Look who's watching our fetish for gold

It’s not just we, Indians observing each other how much jewels we are wearing or if we are wearing anything at all. Now China joins our league and they are observing us, what jewels we are wearing, how much we are wearing. And you should not miss my previous post on the yellow metal and how it keeps attracting me like a magnet and I'm not ashamed to accept the fact that I have this fetish for gold, gold jewels. No need to get any weird ideas, all I mean is I love to invest in gold, to be more precise.

Let me come back to the point. Yes, “without gold nose ring, Indian women won’t go out,” says an article published on a Chinese daily. Ah, little too much, I don’t even have a nose ring, not just me many of us don’t even wear nose ring, but whatever be it, the Chinese are observing us very closely ;) 

People's Daily Online in its article “Indian beauties wearing gold jewelry” says, “In India it will be considered impolite if women go out without any jewellery.” Hmm, maybe times are changing and yes, I remember my mom often telling me that without some piece of gold on her body, woman looks incomplete. Maybe that’s the reason, even a worker at least adorns herself with as tiny as a gold nose ring.     

The article which features Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai wearing jewels says, “Recently Indian government plans to issue “paper gold” that is to encourage people to purchase gold reserved in banks. Though buying “paper gold” doesn’t mean you can really take physical gold in hand, many Indian still scramble for this, which reflects Indian affection and reliance for gold.”

It’s not an exaggeration when the article mentions that among all kinds of jewellery, Indians prefer gold ones. “Indians have black skin and wearing gold jewelry can highlight this feature,” it says. I don’t remember myself wearing fake jewels and my family, relatives and many of my friends know that I love gold jewels. 

    

It’s a fact that Indian women wearing gold earrings and necklaces could be seen everywhere. “Even those little girls who beg along the roadside with an unkempt appearance have a gold nail in the nose,” it says. Yes, who will not love this glittering metal? I don’t think anybody would hate this metal, if not for wearing at least as an asset!   

Who can deny that men don’t wear jewels in India? “It is also very common that men wear jewelry. Many Indian men wear three rings with large pieces of jewels on them,” the article says. And here, I have a man, who hates wearing gold to the extent that he refuses to wear his wedding band and I have to force him to wear it once in a while! The moment he sees a gold commercial on TV, he switches channels, not because he hates gold, but because I love gold and I would put forth my demands in front of him... 

“In wedding ceremony, parents usually choose gold ornaments as daughter’s dowry, which not only set off the beauty of the daughter but can also serve as a kind of property in married life,” the article adds. It’s not rare that friends and relatives presenting gold jewels to show their blessings during weddings and other special occasions. It’s true that one day or the other gold will come to the rescue of the owners and parents want their daughter’s life to be secure, her future to be secure through gold. Not to forget the underlying fact that it has made the dowry system much more stronger in the country, as gold in kilograms is expected from a girl’s family. Maybe it’s one thing which is passed through generations and as it passes generations, it gains its value! While people these days fancy buying antique jewels, some generations have them passed to the present ones and such jewles are just priceless.  

   

No wonder, there are gold jewellery shops everywhere, from metros to small cities, in the country. And how can anyone miss the number of commercials and ads which are pumped through all media during festive seasons? And it is this craze which often makes a big hole in the pockets of men every year in the name of festivals, special occasions and gifts.     

Apart from all these, ever wondered why is China concentrating on India’s, Indians’ gold jewels? According to "Gold Demand Trends Q2 2012" recently published by the World Gold Council, the gold demand in China has dropped by 7 per cent in the second quarter of 2012. But here, one should not forget that China still ranks sixth in the world with a total gold reserve of 1,054.1 tonnes. Although China’s gold demand has grown slower than last year, the World Gold Council still forecasts the 2012 growth rate of the country’s gold demand at 10 per cent.

Plus, China may overtake India as the world's largest gold jewellery consumer in 2012. So China's gold market will exert significant impact on the global market. China remained the world's largest gold producer for the fifth year in a row in 2011, with the annual output rising by 5.9 per cent to more than 360 tonnes, according to the data from the China Gold Association (CGA).

Moreover, China's demand for gold jewellery currently accounts for over 30 per cent of the world's demand, making it the largest gold jewellery consumer for the third consecutive quarter. In the first quarter, the world's gold consumption dropped 5 per cent year-on-year to 1,097 tonnes, mainly because gold prices have surged 22 per cent from a year ago and because demand in India also fell significantly over the same period, said the WGC report.

Currently China and India account for some 50 per cent of the world's gold demand. But the Indian government has hiked jewellery taxes and raised gold import duties, said the WGC, which resulted in the sharp drop in first-quarter demand.

