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As farm product rotted on farms because of a lack of buyers, India has come up with new ways of getting farm agricultural product to buyers in urban areas. The Indian government has approved online sales direct from farmers to buyers outside the country. Within the country enterprising farmers  and app developers for farm produce sales directly to consumers in cities are changing the way agricultural produce distribution works. This report in the Guardian shows how sales are being made from remote Meghalaya state to buyers in cities for product ranging from turmeric, pineapple, jackfruit, and cashew. Prices are about 70% higher helping boost farmers incomes.  Several states have relaxed rules allowing farmers to sell anywhere in the country.  In other parts of the country this is happening with a proliferation of such apps creating a virtual marketplace. Other examples are a grape orchard farm in Gudahalli with sales made in Bengaluru at 30 apartment complexes. One site founder in Chandigarh says he has in 2 months sold 20,000 tons of produce ranging from avocados of the Nilgiris to papaya from Chattisgarh. His app Harvesting Farmer Network also helps with packaging and delivery. In other developments Gaia Agritech is helping farmers on the Konkan coast in Maharashtra hit hard by a pause in exports, sell to housing societies in Pune and Mumbai. This is part of a broader debate in India after coronavirus pandemic. One idea is that people have a family farmer just like they have a family doctor, encouraging organic agriculture, fresh produce for healthier living. By helping farmers it makes for a better economy, as about a sixth of India's GDP comes from farmers and most of the jobs are in farming and agricultural economy. ...

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Gabriele Steinhauser's interview July 16, 2015 with the chief of eurozone finance ministers, Dutch finance minister Dijsselbloem. He tells Steinhauser the lowest moment in the crisis came on the night of July 5 when the referendum results were announced. He expected a "no" vote as he knows this is the way this sort of referendum turns out. He was present in all the critical moments of the crisis. And this moment gave him a sad feeling because of his conviction that it would take tough measures to sort out something like Greece, and the Greek people had been given the idea that this vote could change things. He says Tsipras heard a lot from European leaders on July 7 about lack of trust. Following an ultimatum to Greece about Grexit or acceptance of the measures to be taken, and Greece's acceptance on July 9, more hurdles emerged on July 11, 2015. One came from the IMF with an estimate of 86 billion euros as the cost of new loans to Greece, and possible writedowns on 180 billion euros already loaned. He says Greece's new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, a Oxford educated economist, who was Alternate Minister for International Economic Affairs in the Syriza government from Jan to July 5, 2015, showed a remarkable ability to absorb the criticism as a lot of the bad news surfaced. A Wikipedia note on Tsakalotos shows a similiar background 10 years apart for George Osborne, Britain's chancellor of the Exchequer, and Tsakalotos- both educated at St. Paul's school and Oxford, and Tsakalotos's wife Heather Gibson also from Britain. Tsakalotos was seen as being at ease with the EU ministers, who thanked him for his attitude, of grace under a lot of pressure, and the way he handled the matter. Another piece of difficult news, says Dijsselbloem, was the insistence of German finance minister Schauble on a default scenario of Greece opting out of the euro for a number of years being included in a eurozone statement. After 17 hours of drafting, the final statement left this scenario out. It included a 50 billion euro privatization fund with half to be setup to help capitalize Greek banks, quarter to pay down debt, and a quarter to generate economic growth. Compared to the day following the referendum, Dijsselbloem says he feels it will be a difficult road with many problems, but he feels now that it can be sorted out. Stangely he does not make any mention of the role of the French under premier Valls and president Hollande between July 6 and July 9, including sending advisors to Greece to help draft proposals, in turning the situation around. Only saying he is relieved- possibly of not having some of the burden of the failure to resolve the crisis falling on the Dutch finance minister....

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Increasing regulation on Mexico's telephone monopoly of America Movil, and Telmex, part of Carlos Slim's telephone business in Mexico. Mexico's three main parties have agreed to increase regulation on the monopoly to reduce the high charges paid by Mexico's telecom users. Estimates by OECD show Mexicans paying an extra $13 billion a year from 2005 to 2009 because of the monopoly and high prices. The administration of Pena Nieto made controlling telecom and other monopolies an important part of its program. To get an idea of the extent of the monopolistic control - 70 percent of the cellphone market and 65 percent of fixed lines are controlled by companies run by Slim.  AT&T is now a competitor and is helping bring down high cellphone plan prices.

