It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
A person died of bird flu in Mexico in the first confirmed case of a human infected with the H5N2 variant, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
The 59-year old, who died on April 24 after developing fever, shortness of breath, diarrhoea and nausea, had “no history of exposure to poultry or other animals” and “multiple underlying medical conditions”, the WHO said in a statement.
The resident of the State of Mexico was hospitalised in Mexico City and died the same day, the statement said.
It was the “first laboratory-confirmed human case of infection with an influenza A(H5N2) virus reported globally”, the WHO added.
Mexican health authorities reported the confirmed case to the UN health body on May 23 after conducting laboratory tests.
The source of exposure to the virus was unknown, the WHO said, although cases of H5N2 have been reported in poultry in Mexico.
H5N2 cases were detected in a backyard poultry farm in Michoacan state in March, with other outbreaks identified in the State of Mexico, according to the UN health body.
But it said establishing a link between the human case and the poultry infections was so far impossible, estimating the risk to people as “low”.
Mexico’s health ministry said in a statement that the person who died was “a 59-year-old man with a history of chronic kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, (and) long-standing systemic arterial hypertension”.
“There is no risk of contagion for the population,” the statement said, adding that “all samples from identified contacts (of the patient) have been negative”.
Authorities are monitoring farms near the victim’s home and have established a permanent monitoring system to detect other cases in wildlife in the area, the statement added.
A different variant of bird flu, H5N1, has been spreading for weeks among dairy cow herds in the United States, with a small number of cases reported among humans.
But none of the cases are human-to-human infections, with the disease instead jumping from cattle to people, authorities have said.
Australia records first human case of bird flu; outbreak of different strain sparks mass cull of farmed chickens
H7N7 was the most common strain of bird flu in Australia
AAP 22 May, 2024
Auckland businesses plead for greater police presence, more Kiwis rescued from New Caledonia and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calls a general election.
Hundreds of thousands of birds at a country egg farm will be euthanised following an outbreak of bird flu, as a child is confirmed as Australia’s first human case of a lethal strain spreading around the world.
The child, who returned to Victoria from India in March, experienced a “severe infection” after contracting the H5N1 strain but has made a full recovery, Victoria’s chief health officer confirmed on Wednesday.
“This is the first human case of H5N1 avian influenza in Australia,” Clare Looker said.
“The avian influenza virus was detected through further testing of positive influenza samples that takes place to detect novel or concerning flu virus strains, as part of Victoria’s enhanced surveillance system.
“Contact tracing has not identified any further cases of avian influenza connected to this case.”
Looker said the chance of more human cases was low because avian influenza does not spread easily between people.
Agricultural authorities have revealed a different strain of bird flu had been detected at an egg farm in regional Victoria.
Agriculture Victoria has ordered urgent testing after avian influenza was detected at a farm near Meredith, about 40km northwest of Geelong, following a number of poultry deaths.
Victoria’s chief veterinary officer Graeme Cooke said the outbreak likely involved the H7N7 strain, different to the highly pathogenic H5N1 variant.
“There is a type of virus which is causing great concern in the USA and other parts of the world and has behaved unusually in that it has infected dairy cattle and some other marine mammals,” Cooke told the ABC’s Country Hour.
“This is not the strain that we’re dealing with. This is a strain that’s occurred in Australia before. It’s likely not new.” H7N7 was the most common strain of bird flu in Australia, Cooke said.
One of the strains in the last bird flu outbreak in Australia in 2020, which affected one-in-three egg farms in Victoria, was an H7 strain.
Samples of the virus have been sent to the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness in Geelong for further testing.
“Agriculture Victoria is responding with staff on the ground supporting the business with further laboratory investigations as necessary,” Cooke said.
The property has been placed into quarantine with a 5km radius and several hundred thousands of birds at that business will be “depopulated”, he said.
“If this disease is allowed to spread, it would very much have an effect on the economic life of the poultry sector but there’s also a lot of jobs in rural Victoria which are related to the industry.”
Farmers in the area have been put on alert. Photo / File
Australia’s chief veterinary officer Beth Cookson told AAP authorities are still considering the size of the quarantine area.
“The response will attempt to stamp out and eradicate the virus from the affected farm, so that will mean the destruction of the poultry on that premises,” Cookson said.
The outbreak has put farmers on high alert with extra biosecurity measures in place.
“For those within that area, we would encourage everyone to increase their level of biosecurity on their farms,” Cookson said.
Mary Wu from the Australian Chicken Meat Federation said while the disease appeared to be confined to a single egg farm, meat producers were on alert.
“We are very relieved that it’s not the international strain, but we still take it extremely seriously and are acting very quickly.”
Avian influenza is a highly contagious viral infection which can cause severe symptoms and sudden death in domestic poultry, wiping out entire populations.
Wild birds are the natural host for the disease and it can spread through close contact or contaminated environments.
Authorities have reassured the public that eggs and poultry products in supermarkets do not pose a risk and are safe to consume.
Tuesday, June 04, 2024
“The farmer community desperately needs social protection”
Rizwan Hussain, MD & CEO, Salaam Takaful, speaks to Mariam Ali Baig about his mission to provide insurance coverage to Pakistan’s farming community.
MARIAM ALI BAIG: Let’s start with a brief overview of Salaam Takaful.
RIZWAN HUSSAIN: I have been in this industry for 34 years. I worked with EFU, one of the largest insurance companies in Pakistan, for 27 years. In 2018, my partner and I and our families bought this company, which was then known as Takaful Pakistan Limited. At the time, it was not doing well, so we started to rebuild the image and the business. Today, Alhamdulillah, despite Covid-19 and recent economic stresses, we have become the largest Islamic non-life insurance company in Pakistan. It was a tough and challenging journey.
MAB: Why did you decide to buy this company?
RH: I was fed up. We have the lowest insurance penetration in the region, and this has been the case for the last 30 to 40 years.
MAB: Why is that so?
RH: One, people’s beliefs; halal versus haram; Islamic versus non-Islamic; two, the perceived value of the product for the customer.
MAB: What prompted you to put a significant emphasis on agriculture?
RH: Because I believe people in Pakistan should have the benefit of insurance and social protection.
Crop insurance in different forms has existed for donkey’s years in Pakistan, predominantly pushed by the State Bank of Pakistan through a product known as the Crop Loan Insurance Scheme. However, in our view, the pricing mechanism of this scheme is not beneficial for the farmer and that is why we stepped in and introduced our own product, which is a parametric crop product.
MAB: What is a parametric product?
RH: It is a relatively new concept in the insurance market, and although it has been around for about 10 years, it is only now gaining traction globally, particularly within the social impact space. The companies engaged in parametric products are those that provide coverage for crop damage or damages caused by natural calamities to middle- and low-income people who cannot put themselves back together unless they have some kind of coverage. In this regard, the likes of the Insurance Development Forum, the World Bank and the UN are all engaged in these kinds of initiatives and we believe that if introduced in Pakistan, we could give our farmers the support they need.
MAB: How does this work?
RH: We sell them a product based on a pre-agreed set of parameters, which include excessive rainfall or heat, drought or earthquake, floods and so on. All the parameters are pre-defined. For example, if the heat index hits 50 degrees Celsius over a farmer’s acreage, we will compensate him, no questions asked, and his agreed compensation will automatically go into his bank account. We can do this because we have access to the temperature on his farm on a daily basis through our app. The app also provides farmers with crop advisories, including what to do if the temperature is rising. The beauty of this product is that it requires no human intervention. We do not want to bring in loss adjusters, as this usually creates conflict between the insured and the insurance company. A parametric product may be slightly expensive, but the compensation and coverage it provides are far superior to any product available in Pakistan.