Attracting the consumers, China also has ATMs dispensing gold bars and coins. The first such ATM was activated in the capital's bustling Wangfujing shopping area in September 2011. Gongmei Gold Trading, which installed the ATM, expected the machine to be a big hit and hoped to have 2,000 similar ATMs in place within the next two years. “The majority will be in private clubs at banks and at landmark buildings in large cities,” the company had said.

And such gold vending machines are not exclusive for China. I have seen them in Burj Khalifa, Dubai, and yes our plans to buy one gold bar at the vending machine didn’t fulfill, as the quoted prices were much higher than the market price!

Such gold vending machines are already in use in countries such as Germany, the United States, Italy and the United Arab Emirates. Sorry, none in India! The touch-screen machines dispense gold bars and coins of various weights based on the market price of the metal, which is updated every 10 minutes.

Sigh, whatever be it, we Indians keep loving this metal and keep buying them, no matter how big hole they make in our family budget!

Married women drink more

Gone are the days when weddings used to draw a line for freedom when it comes to drinks and parties. I have come across women who enjoy drinks and parties even the more after their weddings, thanks to the supporting husband, or rather call a husband who is also indulgent in such things.

And to support my view, today, I came across a report which said that a recent research has found that married women are more likely to drink than their unmarried counterparts -- single, divorced, or widowed.  Men, on the other hand, are less likely to drink when they're married. I doubt if they do, as I have seen women giving company to their husbands while drinking! Maybe a teetotaler wife’s threat might make a man to drink less. 

And yes, Corinne Reczek of the University of Cincinnati, also supports this. "We suspect that men and women may converge in marriage. Wherein women's alcohol use is higher due to the influence of their drinking husbands, while men's declines due to their wives, who tend to drink more moderately."

Reczek and colleagues presented their findings at last weekend's American Sociological Association meeting in Denver. For their research, they studied data from three separate surveys, including one long-term survey that provided information on more than 5,000 Wisconsin residents' alcohol habits, gathered four times during a 47-year period.

Researchers noted that overall, men drink more than women, and that women's increased drinking after marriage might be an attempt to match their husband's habits. Reczek said that she was shocked by the finding that married women drink more than those who are divorced or never married, which "flies in the face of what we thought we knew about marriage and alcohol".

Yes, even I was shocked for the first time to learn the fact that most of my hubby’s friends’ wives join their partners in drinking and I look very odd in their company, or they might be thinking I’m too conservative and out of place, or maybe I’m too rural type for their company! Ah, whatever. My principles remain intact and I know I would be a teetotaler for the rest of my life too.  

Richard Ager, associate professor at New Orleans' Tulane School of Social Work, said he isn't surprised. “People tend to do what others in the same flock do, if you spend more time with individuals that have a higher incidence of doing drugs or alcohol you will develop similar habits. People tend to engage in the behaviors of people they surround themselves with.”

Hmm, I agree that people tend to do what others in the same flock do, but following others can’t be merely blind. I’ve been in the company of people who drink, smoke, consume tea, coffee, milk, and I’m surprised how could they not influence me? Am I so stubborn? Maybe, when it comes to my principles and I would never take a chance of breaking them, and there has never been a need to do so. I never get tempted to drink tea or coffee, let alone alcohol.  

As women drink more to match their men, men in turn tone it down and imbibe less - especially those who are happily married, according to the research. And recently, one of our friends asked me why I don’t drink and when I said I never felt for the need of it, he bluntly said: “You are wasting your life!” And I looked at his wife who was full in smiles and nodded agreeing and she was more than happy to tell me that she gave company to her husband whenever he drinks!

Sorry, my upbringing is different, my culture and tradition is different. Even though I argue for feminist things and women’s freedom, I don’t see any base in arguing for women drinking alcohol and if that would make them equal to men. I have friends and colleagues who drink and smoke, but never ever have I felt that I should follow them.

Moreover, it hurts to see how westerners don’t believe when I say I’m a teetotaler and join them for drinks in parties. After all, they have seen several Indian women taking drinks, smoking cigarettes in parties and westerners are under the impression that we, Indian women, drink regularly at social gatherings!

Women see it as a freedom from the barriers of their own country when they go abroad, or even to other states or cities for higher studies or for work and they simply forget that basic fact that people often generalize things. Because not all people will come to visit our place or country, our behaviour leaves an impression on them and they generalize things, including the behaviour and habits, which is really unfortunate. It’s like after the Slumdog Millionaire, the whole world thinks India is a country of slums!    

       

Coming back to the research, it also looked at what happens when marriage goes wrong. Divorced men reported drinking far more alcohol than married men, while divorced women drank less than married women. "Men who divorce may cope with stress using alcohol use, wherein women are shown to cope with stress in more internalising ways, including depression," Reczek said. It’s strange, but another fact!