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Cia Mexicana de Aviacion, Mexico's largest airline filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2010. The airline says losses amount to $350 million since 2007, and the debt is about $1 billion. Mexicana and Aeromexico were given government bailouts in the 1990's, later merged into one government run airline holding company called Cintra. In 2005 Mexicana was sold to hotel chain Grupo Posadas SAB for $165.5 million. The Mexican government is trying to introduce more competition in the airline industry and opposes another merger of the two airlines.

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Six cities have rejected the Olympics, with Calgary in Canada being the last one. The problem with hosting the Olympics is how much it costs. Cost overruns are common. 20141 Sochi WInter Olympics estimated budget was $10 billion, in the end it cost $51 billion. 

Brazil is the latest example of the problem. With huge needs in sanitation, epidemic prevention, infrastructure and public services, the country did badly by spending money on new soccer stadiums in the northeast which were not used after the World Cup soccer championship, and in the summer Olympics. 

Learning from these lessons voters in Calgary, Canada, rejected hosting  the Winter Olympics. Voters or local councils in Innsbruck, Austria, Rome, Italy, Bern, Switzerland, Hamburg, Germany, Oslo and Stockholm have rejected the idea of hosting the Olympics. Other problems are the environmental impact with deforestation to create Olympic sites.

 

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Krugman points to the economic muddle that China is getting itself into. He says one way of looking at what is happening now with high inflation is that inflation is the market's way of undoing the currency manipulation that China has engaged in. By following aweak currency policy to protect export interests China has created an artificially high trade surplus. But this is now turning into a lose-lose proposition for both China and the US as market forces push wages and prices up, whittling away at any competitive advantage of China's weak currency policy. He says some estimates he has seen show that Chinese undervaluation could be gone in two or three years. Chinese consumers are asked to accept interest on savings limited to 2.75% and below inflation, with the spread designed to help banks earn their way out of bad loans made during the stimulus lending binge of 2009-2010. What is happening is a massive allocation of capital away from consumers to lending for state owned companies that have created overcapacity in many industries, and use part of this capital to engage in real estate speculation. Krugman says China may be on its way to some kind of crisis with collateral damage to the rest of the world as it is a major importer of commodities from Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and a major importer of high tech goods from Germany and the USA....

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CNN reporter Cassie Spodak provides this exceptional report into the minds of New Hampshire Democratic voters who gave Bernie Sanders a 22 percent lead in the New Hampshire Democratic primary over Hillary Clinton. In October 2016 Hillary Clinton has the support of Bernie Sanders against Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election. She described it as "100 percent support" in television debate. Sanders has appeared with Clinton twice, and campaigned 4 times in New Hampshire, and continually across the country. Younger New Hampshire voters still long for Sanders as their favored candidate. Older voters and some who have been motivated by Sanders to run for local office see the shaping of the Democratic Party platform as a victory for Sanders. Key planks of Sanders, taxes on the wealthy and higher incomes to pay for student tuition, infrastructure, and helping working class families, are now key parts of the Democratic platform. These voters see this as a pragmatic step and are enthusiastic in their support for Hillary Clinton. Overall Clinton now has 87 percent of Democratic voter support in New Hampshire according to a WMUR/UNH poll in mid October 2016, and she is doing well with millenials and independents nationally, a critical bloc of voters for Clinton to show nationwide support. One member of the steering committee for Sanders in New Hampshire named Dudley Dudley, reflects the opinion that has shifted the party to emerge united during and even more so in the final months of the presidential campaign of 2016- she tells the CNN reporter Spodak that she supports Hillary because "of the way she has grown, and stretched," and the way Clinton and Sanders are now campaigning together and working together. Both Clinton and Sanders deserve credit for their extraordinary ability to grow during their campaigns and during the party's way to shape the way forward. ...