MAB: Do you work with individual as well as corporate farmers?
RH: Yes.
MAB: What is the split percentage-wise?
RH: It would be 95% corporate and five percent individual farmers. The inherent challenge with individual farmers is the lack of penetration, although we have invested a lot in reaching out to them. We have also set up a framework to enable us to go to the farmers directly through NGOs because they trust them. The challenge is the lack of awareness and money. Individual farmers do not have enough money to buy inputs, let alone insurance.
MAB: Do you think a shift to corporate farming would be beneficial to farmers?
RH: It would be because, from the farmer’s perspective, his crop is actually being bought. All he has to do is work with the corporate farming community to produce the required output.
MAB: How technology-driven is your product?
RH: It is all technology-driven. For example, it requires 50 to 60 years’ worth of weather data to even start thinking about it.
MAB: From where do you access your data?
RH: Through local and international sources. Irriwatch in the Netherlands is one of our weather data providers. We are on the verge of signing up for IBM’s data intelligence suite, the GIS system and we are also exploring local solutions, and in this respect, the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission provides an excellent level of data.
MAB: Who crunches the data?
RH: Our in-house team does the data punching and data calibration. This is how we come up with a product that defines the maximum and minimum scope of coverage for the temperature in a particular region based on historical data and trends over the last 10 to 15 years.
MAB: Who manages your app?
RH: Our IT team and Infarmer, our local partner, manage this. After the farmer has mapped his farm, the app will provide him with climate-smart agriculture notifications. The advisory is customised which is why it is important that each farm is mapped because conditions can change every 0.25 kilometres.
MAB: How sophisticated is the farmer?
RH: Farmers are very smart. We send out our field officers to meet them or the communities and train them on using the app; we also provide videos in the local language.
There are almost eight million farmers in Pakistan and only a fraction of them are getting insurance coverage. Yet, the farmer community desperately needs this social protection. For this to work, the community needs to be engaged. We have established almost 25+ partnerships within the ecosystem, including seed and fertiliser companies, NGOs, weather and actuarial modelling companies and banks. There has to be an ecosystem, because only then can we create the required social impact. As an insurance company, I cannot do this alone. I have to create that ecosystem and this takes time. Enabling the technology takes time as well. We have been investing in this product for the last three years.
MAB: Based on what you are saying, the market penetration for this product is very low.
RH: It is almost non-existent. It is only the tip of the iceberg. Farmers don’t have the money. They subsist on a cycle of debt. They buy seeds and fertiliser; they sell the output; and the cycle continues.
On top of that, we don’t have a unified agriculture policy. Since the 18th Amendment was passed, the provinces have a lot more control over how things are run, and the regulatory requirements for each province are different. There has to be a unified push in terms of agricultural policy and how we protect our produce. Unlike Bangladesh, India or Indonesia, where crop insurance is mandatory, in Pakistan it is not. There has to be a fundamental shift so that we look at our produce as providing the country with the food security it needs and you do this by ensuring farmers have access to the facilities they need and by providing them with adequate insurance protection.
Even if the government makes insurance protection compulsory, the farmer doesn’t have the money to buy it.
MAB: What is the solution?
RH: It has to be subsidised. Globally, wherever these schemes have worked, they have been subsidised.
The seed and fertiliser companies and the whole ecosystem should be incentivised so that the cost of the insurance is absorbed by all the stakeholders, including the government and the insurance companies.
ANC would need help from other parties to re-elect Cyril Ramaphosa for a second term.
Voters waiting patiently in hours-long queues in South Africa’s parliamentary election, May 29, 2024.
The results of the election to the South African parliament on Friday confirmed the widely-held belief that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) which spearheaded the country’s liberation from apartheid in 1993 and since dominated the political landscape like a banyan tree is in steep decline. ANC’s vote share plummeted from 57.5% in the 2019 election to around 40%.
ANC’s halcyon days are ending but then, all good things come to an end, finally. ANC could at least hang on for thirty years tapping into the legacy of the freedom struggle, which is not an easy thing to do as politics gets more and more competitive and along with empowerment comes the challenge of accountability. In comparison, India’s Congress Party lost the majority in the parliament in less than 2 decades.
Broadly, outside of some largely rural provinces, support for the ANC is now in general decline with a strong undercurrent of anti-incumbency sentiment working against it on account of massive unemployment, extremely high level of interpersonal violence, collapsing social services, and brazen corruption.
ANC would need help from other parties to re-elect Cyril Ramaphosa for a second term. The three other major parties are the liberal-oriented Democratic Alliance [DA], the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters [EFF] and the new MK Party [MK] led by former President Jacob Zuma, who once led the ANC.
DA, which polled over 21% votes, is an established liberal party, white-dominated and also funded by white capital. EFF, on the other hand, is an authoritarian populist party, non-ethnic in its support base and orientation and polled a little over 9% of votes.
The big winner seems to be MK, a breakaway faction of ANC, which entered the electoral fray for the first time and surged on a tide of Zulu nationalism to garner 14.83% of votes.
The likely character of the incoming ruling coalition is not yet clear. Unsurprisingly, the Western media is rooting for a ANC-DA coalition. DA has plateaued and is eager to align with the ANC despite its ideology of national liberation to share power.
The massive investments by the white billionaires in a set of new liberal parties failed to produce the desired results in Wednesday’s election. None of those parties gained traction. The DA is the solitary exception but even in this case, the mediocrity of its leadership and its inability to distinguish differences in pitch in the complex race politics puts inherent limits to the potential for growth beyond its current limits. Many black South Africans mistrust the DA, believing it favours the interests of white people.
Therefore, there is bound to be resistance within the ANC to a tie-up with the DA under white politician John Steenhuisen, whose free market programme of privatisations and an end to black economic empowerment programmes sits at odds with the ruling party’s traditions.
Nelson Mandela’s grandson and an outgoing ANC lawmaker, Zwelivelile Mandela told AFP, the DA held “different ideals” making it too difficult to partner with. He predicted that the radical left groups led by former ANC figures — firebrand Julius Malema’s EFF or Zuma’s MK — were more likely bedfellows for the ruling party.
But then, arguably, these radical options might also meet resistance within the more moderate sections of the ANC. Besides, the rift between Ramaphosa and Zuma — who has long been bitter about the way he was forced out of office as president in 2018 — remains to be mended.
Amidst all this maneuvering within the political class, it is difficult to gauge the popular mood, given the vice-like grip of the white liberal media over the national discourse. Thus, the gravity of the deep sense of political alienation driving many voters into forms of anti-liberal and at times anti-democratic populism is being blithely overlooked in the obsession to undermine the ANC’s towering presence on the political landscape.
Without doubt, the ANC has become an eyesore for the Western powers. South Africa’s active role in the BRICS and advocacy of multipolarity and “de-dollarisation”, its audacious move in the ICJ against Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, its closeness to Russia and China and so on are hugely consequential to western interests in the contemporary world situation.
The hold on the digital media in South Africa by white capital gives it significant power to shape the national discourse, but there is no attempt to understand the deep alienation of deprived sections of society, leave alone address it critically. Suffice to say, this is fertile soil for ethnic politics to strike roots. The paradox is, the legacy of one of the most progressive movements in the history of anti-colonial liberation may turn out to be the rise of ethno-nationalism and populism under darkly comic political personalities similar to Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro or Javier Milei.
