New Braunfels Independent School Districts Education Expo, hosted by the districts Education Foundation, will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday at the New Braunfels Civic/Convention Center, 375 S. Castell Avenue.

The one-day event will connect district staffers with area businesses and organizations.

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NBISD Education Expo set for Tuesday - Herald Zeitung

After more than a decade of working in UK higher education and growing increasingly exasperated by its strained relationship with the Home Office over the importance of international students Kevin Andrews decided to leave.

I was completely disenchanted with UK higher education. I thought: Im going to go off and do something a bit more interesting, said Dr Andrews, who is now vice-chancellor of Unicaf University, an institution that is working to meet the demand for degrees on the African continent.

Unicaf delivers courses to students in Africa in two ways: by partnering with existing universities to deliver their courses online and, increasingly, in regional learning centres; and through Unicaf University, which is now an accredited degree provider with a campus in Malawi, and one opening soon in Zambia.

Through this combination of online and face-to-face teaching, Unicaf now has 11,000 students, a figure it hopes to increase to 60,000 by 2021.

There is a crisis of capacity on the African continent, Dr Andrews said, pointing out that half the population is under 19 just one of the factors contributing to the spiralling demand for higher education.

To meet that demand, he said, Africa would need to build 10 universities a week, [with] each [one enrolling] 10,000 students every week for the next 12 years. This simply isnt going to happen.

I am not saying that all bricks-and-mortar institutions need to be closed, but it is impossible for African governments to build enough to [educate the population] in the traditional way, said Dr Andrews, who was a lecturer at BournemouthUniversityfor 13 years, leaving in 2006. They have to think about innovations, to think about online as part of the solution.

Among Unicafs current university partners is the University of South Wales, which offers a range of degrees in business, education, psychology, public health, and law on the platform.

Helen Langton, deputy vice-chancellor at USW, said that the institution now has about 2,500 students registering through the partnership. All students are charged the same as on-campus international students, but in reality about 80 per cent of this is covered by scholarships from Unicaf.

One of the biggest challenges, Professor Langton said, is being accepted as real by prospective students.

I think that its an issue because the vast majority of our students are from Africa and they are used to scams Nigeria in particular, she said. It looks too good to be true.

Despite his own disillusionment with UK higher education, Dr Andrews is still looking for more partner institutions in the UK. The gold standard reputation of UK universities remains an attractive selling point.

However, as Unicaf University develops its own brand, he believes that there will be less need for these collaborations. His university is recruiting tutors from a variety of pools, including UK university staff recently made redundant, and a new kind of portfolio academic who undertakes some online teaching for a range of web-based learning platforms.

Our data show thatwhen students realise that Unicaf is real and that the vast majority of people who are running it are from the UK originally, they are quite happy to go with that brand, Dr Andrews said.

chris.parr@timeshighereducation.com

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Africa 'must embrace online learning' to meet demand for degrees - Times Higher Education (THE)

Protesters shout anti-Nazi chants after chasing alt-right blogger Jason Kessler from a news conference on Aug. 13 in Charlottesville. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

Protesters shout anti-Nazi chants after chasing alt-right blogger Jason Kessler from a news conference on Aug. 13 in Charlottesville.

Nazis don't always look like bad guys in funny helmets. The Nazis and other bigots in khaki slacks and bright polo shirts who marched in Charlottesville chanted racist and anti-Semitic slogans I'd rather not repeat on a Saturday or at all. But it's discouraging to feel that you have to explain, more than 70 years after Nazi Germany was defeated, why Nazis are still the menace that embody evil.

The 20th century saw a lot of state-sanctioned mass murder: Stalin, Mao, Mengistu and Pol Pot, Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Ethiopia's Red Terror, the Great Purge, the Cultural Revolution, and more. In America there were lynchings and the cruelty of official segregation, which followed the end of slavery, and the massacre of so many Native Americans.

To cite one or another doesn't excuse any. But Nazism was something extraordinary. The laws on race and citizenship they began to impose on taking power in 1933, which were encoded in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, invoked blood, soil and the twisted science of eugenics to make anti-Semitism and Aryan supremacy the law. They used those wicked decrees to begin to engineer the murder of millions.

Much of the west was slow to believe they should worry about Nazism. Distinguished people, including George Bernard Shaw and Charles Lindbergh, said Germany's repression and race laws may be repellent, but were Germany's business; or that the U.S. and Britain committed equivalent crimes with segregation and colonialism. It was Winston Churchill, in June of 1940, who called the advance of Nazism, "a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science."