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Lakhdar Brahimi who was special representative of the UN secretary general for Afghainistan from October 2001 to December 2004 and was present when under UN auspices Afghan political representatives met to build anew after the US defeated the Taliban. He says it was a mistake then no to try to atract those in the Taliban movement and other political groups in Afhanistan that could have been brought into the new political setup and administration to build a broader base of support. And the Taliban did not surrender to anyone when it was defeated so the same mebers of that movement could simply resurface. Also no peace can be achieved in Afghanistan without the cooperation and support of Pakistan its neighbor and with tribes. sharing land on both sides of the border. Brahimi says he bitterly regrets not having advocated more strongly 2 suggestions made by the UN in early 2002. The first to reach out to those members of the Taliban who were willing to join the political process and second to deploy the ISAF outside of Kabul with increased strength. He also believes the war that happened in Iraq after the Afghan peace effort may have falso fundamentally altered the views of people in the countryside and in border areas of neigboring Pakistan about perceptions of the US and NATO....

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The Indian prime minister talks in his radio program Mann Ki Baat (Talking our Mind) about Indian athletes at the Tokyo Olympics and overcoming any hesitancy for vaccines. He remembers athletes from the Olympics past- Milkha Singh India's fastest runner, who worked hard and emerged from the partition bloodshed as a survivor in 1947 to compete in the Rome Olympics in 1960. Milkha Singh was the first Indian male athlete to reach the finals of the Olympics when he barely missed the bronze medal by 0.1 seconds in the 400 metres race. He remembered for this years Tokyo Olympics hockey player Neha Goel, race walker Priyanka Goswami, javelin thrower Shivpal Singh, archers Deepika Kumari, Pravin Jadhav, badminton player Chirag Shetty. Pravin Jadhav is a laborer's son from Satara district in Maharashtra who is competing in archery. The prime minister talked about two people from Betul district, Madhya Pradesh, with vaccine fears from spread of disinformation. He pointed out that over 300 million people have been vaccinated and this includes his own 100 year old mother. He urged India to trust science and scientists. Sometimes, he said, people get a mild fever, that lasts only a few days. "Avoiding the vaccine can be very dangerous, you are not only putting yourself at risk but also  your family and the entire village." In the new phase of the vaccination drive vaccines are made available for free in all states and union territories. ...

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India says China carefully prepared an attack on Indian soldiers in the Galwan Valley mountain ridges, at Ladakh's border with China. 20 Indian soldiers were killed and 76 injured. This report in the Guardian shows satellite images of the Galwan Valley taken by Planet Labs, an imaging company. The images show that days before the clash there was increased activity on the Chinese side, including the damming of a river and the movement of troops and machinery close to the disputed and poorly demarcated border. Australian Strategic Policy Institute says its analysis of satellite images shows PLA Chinese forces regularly crossing into Indian territory temporarily on routine patrol routes. Indian officials also say commanders from both sides met on 13 June and agreed to each retreat back 2 kilometres in the Galwan Valley and Pangong Lake area. For unknown reasons Chinese troops instead of retreating as agreed erected a tent on disputed territory close to Patrolling Point 14. India's 16 Bihar Regiment led by Col Santosh Babu, dismantled the structure in an attempt to push back the PLA troops. According to accounts given to the Hindu newspaper cited here in the Guardian, Babu and his troops later went to the Chinese side to challenge the refusal to retreat, they were ambushed by Chinese forces on the steep mountain precipice. Chinese PLA troops allegedly unblocked the dammed river, releasing a rush of water to destabilise Indian soldiers, and attacked with stones and makeshift spiked weapons. ...

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Is there a lesson in this for the Detroit automakers who have too many dealerships. See related article on the dealership numbers for the Big Three vs. the like of Toyota and Honda. Deere has gone from 3400 dealerships to 2984 dealerships, down 12% in ten years since 1996, so it appears to be a gradual decline, and dealerships are consolidating with stronger partners, or selling out to stronger partners. The number of owners has shrunk at a much faster pace. (Why are auto dealerships able to take this to the courts and not Deere dealerships, as is mentioned in the related auto dealership article? ) Much of this reflects search for improved profitability and stability in a very cyclical industry. Fewer distribution outlets owners and better management of inventory, better parts service with better techically trained staff, and bringing new technology and designs to improve the revenue generating capacity of each machine by reducing demand for expensive labor, is a shrewd way of managing this business. A $100 million dealer organization can better service what is becoming a high tech product, a better hire technically trained people, and better manage inventory. With this setup Deere probably can better manage production to match demand and not let inventory clutter the dealer lots for discounted clearence. ...