The crux of the matter is that the left has failed to present a credible alternative to the predatory form of ethnic nationalism and populism spawned by the terrible circumstances of poverty and deprivation in which most South Africans struggle to live. Not a single leader in the manner of Lula da Silva or Jeremy Corbyn is to be seen who could unify the left. All this leaves the field open for the predatory and kleptocratic political class to unleash the demons of ethnic politics.
Come to think of it, Zuma convinced 2.3 million South Africans to vote for MK Party. The MK wants to increase the power of traditional leaders, nationalise banks and expropriate land without compensation, dating South Africa’s “prolonged period of national shame” back to 1652, when the first Dutch settlement was established.
As for the EFF, it describes itself as anti-imperialist and inspired by Marxism. EFF also advocates taking land from white farmers and nationalising mines, banks and other strategic sectors, without compensation. It says that apartheid did not end in 1994, arguing that the democratic settlement left the economy in the hands of “white monopoly capital”, a message that resonates in a country where four in 10 adults are unemployed.
The bottom line is that as with the mainstream Congress Party in India, there is no real alternative to the ANC as a unifier, which still retains the loyalty of many voters for its leading role in overthrowing white minority rule and its progressive social welfare and black economic empowerment policies are credited by supporters with helping millions of black families out of poverty.
MK Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat. He was India’s Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey. The views are personal.
“INDI gathbandhan ke neta kehte hain k Pakistan ne choodiyan nahi pehni hain, arre bhai pehna denge. (The politicians of INDI alliance say Pakistan has not worn bangles, oh brother we will make it wear them.)”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s jibe at an election rally in Muzaffarnagar last month was aimed more at his political opponents than the neighbouring country. The remarks, a direct response to an earlier comment by National Congress leader Farooq Abdullah, underscore the heightened political tensions and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) efforts to galvanise voter support through strong nationalistic sentiments.
With the tenure of the 17th Lok Sabha of the Indian Parliament scheduled to end on June 16, India just completed its 44-day election cycle — starting April 19 and ending June 1 — to elect 543 members to the Lok Sabha.
This wasn’t the first time that Pakistan had been dragged into India’s political rhetoric. Over the years, the BJP has increasingly used the neighbouring country as a rhetorical punching bag, particularly as the campaign has heated up in successive elections cycles. Distortive narratives
The recent escalation, with PM Modi taking jabs at the INDIA bloc — a multi-party alliance led by the country’s largest opposition party, the Indian National Congress — using Pakistan, can be traced to an interview of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, published by the Press Trust of India.
During the interview, Singh had asserted that India didn’t need to forcefully capture Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) since people were willing to be a part of India having witnessed the developments in Indian occupied Kashmir. The annexation of AJK remains a prominent and contentious agenda on the BJP’s election manifesto, fuelling further debate and drama.
According to media reports, Abdullah, in response to the defence minister’s statement, said: “If the defence minister is saying so, they can go ahead and do it, but remember they are also not wearing bangles; the country has atom bombs, and unfortunately, the bombs will fall on us.”
A few days later, an old video of Mani Shankar Aiyar resurfaced, creating quite a stir. In the clip, the veteran Congress leader can be heard referring to Pakistan as “the biggest asset to India” and advocating for dialogue with the neighbouring country.
Unsurprisingly, his comment was taken out of context, inciting a political firestorm. Aiyar’s remarks were interpreted by some as suggesting that India should engage with Pakistan out of fear of the latter’s nuclear arsenal — a stark misrepresentation of what the Congress leader actually meant.
During the Muzaffarnagar rally, Modi seized on this distorted narrative and accused the Congress-led INDIA alliance of being scared of Pakistan, suggesting that leaders of the bloc seem to be plagued by nightmares of Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities. BJP’s campaign strategy
“The BJP’s Pakistan rhetoric during this election is different from 2019, which was all about the Pulwama-Balakot attacks and deterrence. It was built on the interplay between terrorism from Pakistan and nationalism from India; that’s why the BJP took the stand: ‘Ghar me ghus ke maarenge (We will enter your homes and hit you)’,” said A*, a professor of international relations at one of India’s largest universities, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivities surrounding the topic.
“But in 2024, the rhetoric revolves around a decision taken in August 2019 — revoking Article 370 of the Constitution. It is built around taking control of all of Kashmir. The prime minister has been emphasising Pakistan’s economic and political instability, as well as its involvement in Afghanistan and the resulting backlash.
“This was to portray Pakistan as a weakened state. Previously, the BJP’s narrative centred around branding Pakistan as a hub of terrorism. However, the narrative has now evolved. The message being conveyed is that while Pakistan remains a terrorist state, it is now weak and fragile, in stark contrast to India’s growing strength on the global stage,” A* continued.
During the 2024 elections, the BJP’s campaign strategy has included a blend of anti-Pakistan rhetoric, Hindu-Muslim dynamics, and foreign policy stances designed to appeal to voters in the west and north of India. Yet, these themes have not resonated as much in the eastern and southern parts of the country.
“Even among those who support these views, it’s uncertain if they will translate into votes,” A* added.
During various election rallies, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have said that if the BJP comes back to power, the party will move aggressively on “taking back” AJK, as the party has always mentioned in its manifesto, to reclaim the part of Kashmir that lies on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control (LOC).
Concurring with A*, Ajay Darshan Behera, a professor at the Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, said: “It was all about Pulwama back in 2019. Congress had a similar manifesto in a limited way back in 2019, but once Pulwama happened, the opposition was totally blown away by the BJP’s nationalist narrative.”
“In 2024, the rhetoric on Pakistan has diminished due to visible fatigue among the voters. People are more worried about day-to-day problems like unemployment and inflation. After 10 years of BJP rule, they have realised the false promises made by the BJP. After 10 years of BJP rule, many have become disillusioned with the party’s unfulfilled promises.
“This time, the opposition has wisely avoided getting entangled in the BJP’s anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim narratives, focusing instead on concrete issues that directly impact people’s lives,” Behera added.
Meanwhile, Modi and his party did not just continue to bring Pakistan into their election campaigns but also went on to accuse Congress, the main opposition party, of supporting and receiving support from the neighbouring country.
On May 1, Pakistan’s former information minister Fawad Chaudhry tweeted a video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with the comment, “Rahul on Fire”. The tweet went viral, racking up 1.8 million views.
BJP leader Amit Malviya, head of the party’s IT Wing, responded, “Is the Congress planning to contest the election in Pakistan? From a manifesto that has imprints of the Muslim League to a ringing endorsement from across the border, Congress’s dalliance with Pakistan can’t get more obvious.”
Behera, however, dismissed this as yet another attempt to distort reality. “For no reason, Mani Shankar Aiyar’s old video has been brought up during this election, with BJP campaigners claiming that Pakistan wants Rahul Gandhi to be the prime minister and that Congress will support Pakistan if they come to power. But these false narratives are not working; people are more concerned about other things now,” Professor Behera added.
‘People don’t care anymore’
Bharat Bhushan, senior journalist and former editor of Economic and Political Weekly and The Telegraph, raises a pertinent question: “BJP leaders have always claimed that Pakistan wants Congress to win. Why should Pakistan care about Indian elections until and unless there is a provocation? But that’s the BJP’s usual narrative, and Fawad Chaudhry’s tweet gave the BJP even more of a reason to accuse the Congress of getting support from Pakistan.”
“People don’t care anymore. The prime minister does this again and again to ginger up his base. It is only the hardcore BJP supporters want to hear this; it’s for them.”
Bharat said that Modi projects himself as a statesman and goes on to hug Biden, Trump, and all the world leaders to project himself as a great world leader. But back home, he is a majoritarian Hindu leader who makes demeaning comments like “Churiyan pehna denge (We will make you wear bangles)” against Pakistan.
