REGION
Rice connectivity
Over the past couple of months, nearly every country in the region has undergone its own, unique crisis under the rubric of the ongoing food crisis. First it was Afghanistan and Pakistan, which laboured under drastic wheat shortages over the winter. Then it was Bangladesh, where an increasingly dire rice shortage was brought about following summer flooding and November's Cyclone Sidr. Finally, the whole situation was further exacerbated when India, foreseeing its own shortages, banned the export of most types of rice early this year. Following the Indian ban, the region's countries recently began to look to Burma for supplies. Bangladesh was the first to get a Burmese rice shipment, followed by a Sri Lankan order for 50,000 tonnes. Although this was initially delayed due to bad weather, by mid-May the Rangoon junta had astoundingly agreed to go forward with the consignment. This despite the fact that Cyclone Nargis's effect on Burma succeeded in pushing global rice prices to record highs – and, of course, leading to widespread reports of an outright humanitarian crisis brought about in part due to the destruction of food storage in the wake of the cyclone. Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans may now be eating, but undoubtedly little more rice will be coming from the direction of the Irrawaddy delta in the near future.
Meanwhile, Nepal too is wondering what to do, given that up to half of its rice comes from India. It had hoped that the open border would allow it to escape the ban unscathed. Now, however, only the Maldives has been unaffected by the ban, thanks to a clause in a bilateral agreement that protects the atolls from Indian policy changes. Southasians are now casting around for another staple crop. In mid-May, the Bangladeshi government launched a campaign to encourage citizens to eat potatoes: Think potato, grow potato and eat potato, was Dhaka's hopeful encouragement. Some attempt at social engineering!
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TIBET
Made in Dharamsala
What to do when the very country you are asking more freedom from produces your symbol of freedom? In an ironic discovery, Chinese police recently found that the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile was being mass produced for export in southern China. The owner of the factory told the authorities that the flags had been ordered from outside the country, and that he had not been aware of what the design represented. The factory workers themselves believed that they were simply producing colourful flags. It was only after some of the workers saw pro-Tibet protestors waving the flags on television during recent the recent uprisings that the matter dawned on them. But more to the point, while a full round of embarrassment and recrimination is reportedly ongoing at the factory in question, there seems to be hardly any reaction in Dharamsala itself. If anything, there should certainly be embarrassment there as well!