GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS: The Biggest Crisis on the glob

Every one is talking about High Crude prices, High inflation but there is a bigger threat GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS is emerging. A global food catastrophe will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen. The credit crunch and the reverberations of soaring oil prices around the world will pale in comparison to what is about to transpire. Food prices have been rising for a while. In some countries this has resulted in food riots and in the case of Haiti where food prices increased by 50-100%, the Prime Minister was forced out of office. Elsewhere people have been killed, and many more injured. While media reports have been concentrating on the immediate causes, the deeper issues and causes have not been discussed as much.

The World Bank reports that global food prices rose 83% over the last three years and the FAO cites a 45% increase in their world food price index during just the past nine months. The Economist’s comparable index stands at its highest point since it was originally formulated in 1845. As of March 2008, average world wheat prices were 130% above their level a year earlier, soy prices were 87% higher, rice had climbed 74%, and Maize was up 31%.

Dairy, Oils, Fats, cereals have risen the most in the past year, with more modest rises in sugar and meat. But the crisis was not a sudden one. Prices have been rising for quite some time now, and perhaps earlier warning signs were ignored or missed. Several factors contributed to the rising food prices. Analysts attributed price rise to the poor harvests in various parts of the world. With the Global environmental changes climatic conditions are changing in the world. This changes leads to natural calamities. The most influential is the extended drought in Australia, in particular Murray-Darling basin. The drought has caused annual rice harvest to fall nearly 98%. The other events that have negatively affected the price of food include the unseasonable 2008 rains in Kerala, India, which destroyed swathes of grain. The effects of Cyclone Nargis, in Burma in May 2008 caused spike in the prices of rice. Scientists have stated that such incidents are consistent with the predict effects of climate change.

The other factor for the price rise of food is increasing Biofuel usage. One systematic cause of the high food prices is due to diversion of food corps to fuel. As the environment is taking its toll on the developed countries, now they have found a new to stop sudden environment change by using Biofuel in place of normal crude. An estimated 100 million tonnes of grain per year are being redirected from food to fuel. As farmers are devoting larger parts of their larger parts of corps for fuel production which results in lesser amount of land available for food production. The reports mentions Grain has been diverted away from food, to fuel; (Over a third of US corn is now used to produce ethanol; about half of vegetable oils in the EU go towards the production of biodiesel). Based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, Biofuel have forced global food prices up by 75%, According to World Bank report obtain by the Guardian.

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing situation for world top leaders. Rich countries have tried to blame poor and developing countries like India and China for rising demand. But according to the FAO, with record grain harvests in 2007, there is more than enough food in the world to feed everyone—at least 1.5 times current demand. In fact, over the last 20 years, food production has risen steadily at over 2.0% a year, while the rate of population growth has dropped to 1.14% a year. Population is not outstripping food supply. When we see some 80% of the world’s production is consumed by the wealthiest 20% of the world suggesting an inequality in resource use due to social, economic and political reasons, and perhaps less because of Malthusian concerns about population sizes outstripping resource availability in most cases.

This high food prices are related with the High oil prices too. As the rise in the oil prices has heightened the costs of fertilizers, the majority of which requires petroleum or natural gases to manufacture. Oil also provides the most energy for mechanized food production and transport. Higher prices for liquid fuels from petroleum increase the demand for Biofuel, which may result in diverting some crops from food to energy. Even though per-capita petroleum consumption among the world's poorest people is very low, what petroleum the poor do consume is disproportionately in the form of fossil fuel inputs to the food they eat.

Another factor for high food prices is financial speculations. Financial speculation in commodity futures following the collapse of the financial derivatives markets has contributed to the crisis due to a "commodities super-cycle." Financial speculators seeking quick returns have removed trillions of dollars from equities and mortgage bonds, some of which has been invested into food and raw materials. That American commodities speculation could have a worldwide impact on food prices is reflected in the globalization of food production. As long as food is merely a commodity in societies that don't protect people's right to participate in the market, and as long as farming is left vulnerable to consolidated power off the farm, many will go hungry, farmers among them.

This High food prices has taken its toll more on the poor and developing nations. As we have seen in above video people in Egypt are finding tough even for Bread. The poorest countries in the world like Zimbabwe where inflation touches 2000000% and the area such as Darfur which is totally dependent on UN aid for food is suffering more. Now the time has arrived to think on this issue very seriously. At last I will leave you with the Video of this food crisis in Haiti.




INDIA-BLOGGER

Brand in your hand, Effective way of marketing : Mobile Advertisements

Chunnu, Munnu, Micheal, Andy, Farookh, Ahmed, Charlie, Sonu, Monu, Sona, Tinu...............Every body has Mobile. Even people are spending more time on their mobile than watching Television. Advertising is the communication of a signal (information) with the express purpose of gaining advantage over one’s rivals in a competitive environment. This fact leads Marketing companies to think about Advertising on Mobile. There are many companies working on Mobile Advertising. Current Mobile Advertisement market is above 3 Billion and Expected to cross 4 billion by the year end. In Spain 75% of mobile phone owners receive ads, in France 62% and in Japan 54%.

