Ban export of wheat: World Trade Organization, the international trade body is supposed to ensure free and fair trade among nations, is a much failure in its job as the United Nations in keeping global peace. In the last few years, especially after Trump came to power in the United States in 2016 and nations across the world started turning protectionist, the importance of WTO is getting reduced with every passing day.
The failure of the organization to protect the interest of the developing of least Developed countries has been exposed repeatedly and these nations of turning away from its so-called rule-based trade. Even the developed nations, especially the US, is not at all happy with the fact that China has arm-twisted the WTO at its will and capitalized on its weaknesses to monopolize the global trade. Today China is the world’s largest exporter, thanks to WTO.
India’s response to WTO
India has put very strong response to WTO in the last few months. In the WTO ministerial conference in Geneva, Commerce and Industry minister Piyush Goyal raised the issue of developing countries like the need of continuation of fisheries subsidy and IPR waiver for Covid-19 vaccine very strongly and even succeeded in getting the latter.
Now once again India defended its decision to ban export of wheat and rice at a WTO meeting even as some member countries like Senegal, the U.S. and the European Union raised questions over this decision.
Read more:-‘Economically broken’ China is importing broken rice from India
India clarified that the ban on export of broken rice, which is used in poultry feed, follows a rise in the grain’s exports in recent months which put pressure on the domestic market. In the case of wheat, food security concerns necessitated export curbs.
“India has also stated that the measures are temporary in nature and under continuous monitoring,” the official said.
In the last few months, the food and fuel inflation have rose exponentially across the world amid Russia-Ukraine war. The consumers are reeling under high inflation as the cost of the staple diet goes up. However, in India, the food inflation is in control as the government has curbed the exports whenever necessary and has kept distributing additional free ration in the last two years since Covid -19.
Read more:-India bans the export of broken rice
India is self-reliant in most of the food items except oil and lentils. It is obvious for any self-reliant country to protect its consumers first instead of taking care of countries like EU or China which are stocking food items with Indian imports for emergency situations.
Rice exports from India, also the world’s second-biggest consumer of grain, jumped to a record 21.2 million tons in the fiscal year to March 2022 from 17.8 million tons the previous year. Food Corporation of India has procured a record 80.4 million tons of rice paddy from growers so far this year against 77 million tons over the same period last year.
To ensure that Indian consumers are not hit due to rising exports and northwards movement in the price of food item, the government banned the export of daily use items like Wheat, broken rice etc. This is what any country that keeps its people first would have done.
PM Modi’s answer
As for the western world, PM Modi’s answer to them is simple. For years, the white-skinned westerners and their lobbying groups masquerading as world leaders in global bodies put India at the bottom of the pile when it came to hunger index or providing leeway to Indian farmers to produce and export their goods at a decent price. India was at its lowest and yet these leaders didn’t stop from punching us down.
While India is not in the same category as them, it surely is putting the interest of its people first and foremost. The moment the food security is ensured, New Delhi will lift the export ban and supply the food grains. Until then, the western nations should stop being a nuisance and understand the logic behind India’s moves.
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