Drought revisits India

She is 11-year-old, lives in Bonewadi, a small town in Maharashtra, with her mother, two sisters and one brother. She is in Class 6 and walks 3km to reach her school. In the evening, she walks 7km to feed the cattle at a cattle camp. Her day starts at 7am and goes on till 10 pm. Meet Asha, a young girl born in a farmer’s family that owns 11 acres of land, the land which is usually sufficient to earn enough money to make a living under normal conditions.

Then, there’s Digambar Pandurang Atpadkar, a 70-year-old farmer who owns 60 acres of land and four wells in Vartuke Malwade, a small village, also in Maharashtra. He and his wife have walked 10 km to reach the cattle camp to save their eight animals.

Asha and Atpadkar are just two among the many who have been hit by drought in India. And surprisingly, majority of the farmers and cattle taking refuge in the cattle camp are from Mann taluk in Satara district, which is under the parliamentary constituency of Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who had recently claimed to have spent millions of rupees supporting irrigation facilities in Maharashtra.

Moreover, it is also adjacent to the sugar belt - not to forget the fact that sugarcane is infamously a water-intensive crop - which politicians consider their stronghold, having poured in a lion’s share of Maharashtra’s development funds here. Yet, the region, popularly known as Manndesh in Marthi folklore, continues to remain at the mercy of whimsical rains.

Triggering concerns of poor farm output and higher inflation, India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted less rain in June-to-September, which would be 15 per cent below the seasonal average.  "We expect 15 per cent shortfall in the seasonal rains," LS Rathore, director general, IMD, told reporters.

Agricultural sector output which accounts for 20 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), would be hit considerably due to the deficient rainfall. “The prevailing drought conditions could affect the crop prospects and may have its impact on the prices of essential commodities, such as shortfall in domestic supplies relative to demand,” Food Minister KV Thomas had said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Cattle camp

Four states - Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra - are facing drought-like situation and Between June 1 and August 5, the monsoon rain has been 17 per cent lower, according to the IMD. Satara district in western Maharashtra has 21 cattle camps, including the biggest Mann Deshi Cattle Camp, a makeshift camp set up at Mhaswad, 190km west of Pune, this year; the last such camps were in 2003 and 2009 when drought was severe in this sugar belt.

“We are here because there is no water in our village. Neither for the animals, nor for us. Our cattle get sugarcane, corn, fodder, dry fodder, green fodder. We get rice and pulses,” said Atpadkar who has left behind his house and land to save the lives of his cattle, the invaluable assets he owns.

The Mann Deshi Camp has rescued over 11,000 animals from going to butcher shops. People are migrating to other places in search of not occupation, but in search of water for their animals. In 2003, there was water, but this year, there’s no water. “Farmers here are ready to buy fodder, pledging their gold, but ask us how and where to buy water?” Chetna Gala-Sinha, the founder-president of the Mann Deshi Mahila Bank, the only women’s bank in rural Maharashtra, which has set up the cattle camp, said.  

Women walk 5-10km every day to fetch drinking water. When men migrate in search of better opportunities for their animals, women turn to the cattle camps and now the camp also gives shelter to more than 3,500 families. Looking like a small township in itself, the cattle camp, which is spread across the five acres of land, originally meant for the housing colony for villagers, provides nearly 3.5-4 lakh litres of water and 140 tonnes of fodder to the animals every day.

“Each big animal gets 15kg of dry grass, sugarcane and corn every day and three kg of processed cattle feed every week. People carry water stored in the big tanks, in buckets, around the camp and four water tankers make five trips a day to a pipeline 11km away to fetch the required four lakh litres of water daily,” said Sinha. 

All the wells in the region have dried up due to the “mismanagement of water”. The lake in Dhakani has water, but is not suitable for drinking. When asked Atpadkar why he left behind such a vast land and his house and took shelter in the camp, he says: “Why? What do we eat there? Soil? There’s no food, no water… There’s no option. We take this as our home. Death is inevitable, here or there. No food, no water… If our animals die, what are we left with?”

Crops hit

The drought, India's first since 2009, will not bring a shortage of staples as the nation's grain stores are overflowing with rice and wheat, and sugar output is set to exceed demand for a third straight year. (If the rainfall records below 90 percent of the 50-year average, it is considered deficient or "drought" in layman's parlance.) But it will deal a devastating blow to grain crops used for animal feed. That would badly hit the vast majority of the country's farmers who - with cattle and small landholdings their only assets - struggle to survive at the best of times.

“The cattle population would be adversely affected due to marginal availability of green fodders. Due to the damage of khariff crops, food grain production would be affected. But the food grains will be supplied through the Public distribution systems to the families below poverty lines, which would help the families living in poverty to cope with the situation,” said Amar Nayak, Knowledge Hub Leader, Land and Livelihood, Action Aid.

