorted out, you will find everyone exactly where you left them.

*****

* We also got screwed by a lack of attention to punctuation. But that is another story. For another day.
** Nuanced: I love this word. Sounds very sophisticated, but is essentially empty. One can read into it whatever one is inclined to.

Modi:Mitta::Opportunity wasted?

Were investigations into Godhra and post-Godhra events shoddy? It seems they were. Were they tardy? Obviously. Were they malafide? Maybe. Did people try to influence and subvert them? Probably.

I am sure Mr. Manoj Mitta's book is well received among people who were waiting to hear exactly what he has to say because it reinforces what they already knew and supplements what they suspected.

He does go on for some 250 pages implying criminality where scores of highly motivated people, whom he admires and who helped him, failed to establish any. He pooh poohs the few successes of the legal and investigative system. By resorting to unfettered exaggeration and malicious implication throughout his work he has lost a golden opportunity to present a credible critique of the events, the people and the processes for a neutral reader.

We expected something more than what the news media, the gossip mills and the "I was there" brigade had already given us. We end up a bit wiser but also less trusting of people who presume to investigate on our behalf. The meat of what he has to say occupies the equivalent of some 50 pages. If there is some earthshaking revelation, it is lost in all the padding.

About a thousand people died. Some three-fourths of them Muslims. Not a small number of them Hindus. The man who accuses everyone of religious bigotry does not find any time for the Hindus. Selective empathy is patently fake.

About the burning train at Godhra, he is surprised that the VHP has never been brought to book for instigating the killings.

We are fed bilge like:
"On the eve of the post-Godhra violence, the Modi regime had colluded with the very group that allegedly went on to unleash mass killings of Muslims..."

and,
"The confidential note bristled with investigative leads as it turned out to be a bare account of all the allegations made before the NHRC...". This along with "substantive recommendations".... "constituted the first ever indictment of the Narendra Modi regime by a statutory body!!!"

and,
a report by Raju Ramachandran, amicus curiae, "Neither the CM nor his personal officials have stated what he did on 28.02.2002. Neither the top police nor bureaucrats have spoken about any decisive action by the CM".
quickly becomes in Mr. Mitta's recital: 
"incisive observation that he had not taken any decisive action".

and, back to the amazing Bhatt, 
"Ramachandran pointed out the absence of any 'indisputable material' establishing that Bhatt could not have been present at the controversial meeting" at which presumably Mr. Modi indicated that the maurauding mobs could be given a free hand.

Tell you what Mr. Mitta, there is also no "indisputable material" establishing that Superman could not have been present at the meeting.

I end with a word to another endorser, historian Ramachandra Guha: Sir, you have developed a reputation as a responsible historian. Be careful what you endorse and make sure it is not used to promote something altogether different.

Notes: 
For those who have not read the book, I would like to add that stuff within quotes is verbatim from the book. Stuff attributed to the book without quotes is a faithful summary rendition.

This commentary is, by definition, not comprehensive. It is a look at a book, not a book on a book. But the rest of the book is in the same vein.

Of course, my comments and queries are my own and I have no religious or political leanings.

If you are interested in the subject do read the book. I did.

Previously: Modi:Mitta::Kodnani:Convicted
Starting post-  Modi:Mitta::Fact:Fiction

Modi:Mitta::Kodnani Convicted

To be fair, for all his dislike of Raghavan, Mr. Mitta does acknowledge that Raghavan managed to get convictions in the Godhra as well as the post-Godhra cases. He also admits that Raghavan made many negative or critical observations against not just the Gujarat government but also against Mr. Modi.

In fact everyone against whom the SIT found evidence that could stand in a court of law was convicted. Now one of those convicted in the post-Godhra cases was Maya Kodnani, a Minister in Mr. Modi's cabinet. A key player and inciter in the post-Godhra mayhem. The highest level hindutva brigadist to be convicted.

But Mr. Mitta is unhappy about something here. You see, Kodnani was placed in and around trouble spots partly based on her cellphone call records. Many pages are devoted to the cellphone call records that appeared and disappeared through the years. Investigators are castigated, rightly, for not promptly analysing them and losing sight of them for long stretches of time. Presumably wilfully; at the instance of the sinister ones.

We learn in great detail about who zipped which file and carried what CD to whom and not finding them there brought it back only to...etc.

Turns out that that particular number did not belong to her. It belonged to the BJP. And there is no record of who in BJP was allocated the number.

Mr. Mitta is surprised that no one thought of verifying that she was indeed the user by simply looking at her letterhead or visiting card or even by asking her friends and foes how they contacted her. He does not tell us, however, how come he did not do so in the course of hunting out thousands of leads and documents and meeting hundreds of people. Just to satisfy himself. And us.

Most of Mr. Mitta's angst, however,  derives from the fact that with unlimited leads staring them in the face, all the government investigators and all the Supreme investigators and all the amicus curiae and all the human rights saviours and all the private lawyers and the private investigators did not even manage to get everyone else charged much less convicted of any crime.

One can feel his frustration for he has unearthed all the lapses in investigative zeal, competence and  motivation as also successful machinations and manipulations of the perpetrators and their protectors that have brought things to this dreadful pass.

Next: Modi:Mitta::Opportunity wasted?
Previously: Modi:Mitta::Investigator Indicted
First: Modi:Mitta::Fact:Fiction