The most common way of Advertising on Mobile is to send SMS which says about the product. But here problem is that you can not send advertisements to the targeted Segment for whom this product is useful. But now a day’s user involvement in this advertising has increased, in Japan 44% user’s click on these Ads. And now SMS advertising generates around 90% of total Mobile Advertising. One advantage of SMS is that while even in conference, the users are able receive brief messages unobtrusively, while enjoying privacy. The first case of advertising would appear via SMS, when a Finnish news provider offered free news headlines, sponsored by advertising. Now a days SMS marketing is taking new turn, companies using VIRAL MARKETING. In this company will send SMS to one subscriber and when this subscriber forward this message to some one else he become part of this Advertising campaign and his mobile service provider pays him some reward. This way it becomes interactive.

After the evolution of SMS the new thing came was MMS(Multi Media Messaging Service). Now a day’s companies are sending their advertisements through MMS. This MMS clips are becoming popular day by day as it has small act with sound which creates an impact on people's mind.

Day by day mobile phones are becoming very popular and people are using mobile phones with WAP/Web browser. This makes marketing companies job easy to provide advertising on WAP/Web browser. This is either in the form of Mobile Web banner (Top of Page) or Mobile Web poster (Bottom of page banner). So on your mobile screens half of the screen is advertisement and on other part you check your websites this way you can not ignore advertisements which is very important. Even while browsing on mobile marketing companies do not want waste even a small space so Advertisement appears while a requested item of mobile content or mobile web page is loading up. This is called as 'Full Screen Interstices'.

People are spending more and more time on Mobiles calling someone or SMSing but one more activity is taking serious space ion mobile world is Gaming on Mobile. Which prompt marketing companies to provide advertisements during games. The most popular example is game Jump. Jump is a fruit drink and with its name we have a game which is very popular and many Mobile operators are providing this for free. Even in India ITC has used Mobile gaming to market their new product 'BINGO'. This is very useful to create impact on people’s mind.

In place of normal tring tring when someone calls you operators have started providing Caller Tunes which is usually consist of song or dialogue. Which creates one more way for marketing companies is that instead of filmy song or dialogue you have Advertisement. This is called as AdTPT. So whenever any one calls you he can here Advertisement. To subscribe for this service mobile service provider may pay. This is a new concept which is not famous among marketing companies.

But the question is people really gets attract with such marketing. The way Marketing companies are trying to provide as many advertisements on Mobile we can say the Next big thing is 'MOBILE ADVERTISING'.

SO WILL THIS OIL PRICES COME DOWN?

This is the question everyone asking. Will this Oil prices come down? Will we be able to live our life normally? And for that answer is YES, but when will it happen no body can predict this as Solution for lowering oil prices lies in the reason of higher oil prices. Let’s see how this reason helps us to lowering oil prices.

India, China, experiencing economy growth but it does not mean that current oil production is lagging in supplying oil. Infect Iran says that they have lots of oil and they have question where to store this oil? it means Their is no supply problem. Current oil production is sufficient to provide oil on time and with its full capacity.

So what is the problem in lowering Oil prices? It's Speculations in Commodity market. After the US economy crisis Investors in US started investing in Oil commodity to recover their loss from Equity market. And they started rumors of less supply, taking oil calls on higher rate and when purchase increased price of Oil also increased. but The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating the activity commonly referred to as the "Enron Loophole" - under current law, US traders can execute transactions in look-alike contracts in crude oil contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) and on London's Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), while the US regulators have oversight only on what goes on Nymex - traders are arbitraging between the two markets while the CFTC regulates only half of the trading. The London / Durbin legislation would give the CFTC the ability to exercise power over manipulation, speculation and record-keeping by US citizens and instruct US regulators to assess the foreign regulator's ability to apply comparable regulatory principles prior to granting relief from US regulatory requirements. Similarly, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's action would condition access to US customers on the Intercontinental Exchange's adoption of position limits and accountability levels on the West Texas Intermediate contract. Now this CFTC's report is due by September. If this is just a speculation we can hope that oil prices will start coming down from September.

Even in November US has their General Elections due so we can hope that after this elections new government in Us will take some actions in taming this crisis. And we can hope it will help in strengthening Dollar again and it will help lowering Oil prices.

These General elections will help lowering speculations about Oil politics. As Bush will leave White house and with whom Venezuela president have a personal problem and the current government does not like Iran's stand on their Nuclear testing and this is not allowing OPEC countries to reach at one conclusion for taming oil prices. Now this General Election might help resolving these issues.

At the same moment countries like India are taking steps towards discovering new Oil fields. Cairn India has discovered new Oil field in Mangala Badmer, Rajasthan. So by India has two oil fields Bombay High and Mangala which will help India in fighting against this oil price rise.

Now with all this issues and the solution for lowering oil prices we can hope Oil prices will come down and we can live our lives back to normal. As this High oil prices has caused high Inflation. Now only thing we can keep is hope.

Oil - It’s HOT: Why?