According to Bharat, the BJP appeared to have resisted the temptation to use anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim rhetoric in the initial stages of its election campaign. “But perhaps worried by the low voter turnout, the prime minister soon switched to his old tactics,” said Bharat, quoting Modi as saying at a public rally that “‘Muslims give birth to four children, and if Congress comes to power, they will distribute the wealth of Hindus to Muslims’, which was never mentioned in the Congress manifesto,” the journalist pointed out.
The BJP does not talk about jobs for youth given that unemployment has been the highest in the last four decades, neither does it discuss resolving farmers’ issues — actual issues that many Indian voters care about. Meanwhile, India’s relationship with Pakistan has come to the lowest level during the BJP rule. It does not have high commissioners or visas for Pakistanis, there is no trade relationship between the two states, diplomatic relations have hit rock bottom, and the BJP is thriving only on its anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan rhetoric.
India’s foreign policy with respect to Pakistan has also remained highly questionable. According to a recent report by The Guardian, India’s foreign intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (Raw), has been involved in the killings of up to 20 individuals in Pakistan since 2020 as part of its policy to target terrorists living on foreign soil.
The report further mentions that India has previously denied any involvement in the assassinations, but after the Guardian report, India’s defence minister was quoted as saying: “If
Monday, June 03, 2024
Has India’s first family finally lost its grip on power?
Namita Singh Sun, June 2, 2024 INDEPENDENT UK Left to right: Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi at an election campaign rally in Rae Bareli (Reuters)
A ripple of excitement spreads through the crowd waiting outside in the 40C midday heat in this corner of Uttar Pradesh, northern India – an island in a sea of constituencies supporting Narendra Modi’s BJP.
“Rahul-ji’s helicopter has come!”, announces an audience member, not long before campaign songs start to blare from speakers and Rahul Gandhi, India’s second-most recognisable politician, steps onto the stage.
This was the scene just a couple of weeks ago in one of the last bastions of fervent support for the Gandhi-Nehru family, one of the world’s great political dynasties whose members include three Indian prime ministers. Among them is Rahul Gandhi’s great-grandfather, the first and longest-serving leader of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Yet India has changed dramatically since the time when Nehru led the Congress party, with Saturday’s exit polls indicating that Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist alliance will take more than 350 parliamentary seats when the full results of the country’s general election are announced on Tuesday.
Congress and its allies are forecast to win barely a third of that number, making it a third election in a row where India’s grand old party has desperately underperformed. They say the BJP’s widespread abuse of government investigative agencies to harass opposition leaders and parties, including a total freeze on Congress’s bank accounts, mean this election has been neither free nor fair.
But it is also significant that cracks were already starting to show even in Rae Bareli and Amethi, two neighbouring constituencies in Uttar Pradesh that were once the safest of seats for Congress, when The Independent visited last month. For years the Rae Bareli seat was represented by Sonia Gandhi, former Congress president and wife of the assassinated former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. She has stepped aside for a seat in India’s upper house of parliament, leaving her son Rahul to take over the constituency, and poor exit poll numbers aside, he is still expected to win here. Rahul Gandhi waves to supporters during an election campaign public meeting in Rae Bareli (AFP)
While support for the Gandhis still seemed strong in Rae Bareli, voters in Amethi told The Independent they were questioning what Congress has to offer them given its weakened status across the country, and whether five years with a Congress MP would really make for positive change in a relatively rural and impoverished region. It gets to the heart of a question that will be picked over in the weeks to come – did Congress run an effective and positive campaign, or focus too much energy on trying to paint Modi as India’s bogeyman? And what does yet another election loss say about the future of a family that has ruled India for more than half of the last 77 years?
When Mr Gandhi does take to the stage, he is quick to go on the attack. “This election is the strangest one in the history of independent India,” he begins. “Because the BJP and [its ideological parent organisation] RSS are fighting the elections to obliterate the constitution. Their leaders have clearly said they will change the constitution of India once voted to power.”
Mr Gandhi is referencing concerns that Mr Modi, emboldened in a third term, will try to remove references from the constitution to India being a secular nation, and instead declare it a country for Hindus. Mr Modi has said he has no plans to do this, but it’s a talking point for many die-hard BJP supporters and such fears have hardly been assuaged by an aggressive election campaign full of anti-Muslim rhetoric. Congress party supporters in Rae Bareli (Reuters)
The Independent spoke with Mr Gandhi’s sister, Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra, who is herself a top party strategist and star campaigner. Asked what Congress had to offer voters at this election, she said: “Our pitch is very simple. Mr Modi’s policies have been extremely, they’ve actually been harmful for the poor of this country, for the farmers, for labourers [and] even for the middle class. Frankly, he has not done anything to strengthen them.
“We are saying that his policies have all been skewed towards three or four of his oligarch friends to whom he seems to be handing everything, even the nation’s assets,” she says, an apparent reference to Mr Modi’s close ties with billionaire industrialists like Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, the country’s two richest men.
“And we are saying that we want to put in place a government that is focused on solving your problems and focused on strengthening you so that you can face all these problems that have multiplied under Modi’s rule.” Narendra Modi with Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, waves to the crowd in Varanasi last month (AFP)
While most would agree that this election has been far from fair for Congress and its allies, the party is also facing criticism for an apparent inability to recover from the landslide losses of 2014 and 2019 and provide a viable alternative to Mr Modi. Sugata Srinivasaraju, journalist and author of a book on Rahul Gandhi, Strange Burdens, suggests the Gandhis have spent too much of the election preparing to defend their own roles in the party in the event that they lose.
“They are creating a ground already to say that the elections may not be so credible after all. That it is possible they are stolen. They are planting doubts with regard to the electoral processes,” he tells The Independent.
“My question is when you spent so much energy on a negative campaign, on berating Modi, you could have spent a part of that energy to positively approach your own party. What have you done concretely to reorganise your party?” Children riding a bicycle wear masks portraying Narendra Modi in Varanasi (AFP)
Facing relentless criticism from the government benches that Congress exists as a party only to further the ambitions of one family, in 2022 the party held an election to appoint a president from outside the party’s ranks. Among those running were Shashi Tharoor, a former high-ranking UN official and author popular with Indian liberals and young people. In the end the party chose Mallikarjun Kharge, a Gandhi loyalist who Mr Srinivasaraju describes as no more than a “rubber stamp” for the family.
“Why didn’t you, in the last 10 years, focus [on rebuilding the party] after your first loss in 2014?” he asks the Gandhis. “Why didn’t you spend that energy building the infrastructure and network for your party? You did not focus on that, you just placed it on one side. You thought you will come back by default again.”
Congress party leader Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra at an election rally in Dhubri district in lower Assam (AP)
There are a host of reasons given by voters in Amethi for why they are turning their backs on the Gandhis, and these range from the local to the religious.
Several cite Mr Modi’s inauguration of a temple to Lord Ram in Ayodhya, also in Uttar Pradesh, as a moment of pride for them as Hindus. With the Ram Temple’s first phase hastily built in time for Mr Modi to declare it open just before the election, it was another moment of history in the country’s lurch towards Hindu nationalism, with the prime minister acting as high priest at a grand monument to Hinduism’s most important deity – on the site of an illegally demolished mosque.
Awadh Prasad Patel, who sings holy songs at religious gatherings, vows to vote for Mr Modi, saying members of his caste support the party. “Only Muslims and a few Dalits [formerly Untouchables] might vote for Congress,” he says. “I am a farmer and a follower of deity Lord Ram. And Modi put an end to the issue of Ram temple. So we would be voting for them.”