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Walmart CEO Mike Duke talks with Journal reporters Ann Zimmerman ans Miguel Bustillo. He says customers are under alot of pressure, and he sees what they buy, delaying purchases and the buying at midnight on the first of the month. Apparel sales are down and so are discretionary purchases and basic necessities and things like vitamins and the $4 generic pharmaceuticals are up. Walmart sees 140 million customers in stores every week, and has information systems to show how customers are buying, which gives it a unique lens through which to see changes in buying behaviour after the financial crisis and increasing numbers of jobless. Customers are saying he says that I will invest in basic needs and defer discretionary purchases. Among other things he talks about sustainability as something his company is paying attention to.

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The Economist describes the fraud in the election and the odious group of warlords and crooks that Karzai has pulled together to get support for this election. If they get as reward positions in the ministries then "the war is over" according to one diplomat. And without acredible government the chances are poor for any"good outcomes." Eide, the UN diplomat in the country says ultimately this will be decided not by governments but by people sitting at thier kitchen tables making up their mind as the follow the information in the media. And the President has only 37% of Democrats with him who want to see more troops in Afghanistan in a recent poll.

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As the USA and Europe move into a deep and prolonged recession China loses some of its biggest export markets and faces a significant slowing down of its economy. China's leaders are pondering how to respond to the crisis which will affect China, and meet the challenges of lower living standards of a neglected rural countryside and farmers compared to the urban coastal areas. This is still where some 800 million of the Chinese people live by official count, so something needs to be done to improve prospects and help generate higher incomes and opportunities for people in the farming countryside. Making land use rights of farmers able to be bought or sold for the first time would generate additional income for farmers, and help consolidate farmland into larger plots, which can use technology and improvements for better yields to keep China self sufficient in agricultural production. Keeping the situation the way it has remained for the last two decades, where local party officials and local leaders controlled the land and where farmers rights were ignored leading to suppression of farmer's protests for illegal land seizures and corruption, may have made it easier for plants to be setup across China and attracted foreign investors. But it has not been good for China's farmers. Chinese party officials at the local level who realized the advantages to them by controlling land and making it easier to set up manufacturing plants with foreign investors may have steered state policy in this direction from the early days after Deng's opening to capitalism and trade. Now with a success in the urban coastal areas and in building infrastructure Chinese leaders in the central government must be faced with a difficult issue of how to move on from here with the loss of China's export markets for its heavily export dependent economy. The need to generate a domestic consumer driven economy must not be lost on the Chinese leadership in Beijing. Something that will keep China's economy moving in the new situation. This is the context in which land use rights may be extended from 30 to 70 years and able to be bought and sold to improve farm incomes and generate internal momentum in the rural areas where most of China's people live. It also offers a contrast to the situation India faces where even the Nano plant of Tata Motors had to be moved from W. Bengal state to Gujarat state over farmers rights to land which in that case was also used as an issue for political agitation. The move by China accelerated industrialization and setting up manufacturing plants as land was taken over by local officials for use with foreign investors but also ended up neglecting the countryside, and created too big a dependence on exports....

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The critical variable in knowing whether lockdowns of cities and countries are working is called the coronavirus RO, or reproduction ratio. This ratio measures the average number of people infected by a carrier A. It could be that he infects 1 person at work and transport call it B people , or in large gatherings call it C people he infects 2 persons, or in other surroundings such as restaurants he infects 1 person call it D people. The people A has infected B+C+D are the ones now not infected by A with the lockdowns such as in New York, Italy, Germany, UK and France. It is determined by global health experts that the number of B+C+D is about an average of 4 persons infected by 1 person A with coronavirus, though it may be much higher in practice in some areas. The natural rate of RO or reproduction ratio is considered by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to be 3.86 or about 4, if no lockdown or social distancing or other prevention is practiced. This in a situation where people behaved as before unaware that the virus was around them. Governments such as New York and France, UK, Germany are including this key variable in their determination of how long a lockdown lasts, and for determining if the reopening is not going the right way or failing. In such situations the lockdown would be reinstated, or if it is a phased reopening such as in the U.S. and other countries go back to the previous phase. In Italy and Germany the RO reproduction ratio for coronavirus is estimated by official experts at 0.8. Germany's RO estimated by the Robert Koch Institute and Italy's by Franco Locatelli, scientific advisor to the government. In New York the margin is thin- with RO of 0.9, estimate from the state's governor. In France which has one of the tightest lockdowns of all with a document required to go outside it is at 0.6, the figure coming from the prime minister Mr. Philippe. In the UK it is below 1.0 but no accurate figure is reported. As Dr. Birx- leading the coordinated response in the U.S. - emphasizes over and over again this is a very contagious virus, about which not much is known. Social distancing, wearing masks, basic prevention measures such as frequent handwashing, and not gathering in large numbers of people, is essential for defeating this virus. This has to be followed up with extensive testing and contact tracing to win this fight.   ...