June 30 2008, $141 at 9.30, $141.35 at 9.35, $142 at 10.00AM and now $143. What is all this? Do not stress your mind this is not a game but this is the price for 'Black gold - OIL'. Many of we know that oil prices are surging up in spite of increasing output from Saudi Arabia. So the question comes why this oil prices are going up? Is their any black market is working for this or is it just a bubble which can burst any moment? Let’s see what the reasons for this high Oil prices are?

Before go into details lets first look at some figures which will clearly shows what is happening with the market.

Oil $10 (12/98)
$68 (7/2007)
$143.67 (June 30 2008)

In last 1 year crude prices are suddenly doubled. There is no. of reasons for this. Let’s see all this reasons one by one.

World is progressing. Countries which were in a development phase now on the verge of changing their status from Developing to Developed, Big economies to bigger Economies. Countries like China, India, Brazil, and Russia are on a high. Economy is booming and with that consumption is increasing too. Countries like China and India requires more oil then the usual and so the demand goes up. And it is very important to increase oil production. But it is not happening at this moment.

when demand is high black marketing starts. This has really created a chance for storing oil and makes some money by increasing prices. Last year in US when people understood this situation started investing in Oil futures. They started storing Oil and selling those at higher rate. This suddenly increased price. At the same time US sub prime problem came up and companies started making big loss. Big investment firm saw scope in oil commodity market and started investing in that. They started selling Equities and started purchasing Oil futures which took Oil prices further up. Currently so many Investors are investing in oil futures and still prices are going up.

Third reason for this is that US economy is not doing well and value for dollar is decreasing. If dollar value decreases further oil prices still go up. If we check oil prices in Euro it is not changing that much, it is quite stable. And this problem remains their till we price oil in dollar.

And this is the main cause for oil politics. Countries in OPEC like Iran do not like US's super power status. They are not happy with United State’s view on them. Iran has a good amount of oil with them. And there are some oil producing countries like Venezuela faces personal differences with Us government. OPEC is body of producing countries. They keep certain limit on oil production. They all know about oil price problem in the world but because of their differences with US, some countries in OPEC are not allowing to increase oil output extensively to bring down oil prices. Iran and other OPEC countries are suggesting that the valuation of Oil should not be calculated in Dollar other currency take its place. And because of this they are not allowing to bring down Oil prices.

At the same time world is gearing up for biggest sports meet, OLYMPICS in China. It is expected that their will be millions of spectators arrive in China for this event. Now, black marketers are waiting to take advantage of this situation. They will not allow Oil prices to calm down easily.

With this we should hope that Oil prices should come down so people can relax. They can enjoy their lives. But will this OIL PRICES COME DOWN?

India to INDIA: The Pokhran way

11 May 1998 the historic day when India held first Nuclear Missile Test. And again on 13 May 1998 2 more tests held. These tests made every Indian proud. Now India is a Nuclear Super Power. Now we are secured that no country in the world that has nuclear missile will attack India. Every Indian was happy. But at the same world fraternity was aghast by thinking that even India has nuclear missile. US and European nations have condemned these tests as their authority of developing Nuclear weapons broke. They broke relationships with India. We were in a fizzy condition as we have started developing in the same 1990's and in few years such a big problem arises. All economists have predicted that India will not sustain their growth and economy started loosing. Every coin has two sides and this was one side of the coin, the other side was as shining as the Sun.

In the year 1947 India got its Independence and then we started a new chapter towards prosperity. But during those early years Indian economy was not doing well as India being a Secular nation having communist thinking. We have never thought that globalization will help India to earn a respect economically. In early 1990's we opened our economy and stepped towards Globalization. But after 1998 when the powerful countries restricted their business with India Indian economy has started to look beyond these countries. India developed very good bilateral relations with China. Currently China is India's second largest Business Partner. India helped African nations and developed and maintained good relations with them. Because of the restriction in business from powerful countries, India looked beyond them and earned a lot of respect from these countries in business and foreign policies. This made India Independent in economy from these powerful countries. India showed way to other small countries that if big and powerful nations are not taking your note look for alternatives, make your economy strong by encouraging students for further studies, encourage researchers, encourage Entrepreneurs and take your country on a next level.

World noticed India's progress. India encouraged their entrepreneurs and they started manufacturing products which were very rarely manufactured in India. And then came the IT revolution. Information Technology brought India on a world map of developing nations. Today India is an IT hub. Bangalore became a big IT Hub. Even oxford had taken a note of Bangalore and added a word as 'BANGLORED' in their next Dictionary edition. This is a great achievement. During these years World has taken a note of India not as a country but as a developing Super power. This is not because of the IT revolution or population or bull market but because of its strength to believe in his ability as a country, its people and their thinking foresight ness to look beyond something. And this all happened because of Pokhran Nuclear Test. That day India was proud and the next day world condemned nuclear test which we tested for our own security. And then India started its Run and we feel proud that we are in this country where you get chance to think big.

1857 is in base for Indian Independence and the same way we can say nuclear tests are in the base of India's Economic independence. These tests helped us to find our strength and opportunity on which we can work. JAI HIND.