“For the longest time, there was no road here. Just potholes,” Chotey Lal Sahu, a 65-year-old from Berara, a village in the Amethi constituency, tells The Independent. “It was filled with water (during the rainy season). But now there is a road. Its construction has eased things for us,” he says.
“Under this government, we are getting ration, we are getting pension. This is the first time the country has a vegetarian prime minister, as well as a vegetarian chief minister,” he added, referring to the firebrand local BJP leader in the state, chief minister Yogi Adityanath. A Congress party rally in Dhubri district (AP)
Ram Shankar, from Tiloi in Amethi, vociferously backs the BJP. “Rahul gave us a lot. But Thakurs [upper caste men] have taken everything. From land to grazing area to pond. There is nothing left.
“I raised a complaint about waste pipe leaking but the police came and beat me. They also beat my father,” he says. “I will vote for the BJP. At least they give money to farmers and have waived off some of my loans.
“I do not care what Rahul Gandhi or his family did, as I was not there. We will only vote for those who will fight for our rights. There is no road, it is just mud. People s*** on the roadside. And our head of village never visits us.” Modi at a rally in New Delhi (Reuters)
Issues relating to caste and religious politics are powerful tools to sway voters here in Uttar Pradesh, and Congress has been seen as largely reactive in its response to the way Hindutva [Hindu-first] policies have won waves of support for Mr Modi’s party. For a time Congress was accused of doing “soft Hindutva”, showing Gandhi touring Hindu temples as a way of saying the party could still appeal to the religious group that makes up around 80 per cent of the population.
But more recently the party has realised it will never win back the die-hard Hindu nationalists that make up the BJP’s base, Mr Srinivasaraju says, and it is instead “trying to present the Congress as a complete opposite to the philosophy of the BJP”.
“[Gandhi] started speaking about federalism and balkanised caste politics, which was in contrast to the centralised and pan-Indian imagination the Congress was known for not so long ago. He started saying that India was a union of states and not exactly a nation,” he says. “I think Rahul Gandhi is trying to occupy a kind of high moral ground because there is nothing else left.”
Many will question whether Congress picked the right strategies for this election if the results on Tuesday go in line with what the exit polls are saying. But whatever reckoning is due, it seems certain that the party’s first response will be to publicly question the fairness of the world’s largest election. Rahul Gandhi greets his supporters as he arrives at Fursatganj airport in Amethi last month (AFP)
“It’s the first, possibly the first election in the history of India, where chief ministers from opposition parties have been imprisoned during election time,” says Ms Gandhi-Vadra, as she highlights the challenges faced by the opposition. “There has been a massive attack on opposition leaders in India. Not just opposition leaders, but on free and fair media. So there’s hardly any journalists now who will take an independent stand. The ones who did have either been imprisoned or cases have been put against them.
“On every front, whether it’s activists, journalists, political parties or movie stars who have raised their voices. On every front, the government has attacked them.” The harsh reality for the Gandhi family and its party is that it has had no real defence against the onslaught it has faced from the man now set to become the first after Nehru to win three terms as India’s prime minister.
The Mystery of Indira Gandhi's assassination by her own bodyguards
Breana Scheckwitz Updated May 23, 2024 The Mystery of Indira Gandhi's assassination by her own bodyguards
Indira Gandhi, a prominent Indian politician and the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's inaugural prime minister, was tragically assassinated by her own bodyguards on Oct. 31, 1984.
Born Nov. 19, 1917, she emerged as a central figure in her country's political landscape, eventually becoming prime minister in her father's footsteps.
The trust she placed in her favorite Sikh security guard, following Operation Blue Star, ultimately proved to be a fatal mistake. In exploring the narrative of Gandhi's assassination, it is crucial to examine the backgrounds and motivations of her assailants, shedding light on the reasons that led to their fatal decision.
Prior to her time in office, Indira Gandhi studied at prominent institutions, including Somerville College, Oxford and the Visva-Bharati University in West Bengal.
Gandhi served as her country's third and only female prime minister starting in 1966 to 1977, and then served another term from 1980 until she died in 1984.
As a central figure of the Indian National Congress, she was admired for her leadership and criticized for her authoritarian approach. She played a significant role in Indian politics and is often cited as a trailblazer for women throughout the country.
Gandhi was a key player in Indian politics for 17 years, whether in office or out of it. She played an active role in the Independence movement and closely worked with her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, a pivotal figure in the establishment of contemporary India, serving as his assistant when he was prime minister. In 1959, she also held the position of president of the Indian National Congress. Indira Gandhi's tenure has been characterized by significant economic and social changes, but also by allegations of authoritarianism.
Gandhi rose to power suddenly after Lal Bahadur Shastri died in 1966. At the outset of her leadership, India struggled with significant economic hardships, including high inflation and food shortages. The country's agricultural sector was vulnerable due to its dependence on the monsoon seasons and aid from the U.S.
She also faced substantial political challenges and dedicated much of her tenure to overcoming these issues, the same issues Nehru attempted to resolve. She fought to direct India toward self-reliance and economic resilience. By 1980, India had become self-reliant and even became a nation of grain surplus, alongside notable industrial progress — achievements attributed to her governance. Indira Gandhi's involvement in politics began at an early age, often accompanying her father on his political campaigns.
Acknowledged milestones during her leadership include the triumph in the 1971 War with Pakistan, the formation of Bangladesh and the cementing of India's status as a potential nuclear power. All of these developments strengthened India's self-esteem.
Her tenure ended with her assassination, leaving behind a legacy of achievements and unresolved tensions.
Indian society was divided about her; some called her "Mother Indira," and others viewed her as authoritarian. However, it is widely accepted that her leadership shaped India and set the course for its future. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards on Oct. 31, 1984, following the events of Operation Blue Star.
Gandhi's time as prime minister was impaired by increasing tensions with Sikh separatists, culminating in Operation Blue Star. This was the Indian army's response in June 1984 to remove militant Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers, who had hidden themselves within the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The militants' substantial armaments led to a heavy-handed military response, which included the use of artillery.
The conflict ended on June 10 with the army seizing control of the temple. However, the operation, which coincided with a significant Sikh religious event, resulted in numerous civilian deaths who were present at the time. This resulted in widespread condemnation from Sikhs globally. They interpreted it as an attack on their religious community. Indira Gandhi served as prime minister of India for three consecutive terms (1966-77) and a fourth term from 1980 until her assassination in 1984.
The repercussions of Operation Blue Star severely damaged Gandhi's standing with Sikhs, which eventually led to her assassination.
Gandhi's assassination on Oct. 31, 1984, was committed by her bodyguards, notably Beant Singh, who was considered a favorite. The assassination was a consequence of the tensions from Operation Blue Star and led to a planned reassignment of Sikh bodyguards, including Singh. Gandhi canceled the transfer, worried about increasing her anti-Sikh persona. Indira Gandi married Feroze Gandhi in 1942, and together had two sons, Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi.
On the morning of her assassination, despite being advised to wear a bulletproof vest, Gandhi was not wearing it.
As she walked through a gate headed to an interview, Singh shot her three times in the abdomen with his .38 revolver. Satwant Singh, another bodyguard, fired 30 rounds from his submachine gun. Following the assault, Beant was located and killed by Border Police, and Satwant was tried and executed in 1989.
Indira Gandhi’s son, Rajiv Gandhi, succeeded her as prime minister of India.
In West Bengal, where left parties were elected to rule for over three decades until 2011, over a half dozen young leaders are waging a battle to defeat sectarian, anti-people politics of the right-wing parties
Left Front candidate Dipsita Dhar.