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Based on certain criteria of the number of seats and number of states India's Election Commission says the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi and Punjab gets status as national party. The Trinamool Congress or TMC of West Bengal, and the NCP of Maharashtra, the CPI, are no longer considered national parties. India's evolution as a modern industrialized country following the pattern set by Japan in the 1960's, South Korea in the 1990's, China by 2019, is at stake. The regional parties based in one state are a new phenomenon. Under Jawaharlal Nehru India lacked a pool of capital and techological resources large enough for this kind of industrialization similar to the situation in China under Mao. Non alignment under Nehru and Communism under Mao deprived India and China of the resources and foreign investment of the west including the absence of infrastructure and policies that would encourage foreign investment. China set about removing these obstacles. Yet one obstacle would not stand up against these efforts in China as it would in India. There was no prospect of coalition governments that would be indecisive and be built on various compromises damaging to rapidly building infrastructure. In India coalition governments would emerge because of the 22 language structure in its makeup and the language based division of the country that Nehru was forced to make by linguistic demands. As a result without a core philosophy of principles common to all parts of the country rapid development could not happen over a period 1990-2014 when the party of Nehru lost many northern states and when states in the south such as Tamilnadu, Andhra and Telengana, and states in the northeast such as West Bengal, Orissa, states in the west such as Maharashtra moved into language based regional identities and parties running these states. This is the significance of the changes since 2014 of one strong party in a number of northern states and in the west and northeast of the country that is making rapid industrialization and infrastructure building to attract foreign investment similar to China's experience happen. In India this core of common principles has evolved around the Ancient Path of Vedanta and Buddhism that has provided essential aspect of good governance and the discipline for finding a path to the kind of rapid infrastructure development that has happened in neighboring Japan and China. ...

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An exceptional account by Melissa Eddy of how Germans are reacting to the German government's underinvestment in childcare centers. Germany's cabinet approved a bill that provides $190 monthly child care allowance for mothers who opt not to use day care centers provided by the government. This is supported by the Bavarian party, Christian Social Union, on the grounds that it gives an alternative to mothers to use private day care or nanny care. In practice many of the mothers using the allowance are expected to be lower paid workers who may decide not to work. The government has budgeted $500 million for the allowance for 2013. This is opposed by all opposition parties , and in a rare show of unity by business employer associations and unions, both say it "creates a false incentive to quit work." Axel Plunnecke of the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, says studies show low income families are among those who benefit most from early childhood education. About 100,000 lower qualified and lower paid workers could see this as attractive and quit working. The western part of Germany lacks enough child day care slots, so this is seen as not investing enough where its most needed, and Germany lags behind other countries like France in day care centers. The government is investing $15 million over five years to expand the number of child care centers. The goal is to have 750,000 child care slots by 2013, according to Ms. Kristina Schroeder, the family minister, herself a mother giving birth while in office. The measure was vigorously debated and controversial from the beginning because most many Germans see the $15 million years over 5 years as underinvestment in vital educational infrastructure. The $500 million is better invested in building modern day care facilities, they believe, especially because the children from lower income mothers not benefitting from daycare facilities will still need educational help, and German industry needs more women in the labor force to be competitive. Five years ago under reforms of parental support the 3 years of help to mothers was reduced to 1 year, resulting in an increase in the numbers of women working from 32% in 2002 to 40% by 2011, according to the Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth....

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Donald Trump is seen as a polarizing person in Kallstadt, Germany, the home of his dad Fred Trump's father. There are very few signs of the family in the town. The media frenzy is not something the locals like.