Transforming Agriculture, Transforming India

by Sharad Pawar

Overview

Agriculture forms the backbone of India's Economy as the livelihood of more than Sixty percent of the country's inhabitants depends directly or indirectly on agriculture.
In the past decade, India and Indian agriculture have faced numerous grave challenges such as effects of climate change and Global warming and natural calamities and a Global Economic downturn.
Since 2004, when Shri Sharad Pawar, himself an agriculturist, took over as Union Minister for Agriculture, a number of measures were introduced and existing schemes strengthened to improve the state of agriculture in India by not only addressing existing challenges but also by making India's farmers capable of tackling future challenges.
Measures such as encouraging adoption of appropriate crop patterns, projects to ensure better grain yields, empowering agriculture-related institutions of research and development have resulted in India being self-sufficient not only in agriculture but also taking giant strides in related sectors such as horticulture, fisheries, floriculture.
Through Shri Sharad Pawar's speeches, delivered on numerous important occasions, readers will get a glimpse of this fascinating story of India's agricultural transformation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789350800553
Publisher:	Codemantra LLC & Ameya prakashan
Publication date:	01/19/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Born on 12 December, 1940, Mr. Sharad Pawar hails from a farming family of Baramati, located in Pune district, Maharashtra, India.
He showed an avid interest in politics since an early age and became the President of the State Youth Congress at the age of twenty-four. At twenty-seven, he was the youngest member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. This marked the beginning of his active career as a political leader. Eleven years later, at the age of thirty-eight, he became one of the youngest Chief Ministers the country has ever seen.
During his four tenures as the Chief Minister,
Mr. Sharad Pawar brought about structural changes that propelled Maharashtra into the top league of highly successful states of India. Under his stewardship, Maharashtra not only reached the enviable position of an agriculturally prosperous state, but also became the leading industrial and economic hub of the country. Apart from this, he strengthened the multi-cultural social fabric of the state by encouraging people from different communities to live in harmony and develop their ethnic and linguistic identities while contributing to the overall development of Maharashtra.
Mr. Pawar did not rest on his laurels. He entered the national arena in 1984 and was elected to the Lok Sabha (the House of the People) of the Indian Parliament. His leadership qualities were soon recognized and he was appointed as the Leader of the Congress Party. Subsequently, he took charge of the Union Defence Ministry in 1991. He was appointed as the Leader of the Opposition in 1998, and in 2001, he was nominated as the Vice-Chairman of the National Committee on Disaster Management. Currently, he is the President of the Nationalist Congress Party.
In 2004, he took up the reins as the Cabinet Minister for Agriculture and Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs. His pragmatic policies led to the revival of the nation's agriculture sector that had witnessed stagnation since the mid-nineties. Under his able leadership, the country has touched record levels of production in almost every sector - cereals, horticulture, milk, eggs, poultry, fruits and meat. India is a global production hub exporting over $37 billion of agricultural produce.
Mr. Pawar is optimistic about frontier technologies and believes that large-scale investments in agriculture and related agro-industries will increase employment, besides ushering in economic development in rural areas. A case in point is his approach towards the sugar industry, which has shown phenomenal growth due to technological upgradation. Another example of his faith and confidence in technology is evident in the progress made in his constituency, Baramati. Once a small village, Baramati has grown into a prosperous agribusiness hub, and is now cited by one and all as an exemplar to be replicated all over the country.
On social issues, Mr. Pawar has a progressive outlook. He has always stood for a society free from caste and communal bias. He launched several programmes for women empowerment and believes that women are equally, if not more, capable of contributing to the economy. He has supported equal rights for women in ownership of land and property and was the first Chief Minister to mainstream gender in development.
Mr. Pawar understands the importance of education as a key driver of development and has encouraged and helped in developing educational institutions for the rural poor.
Mr. Pawar is acknowledged as a visionary leader and an effective administrator and he has repeatedly shown his ability to deal with crises, whether man-made or natural. In 1993, he won international acclaim for restoring peace in the aftermath of Mumbai serial blasts by terrorists. Later that year he also organized a remarkably quick and effective relief and rehabilitation programme for the earthquake victims of Latur and Osmanabad districts of Maharashtra.
In recognition of his role in Parliament and public life, he was conferred the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in September, 2007. Further, the Lawrence Technological University of Detroit, USA honoured him with the degree of Doctor of Humanities for his public service achievements.
Apart from agriculture, Mr. Pawar has always taken a keen interest in the development of sports in the country. As the President of the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) from 2005 to 2008, he has contributed significantly to the development of cricket. He provided better infrastructure to sportspersons as well as sports enthusiasts in the form of world-class stadia, started welfare measures for former cricketers and launched the hugely popular Indian Premier League Series
(in 2008).
Mr. Pawar is a family man-he is married to Pratibha and the couple has a daughter, Supriya, who is also a Member of Parliament. Mr. Pawar is truly a post-Independence, 21st century leader, combining the best of Indian social and cultural values with those that the modern world has to offer.
He is, as one may say, a truly global Indian leader.