Student leaders are waging a difficult but determined battle to revive the electoral prospect of the left in the ongoing national elections in India. These young politicians have taken up the challenge to put the people’s agenda in front in their electoral campaigns and defeat the right-wing parties.
In West Bengal, the fourth most populous state in India, Dipsita Dhar (30), Srijan Bhattacharya (31) and Pratikur Rahman (33) are three representatives of this young brigade which is putting a spirited fight against both the Trinamool Congress (TMC) ruling the state and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governing at the center.
All of these candidates have been or still are leaders of the student movement and members of left-wing student organizations. They represent the changing expectations of India’s youth and appear to strike a chord with the people. They wish to restore the sanity in politics of the state and defeat the politics of religious and sectarian divide which has been the strategy of the rightward parties.
The essence of their platform is what Mohammad Salim, the state secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), callsHaq, Rozi-Roti (Rights, Employment and food). With Haq, Rozi-Roti they seek to combat rising unemployment, lack of basic and adequate public services, and the failure of the state to provide a decent living standard to the majority and curb rising prices and stand for the policies which will bring peace for all.
These young candidates in West Bengal are also pointing out how both right-wing parties are primarily protecting the interest of the few at the cost of many by dividing the majority in the name of caste and religion. They emphasize the need for working class unity in the state which they allege has seen a complete failure of governance in the last decade. So far, their campaign has managed to generate enthusiasm and optimism, with many suggesting that the Left may see a significant comeback, not seen since its 2011 upset in West Bengal.
Reviving the Left in Bengal
West Bengal is one of the largest provinces in India with a population of over 90 million as per the 2011 census. It has 42 seats in the Lok Sabha, the popularly elected lower house of the Indian parliament. This has been one of the strongest bastions of the Left in India, both as a popular movement and in electoral terms.
The Left governed the state for over 34 years, winning six consecutive elections, until 2011.
Following the defeat in 2011, Left has faced a series of challenges in terms of electoral defeats and targeted violence against its cadres by both the TMC and the BJP. The Left has lost hundreds of its cadres in the right-wing violence unleashed in the last decade.
In these elections, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is contesting 22 seats and other left parties are contesting eight. Congress, a centrist party, is part of the nationwide INDIA alliance against the right-wing Narendra Modi led BJP government, is contesting the remaining 12 seats.
Out of these 22 seats, CPI (M) has fielded eight candidates who are below 40 years in age including Dhar, Bhattacharya and Rahman. All three of them are affiliated to the Student Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the party and India’s largest left-wing student organization.
Dhar is currently getting her PhD at the Center for the Study of Regional Development at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Since starting her studies, she has been an active student leader and is currently the All India Joint Secretary of SFI.
Dhar is contesting the Srirampur Lok Sabha constituency where polling is scheduled to be held on May 20 during the fifth phase of India’s seven-phase national election. She is pitted against two-time sitting Member of Parliament (MP) Kalyan Banarjee from the TMC.
During her campaign Dhar has emphasized that her fight is a part of the larger struggle of the left. This includes the struggle to create democratic space, especially in West Bengal where this space has been compromised due to violence unleashed by the TMC. Dhar has also highlighted the need for the revival of the industrial base in the state so that more jobs are created and people do not have to migrate to find jobs. There is a need to fight against the sectarian divide as well which is created by the TMC and BJP for their electoral purposes, she says.
Dipsita, like most of the other young candidates in the state, participated in mass canvassing in the 2021 state assembly elections. Thus, this year’s candidates are already familiar with the people in their respective constituencies and have an established rapport with them.
Srijan Bhattacharya is contesting from Jadavpur which will vote on June 1. He is the former West Bengal secretary of the SFI.
Prateekur Rahman, the candidate for Diamond Harbour, is the present national vice president of the SFI. Rahaman is contesting against the heavyweight TMC leader Abhishek Banarjee. Diamond Harbour also votes on June 1 in the last phase of the elections.
In his campaign, Rahman has focused on the issues related to farmers, pointing out that the TMC and BJP have implemented anti-farmers policies and have not provided them relief amidst the rising costs of food production and lack of adequate prices of their produce in the market. Rahman himself has faced numerous violent attacks from the ruling TMC cadres.
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Demise of rangelands ‘severely underestimated’: report
AFP May 21, 2024 Rangelands like deserts, tundra and savanna are in much greater peril than previously thought - Copyright SAUDI PRESS AGENCY/AFP - Nick Perry
From camel drivers in the Sahara to nomads on the Mongolian steppe, traditional herders the world over rely on earth’s wildest open spaces to support an ancient way of life.
But the expansive plains, tundra and savanna they inhabit are in much greater peril than previously thought, researchers said Tuesday in a major reassessment of the health of these crucial environments.
As much as half of all rangelands — encompassing some of nature’s most striking vistas from the Arctic to the tropics, deserts and mountains — are believed to be degraded, the report said.
Mostly natural grasslands used by livestock and wild animals to graze, they also include scrubland, mountain plateaus, deserts and wetlands.
Climate change, urban expansion, population growth and the conversion of land for farming was fuelling their destruction, said the report by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Rangelands were grossly undervalued and their “silent demise” had passed mostly unnoticed despite what was at stake, said UNCCD executive secretary Ibrahim Thiaw.
“We as humanity have to pay attention to this,” he told AFP.
The “persistent loss and deterioration” of rangelands would be felt beyond the pastoralist communities who have adapted to life in these environments over centuries, the report said.
– Climate ally –
Healthy rangelands are an asset in the fight against global warming, locking away carbon in soil and spurring the growth of vegetation that pulls planet-heating CO2 from the atmosphere.
Traditional farming customs — such as rotating grazing areas and conserving scarce resources in difficult times — improved soil health and its capacity to store carbon, the report’s lead author Pedro Maria Herrera Calvo told AFP.
Poor policy, neglect and large-scale rangeland mismanagement had eroded soils, releasing carbon rather than storing it, and stripped the earth of the nutrients needed to support plant and animal life.
Rangelands are biodiversity hotspots, providing habitats for Africa’s most iconic wildlife, and pasture for one billion grazing animals, the report said.
They account for one-sixth of the world’s food production, it added, and underpin many national economies.
They are also a cultural bedrock for half a billion pastoralist people in more than 100 countries, mostly poor and marginalised communities such as the Bedouin, Fulani and Saami.
A quarter of the world’s languages are spoken among pastoral groups who call these places home.
“It is part of our heritage,” said Thiaw. “Losing it would mean not only losing ecosystems and losing the economy, but losing our own culture.”
– ‘Voiceless and powerless’ –
Yet they are barely studied, said Calvo. Rosier outlooks did not reflect reality, and this reassessment by dozens of experts was long overdue, he added.
“We feel that the actual data estimating rangelands degradation around 25 percent is severely underestimated,” he said. “We think that almost 35 -– even 50 percent –- of rangelands are already degraded.”
Rangelands cover 80 million square kilometres — more than half the land surface of earth. Protecting them would require policy that better supports the pastoralists who understand them best, the report said.
Instead of having a seat at the table however, nomadic communities were “voiceless and powerless”, the report said.
Ignoring their wisdom in sustainably managing these complex environments — or, worse still, forcing them off the land — would only condemn these wild places and their custodians to an even bleaker future, Thiaw argued.
“It is important for this to be taken much more seriously.”
