Articles by A Damodaran

In the wake of the dismantling of the quantitative restriction (QR) regimes and the ongoing round of negotiations on the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), India and other like-minded developing countries have been raising fundamental concerns on the likely adverse impact of the AoA on their food and livelihood security systems. Simultaneously, the government of India has also initiated measures for carefully monitoring and regulating the import liberalisation process ushered in by the Exim policy 2001-02. Based on these developments, this paper advocates rigorous negotiation positions and proactive programmes of development in order to address the pressing problems arising from the AoA. Developing countries, whose agrarian economies are characterised by 'ecosystemic multifunctionality', have the scope for providing income diversification opportunities for the weaker sections of the farming communities through development of common property resources. This then could form the best safety net to contain the fallout of the agri-agreement.

This article argues for viewing the issue of regulation of transgenic plants in India from both the economic and biosafety angles. The article argues that transgenic products could meet with resistance from the market place in India due to complex patterns of demand amongst farmers for new cultivars. This aspect coupled with the policy and law framework have the potential of providing adequate checks and balances on oligopolistic tendencies of biotech companies, transnational or domestic. Also discussed are certain lacunae in India's policy-legal framework which need to be addressed for converting the potential into realisable results.

Biodiversity Conservation Roots of the Incompatibility A Damodaran Conservation of biodiversity is today a global environmental concern. The international community is steadily inching towards a global convention for the conservation of the unique variety of the biological resources of the planet. Not withstanding the international concern, for in situ conservation of biodiversity to be a reality, its local human conservers ought to be 'socio-ecologic communities' inhabiting an 'ecological' space.

Sedentary Communities A Damodaran This paper attempts an analysis of the specificity of the grazing crisis faced by sedentary village communities possessing livestock, a crisis which has two facets, viz, deteriorating common village pastures and other grasslands and abject famishment of livestock. The mode of analysis adopted is to first of all examine the morphology or 'natural' essence of grazing in its spatio-temporality and then proceed to examine why the natural essence is not tapped in sedentary grazing due to the social factors governing the spatio-temporality of livestock in these communities.