According to the data placed before Parliament, retail prices of some pulses, sugar, edible oil and tomato have risen in the last three months and prices of rice, wheat and atta have remained stable. In New Delhi, the retail price of gram dal has increased to Rs 67 per kg from Rs 53 per kg, tur dal from Rs 70 to Rs 74 per kg and masoor dal by Rs 8 to Rs 61/kg and sugar to Rs 39 per kg from Rs 35 per kg three months back.       

Drought prone

India is naturally drought prone. “Particularly in the areas removed from the core monsoon - that is in the Northwest of the country, the average recurrence time of droughts is 8 to 10 years. Severe droughts occur about every 30 years. The 2009 drought was not a major event,” Upmanu Lall, the director of Columbia Water Centre at Columbia University's Earth Institute, said.

And women like Sheelabai Digambar  Atpadkar, 60, has no other go but to find some source to save her family assets, who walked 16km with her animals to reach the camp. When asked about the situation in her village, she said: “The water tanker comes to our village once in 15 days. My six cows need more than 200 litres of water every day. Where can we store this? If I sell my cattle, I will lose my lifetime savings.”

Meanwhile, there are also reports putting the blame on IMD for not alerting the public about the failure of monsoon in advance. Even though in recent years, the IMD’s greater computer modelling capacity  has improved its ability to make seasonal forecasts of rainfall and help authorities and people with early drought warnings, “it is very difficult for climatologists to develop an accurate seasonal forecast, the one with a high degree of certainty,” Andrew Robertson, scientist, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University, said.

Moreover, predicting the time and intensity of the rainfall accurately is not that easy. It involves significant uncertainties - looking decades into the future or even a few months. “It’s very tricky,” Andrew Robertson, scientist, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University, Robertson said. "It’s not an easy task to predict in May whether the monsoon will be weak in a given year."

There is a correlation between monsoon strength and El Nino, generally. If sea surface temperatures rise due to an El Nino in the Pacific, monsoon rains may be weaker in that year and the weak El Nino this year may be playing a role in the current drought, according to Robertson.

Chances of recovery

Not all such episodes of severe drought correlate with El Nino-Southern Oscillation events, although there have been instances of El Nino-related droughts implicated in periodic declines in Indian agricultural output in the past.

Why is there such a scarcity of water in the country then? The general scarcity of water in the country - apart separate from the drought this year - is very closely related to the mismanagement of water in the country, most grievously in the agricultural sector. “The irrigation technologies employed do not promote conservation. Much canal water is wasted or lost to unaccountable use. The situation is quite tragic,” says Lall, adding: “The investments in agricultural improvements for the Green revolution lifted the country out of the problems... However, the cost of the complacency that set in subsequently, and the inability to continue to assess the implications of the trajectories that were put in place has led to the resulting problems today."

Not everything looks so bleak. “Still there are chances of recovery in the worst hit regions, monsoon rains may come, but again it’s another prediction, another probability. Everything is unpredictable when it comes to monsoons, especially in a country like India,” Robertson said.

Moreover, farmers have their own robust adaptation to climate variation. “We came across inspiring examples as how farmers used traditional seeds, how they have preserved seeds, adjusting the sowing periods as per the forecast of rain, managing the water harvesting systems,” said Nayak.

Maybe such adaptations, promoted with adequate resource and policy support by the government, can help the future generations like Asha to fulfill her “dream of becoming a doctor”.

Drought wreaks havoc on Indian farmers

A punishing drought in western India is hurting livestock farmers as the region experiences water shortages.

She is 11 years old and lives in Bonewadi, a small town in Maharashtra, with her mother, two sisters and one brother. She is in grade six and walks 3km to attend school. In the evening, she walks 7km to feed her cattle at a camp. Meet Asha, a young girl born in a farmer's family that owns 11 acres of land, which is usually sufficient to earn enough money to make a living under normal conditions.

Then there is Digambar Pandurang Atpadkar, a 70-year-old farmer who owns 60 acres of land and four wells in Vartuke Malwade, a small village, also in Maharashtra, India's second most populous state. He and his wife have walked 10km to reach the cattle camp, which offers emergency food and shelter, to save their eight animals.

Asha and Atpadkar are just two among the many who have been hit by drought in India. And surprisingly, majority of the farmers and cattle taking refuge in the cattle camp are from Mann taluk in Satara district - that has 21 cattle camps this year - which is under the parliamentary constituency of Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who recently claimed to have spent millions of rupees supporting irrigation facilities in Maharashtra.

Moreover, Mann taluk is also adjacent to the sugar belt - sugarcane is an infamously water-intensive crop - which politicians consider their stronghold, having poured in a lion's share of Maharashtra's development funds here. Yet, the region, popularly known as Manndesh in local folklore, continues to remain at the mercy of whimsical rains.

Triggering concerns of poor farm output and higher inflation, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted less rain from June to September. "We expect 15 per cent shortfall in the seasonal rains," LS Rathore, the director general of the IMD, told reporters.

Read more here...

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