‘Silent demise’ of vast rangelands threatens climate, food, wellbeing of billions: UN Convention to Combat Desertification
Rangelands cover 54% of all land; as much as 50% are degraded, imperilling 1/6th of humanity’s food supply, 1/3rd of Earth’s carbon reservoir; UNCCD report points way to restore, better manage rangelands, urges protection of pastoralism
UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION (UNCCD)
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DEGRADATION OF EARTH’S EXTENSIVE, OFTEN IMMENSE NATURAL PASTURES AND OTHER RANGELANDS DUE TO OVERUSE, MISUSE, CLIMATE CHANGE AND BIODIVERSITY LOSS POSES A SEVERE THREAT TO HUMANITY’S FOOD SUPPLY AND THE WELLBEING OR SURVIVAL OF BILLIONS OF PEOPLE, THE UN WARNS IN A STARK NEW REPORT.
Bonn/Ulaanbaatar – Degradation of Earth’s extensive, often immense natural pastures and other rangelands due to overuse, misuse, climate change and biodiversity loss poses a severe threat to humanity’s food supply and the wellbeing or survival of billions of people, the UN warns in a stark report today.
Authors of the Global Land Outlook Thematic Report on Rangelands and Pastoralists, launched May 21 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia bythe UN Convention to Combat Desertification (and available post-embargo at www.unccd.int), say up to 50% of rangelands are degraded.
Symptoms of the problem include diminished soil fertility and nutrients, erosion, salinization, alkalinization, and soil compaction inhibiting plant growth, all of which contribute to drought, precipitation fluctuations, and biodiversity loss both above and below the ground.
The problem is driven largely by converting pastures to cropland and other land use changes due to population growth and urban expansion, rapidly rising food, fibre and fuel demands, excessive grazing, abandonment (end of maintenance by pastoralists), and policies that incentivise overexploitation.
What are rangelands?
The rangelands category of Earth’s land cover consists mostly of the natural grasslands used by livestock and wild animals to graze and forage.
They also include savannas, shrublands, wetlands, tundra and deserts.
Altogether, these lands constitute 54% of Earth’s land cover, account for one sixth of global food production and represent nearly one third of the planet’s carbon reservoir.
“When we cut down a forest, when we see a 100-year-old tree fall, it rightly evokes an emotional response in many of us. The conversion of ancient rangelands, on the other hand, happens in ‘silence’ and generates little public reaction,” says UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw.
“Sadly, these expansive landscapes and the pastoralists and livestock breeders who depend on them, are usually under-appreciated,” Mr. Thiaw adds. “Despite numbering an estimated half a billion individuals worldwide, pastoralist communities are frequently overlooked, lack a voice in policy-making that directly affects their livelihoods, are marginalised, and are even often seen as outsiders in their own lands.”
Mongolia Environment Minister H.E. Bat-Erdene Bat-Ulzii says: “As custodian of the largest grasslands in Eurasia, Mongolia has always been cautious in transforming rangelands. Mongolian traditions are built on the appreciation of resource limits, which defined mobility as a strategy, established shared responsibilities over the land, and set limits in consumption. We hope this report helps focus attention on rangelands and their many enormous values – cultural, environmental, and economic – which cannot be overstated. If these rangelands cannot support these massive numbers of people, what alternatives can they turn to?”
Mongolia will host the 17th UNCCD Conference of the Parties meeting in 2026, the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP), declared by the United Nations General Assembly on Mongolia’s initiative.
Two billion people – small-scale herders, ranchers and farmers, often poor and marginalised – depend on healthy rangelands worldwide.
Indeed, in many West African states, livestock production employs 80% of the population. In Central Asia and Mongolia 60% of the land area is used as grazing rangelands, with livestock herding supporting nearly one third of the region’s population.
Ironically, the report underlines, efforts to increase food security and productivity by converting rangelands to crop production in mostly arid regions have resulted in degraded land and lowered agricultural yields.
The report calls out “weak and ineffective governance,” “poorly implemented policies and regulations,” and “the lack of investment in rangeland communities and sustainable production models” for undermining rangelands.
An innovative approach
The new report’s 60+ expert contributors from over 40 countries agree that past estimates of degraded rangeland worldwide – roughly 25% – “significantly underestimates the actual loss of rangeland health and productivity” and could be as much as 50%.
Rangelands are often poorly understood and a lack of reliable data undermines the sustainable management of their immense value in food provisioning and climate regulation, the report warns.
The report details an innovative conceptual approach that would enable policy-makers to stabilise, restore and manage rangelands.
The new approach is backed by experience detailed in case studies from nearly every world region, drawing important lessons from successes and missteps of rangeland management.
A core recommendation: protect pastoralism, a mobile way of life dating back millennia centred on the pasture-based production of sheep, goats, cattle, horses, camels, yaks, llamas or other domesticated herbivores, along with semi-domesticated species such as bison and reindeer.
Says Mr. Thiaw: “From the tropics to the Arctic, pastoralism is a desirable default and often the most sustainable option that should be incorporated into rangeland use planning.”
The economic engine of many countries
Rangelands are an important economic engine in many countries and define cultures. Home to one quarter of the world’s languages, they also host numerous World Heritage Sites and have shaped the value systems, customs and identities of pastoralists for thousands of years.
The report includes detailed analyses of individual countries and regions.
For example, livestock production accounts for 19% of Ethiopia’s GDP, and 4% of India’s.
Brazil – with over 250 million cattle -- produces 16% of the world’s beef, valued at $7.6 billion in 2019.
In Europe, many rangelands have given way to urbanization, afforestation and renewable energy production.
In the United States, large tracts of grassland have been converted to crops, while some Canadian grasslands have been left fragile by large-scale mining and infrastructure projects. There are also positive developments noted, such as growing efforts in both countries to reintroduce bison – an animal of great cultural importance to indigenous peoples – to promote rangeland health and food security.
Rangelands cover 54% of all land on Earth
Authors of the UNCCD Global Land Outlook Thematic Report on Rangelands and Pastoralists say up to 50% of rangelands are degraded. Symptoms include diminished soil fertility and nutrients, erosion, salinization, alkalinization, and soil compaction inhibiting plant growth, all of which contribute to drought, precipitation fluctuations, and biodiversity loss both above and below the ground. The degradation is driven largely by converting pastures to cropland and other land use changes due to population growth and urban expansion, rapidly rising food, fibre and fuel demands, excessive grazing, abandonment (end of maintenance by pastoralists), and policies that incentivize overexploitation.
CREDIT
UNCCD / Juan Pablo Marin García
World areas most acutely affected by rangelands degradation, ranked in descending order:
Central Asia, China, Mongolia
The replacement of government management and oversight with privatization and agricultural industrialization left herders abandoned and dependent on insufficient natural resources causing widespread degradation.
The gradual restoration of traditional and community-based pastoralism is leading to critical advances in sustainable rangeland management.”
North Africa and Near East
The impact of climate change in one of the world’s driest regions is pushing pastoralists into poverty and degrading the rangelands on which they rely.
Updated traditional institutions, such as Agdals – reservoirs of fodder used to feed animals in periods of critical need and allowing for the regeneration of natural resources – and incipient supportive policies are improving the way rangelands are managed.
Sahel and West Africa
Conflict, power balance and border issues have interrupted livestock mobility leading to rangelands degradation.
Unified policies, recognition of pastoralists’ rights and cross-border agreements are reestablishing mobility for animal herders, crucial for landscape restoration.
South America
Climatic change, deforestation linked to industrialised agriculture and extractive activities, and land use conversion are South America’s main drivers of rangeland degradation.
Multifunctionality and diversity of pastoralist systems hold the key for restoring some of the most interesting rangelands in the world, including the Pampa, the Cerrado and Caatinga savannahs, and the Puno Andean systems.
East Africa
Migration and forced displacement caused by competing uses of land (such as hunting, tourism, etc), are evicting pastoralists from their traditional lands, causing unanticipated degradation consequences.
Women-led initiatives and improved land rights are securing pastoralists’ livelihoods, protecting biodiversity, and safeguarding the ecosystem services provided by rangelands.
North America
The degradation of ancient grasslands and dry rangelands threatens the biodiversity of iconic North American ecosystems such as the tall-grass prairies or the southern deserts.
The incorporation of indigenous people to rangeland governance is a clear step to help recover these historic landscapes.
Europe
Policies favouring industrial farming over pastoralism and misguided incentives are causing rangelands and other open ecosystems to be abandoned and degraded.
Political and economic support, including legal recognition and differentiation, can turn the tide and help address critical environmental crises such as the rising frequency and intensity of wildfires and climate change.
South Africa and Australia
Afforestation, mining, and the conversion of rangelands to other uses are causing the degradation and loss of rangelands.
The co-creation of knowledge by producers and researchers, and respect for and use of traditional wisdom held by indigenous communities, open new paths for restoring and protecting rangelands.
Paradigm shift
Halting the deterioration requires a paradigm shift in management at every level – from grassroots to global, the report concludes.
Pedro Maria Herrera Calvo, the report’s lead author, says: “The meaningful participation of all stakeholders is key to responsible rangeland governance, which fosters collective action, improves access to land and integrates traditional knowledge and practical skills”.
Achieving “land degradation neutrality” (Sustainable Development Goal 15.3) – balancing the amount and quality of healthy land to support ecosystem services and food security – also requires cross-border cooperation.
Pastoralists with generations of experience in achieving life in balance with these ecosystems should help inform this process at every step, from planning to decision-making to governance, the report says.
Solutions must be tailored to the characteristics and dynamics of rangelands, which vary widely from arid to sub-humid environments, as seen in West Africa, India or South America.
The report notes that traditional assessment methods often undervalue the real economic contribution of rangelands and pastoralism, highlighting the need for the innovative approach recommended.
Among key recommendations:
Integrated climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies with sustainable rangeland management plans to increase carbon sequestration and storage while boosting the resilience of pastoralist and rangeland communities
Avoid or reduce rangeland conversion and other land use changes that diminish the diversity and multifunctionality of rangelands, especially on indigenous and communal lands
Design and adopt rangeland conservation measures, within and outside protected areas, that support biodiversity above and below ground while boosting the health, productivity, and resilience of extensive livestock production systems
Adopt and support pastoralism-based strategies and practices that help mitigate harms to rangeland health, such as climate change, overgrazing, soil erosion, invasive species, drought, and wildfires
Promote supportive policies, full people’s participation and flexible management and governance systems to boost the services that rangelands and pastoralists provide to the whole society.
Additional key figures
80 million sq. km: Area of the world’s terrestrial surface covered by rangelands (over 54%)
9.5 million sq. km: Protected rangelands worldwide (12%)
67 million sq. km (45% of Earth’s terrestrial surface): Rangelands’ area devoted to livestock production systems (84% of rangelands), almost half of which are in drylands. Livestock provide food security and generate income for the majority of the 1.2 billion people in developing countries living under the poverty threshold
1 billion: animals across more than 100 countries maintained by pastoralists, supporting 200 million households while providing about 10% of world meat supply, as well as dairy, wool and leather products
33%: global biodiversity hotspots found in rangelands
24%: proportion of world languages found in rangelands
5,000 years ago: When pastoralism first emerged as a land-use system in sub-Saharan Africa
REGIONAL FACTS & FIGURES
Over 25% and 10%: Supply of world beef and milk, respectively, provided by Latin America’s cattle industry
Over 25%: GDP of Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad attributed to livestock production
Over 50%: land in the Middle East and North Africa regions deemed degraded (25% of arable land)
60%: area of Central Asia and Mongolia used as grazing rangelands, with livestock herding supporting nearly one third of the region’s population
40%: area of China covered by pastoral lands. (Notably, the country’s livestock population tripled between 1980 and 2010 to 441 million livestock units)
308 million hectares: area of the contiguous United States covered by rangelands, 31% of the country’s total land area, with ~55% of rangelands privately owned
Comments
“Imbalance between the supply of and demand for animal forage lands leads to overgrazing, invasive species, and the increased risk of drought and wildfires – all of which accelerate desertification and land degradation trends around the world.”
“We must translate our shared aspirations into concrete actions - stopping indiscriminate conversion of rangelands into unsuitable land uses, advocating for policies that support sustainable land management, investing in research that enhances our understanding of rangelands and pastoralism, empowering pastoralist communities to preserve their sustainable practices while also gaining tools to thrive in a changing world, and supporting all stakeholders, especially pastoralists, to implement measures that effectively thwart further degradation and preserve our land, our communities, and our cultures.”
Maryam Niamir-Fuller, Co-Chair, International Support Group for the UN’s International Year for Rangelands and Pastoralists – 2026
For the sake of future generations and economic stability, we need to improve awareness of and safeguard the immense value of rangelands. Due to their dynamic nature, predicting the consequences of rangelands degradation on economics, ecology, and societies is challenging. Managers require authoritative insights into the response of rangelands to different disturbances and management approaches, including policy tools that better capture the broad social importance of rangelands.
Carlos Manuel RodrÃguez, CEO and Chairperson, Global Environment Facility
“More than half of the world’s land mass is rangeland – and yet these landscapes and the people who inhabit and manage them have been largely neglected. They are a main source of food and feed for humanity, and yet they are also the world economy’s dumping ground. It is time to shift perspective – from ‘a rangeland problem’ to ‘a sustainable rangeland solution’.
UN International Year of Rangelands & Pastoralists (IYRP) Working Group
“Pastoralists produce food in the world’s harshest environments, and pastoral production supports the livelihoods of rural populations on almost half of the world’s land. They have traditionally suffered from poor understanding, marginalization, and exclusion from dialogue. We need to bring together pastoralists and the main actors working with them to join forces and create the synergies for dialogue and pastoralist development
UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)
“To have any chance of meeting global biodiversity, climate and food security goals, we simply cannot afford to lose any more of our rangelands, grasslands and savannahs. Our planet suffers from their ongoing conversion, as do the pastoralists who depend on them for their livelihoods, and all those who rely on them for food, water and other vital ecosystem services. The Global Land Outlook reinforces that too little political attention or finance is invested in protecting and restoring these critical ecosystems. National and sub-national authorities must take place-based action to safeguard and improve the health and productivity of rangelands, grasslands and savannahs – to benefit people and planet.”
Joao Campari, Global Food Practice Leader, World Wildlife Fund
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AboutUNCCD
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is an international agreement on good land stewardship. It helps people, communities and countries create wealth, grow economies and secure enough food, clean water and energy by ensuring land users an enabling environment for sustainable land management. Through partnerships, the Convention’s 197 parties set up robust systems to manage drought promptly and effectively. Good land stewardship based on sound policy and science helps integrate and accelerate achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, builds resilience to climate change and prevents biodiversity loss.
About the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists
On the initiative of Mongolia, the United Nations General Assembly has designated 2026 the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP 2026) to enhance rangeland management and the lives of pastoralists. With this declaration, UN Member States are called upon to invest in sustainable rangeland management, to restore degraded lands, to improve market access by pastoralists, to enhance livestock extension services, and to fill knowledge gaps on rangelands and pastoralism. The IYRP 2026 will coincide with the UNCCD COP17 to be hosted by Mongolia.