The fight to defeat that "perverted science" was bloody, costly and came close to failing several times. But when the war was won, the U.S., Britain and Canada were forced to face their own most painful contradictions, and began to turn themselves into better, freer and more diverse societies.

I've interviewed young Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members. They seem to be loveless, clueless clods, who see only skin color and ethnicity or "blood and soil" as the Nazis of the 1930s and 2017 call it.

The world barely escaped from the death grip of Nazis 70 years ago. The men and women who won that battle gave us freedom, as much as those who served Washington, Lincoln and Harriet Tubman. It dishonors those who struggled against Nazis to forget the evil they were brave enough to confront and defeat.

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Explaining, Again, The Nazis' True Evil - NPR

Transcript

I'm here with Brad Simpson. He's the Chief Wealth Strategist at TD Wealth. They've just come out with their quarterly investment strategy publication-- a great publication, really interesting. And you start things off with a quote that I think kind of sets the theme for the entire thing. And you say, "the only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor. He takes my measurements new each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them." That's from George Bernard Shaw. Why did you start with that?

Thank the universe for Shaw. At the end of the day, we think that we are in a time -- I think our name of our publication says it all, "Grand Distortions." We are of the belief that we are in a generation of change in the financial marketplace, and this change requires a whole new way of doing things. And one of the things that we tend to do in portfolio management is kind of stick with our knitting, what we've always done.

So it's kind of going back to the tailor and saying, I've changed. The world's changed. And I need to have a new attire to prepare myself for the environment that I'm in. And that's really it.

And it really comes down to, I guess, making sure that it's tailored -- you talk this tailored for you. And there's what's happening in the world, but it's got to make sense for your life, in terms of the risks that you're managing at the same time. So you go through this. Again, you talk about the market. Then we talk about the tailoring side of things.

But let's talk a bit about the world we're living in right now in terms of the market today. And you talk about where are we now? So where are we now?

Well, I think a starting point to that is that at the asset allocation committee, which I'm a member of, we set a group of themes that are always going on about 18 months. So we literally have five themes right now that, I think, in a really good way, frame our thoughts and thinking today.

So our starting point on that is yearning for yield. And yearning for yield is really this idea that investors, if you had a GIC in 1980 or 1981, it yielded 13 and 1/2%. Got $100,000 in that, your income was $13,500. That same investment in terms of deposit today, you might be getting 1.25% for it, where you're getting an income of $1,000, $1,250. That's rate shock. And so yearning for yield is this notion of really getting that tail end of folks doing whatever it is to find something that will produce an income for them.

Second thing is rarefied air. Rarefied air is looking at equity markets globally. And again, with on the backs of monetary policy pushing up most of the industrialized nations' stock markets, really, to their all-time highs and as we know, we've discussed in the past, most other financial assets too, from real estate to art too. So really, that's the rarefied air piece of this.

The third notion, the third of our themes is the Trump

Not to interject, but what I really loved about the chart that you have on this thing is you have Trump fear and Trump hope. And it looks as though we're kind of stuck in between right now.

Yeah. Yeah, back in November when he was elected, how the market turned into this hope phase, where we would have a new cycle of growth and a new pro-business government, if you will. And if anybody's been watching the television or following the news the last few months, thus far, their accomplishments really can kind of get down to nothing. And interestingly is that there's really such kind almost low hope or thought towards the change they could accomplish, that TD Economics actually isn't even taking the impact of what they're going to possibly put in place and giving that consideration in the forecastings right now.

So on the one hand with Trump, you have this notion that there's this world of possibility, and then the market is really traded off of that. And now we're kind of at this place, well, maybe nothing's going to happen. And this middle point is like a neutral, right? It just is want not really of not knowing what to do from here.

You've mentioned the five -- so yearning for yield, rarefied air, Trump effect. Stuck in neutral was another one that you talk about.

Yeah, and stuck in neutral is really this notion that on the one side here is, if you look at the halfway through 2017, things are pretty good. The industrialized nations, their economies are all kind of growing around 2%. Their markets are particularly strong. And then in some of even in those industrialized nations that were a little bit of laggards in the past are really starting to perform really well. And in particular when you look at Europe, you see Germany performing well.

You see France really starting to surprise and perform well. And so on the one hand, manufacturing is strong, if you're looking at the purchasing managers index and the surveys that are coming in from there. Credit conditions are still very favorable. And yet growth still is only 2%. And so kind of stuck in neutral is the reality is while you we're doing all these things, the fact is we still have this issue of demographics in these industrialized world.

We still have these mountains of debt that we've created. Today on balance sheets of federal reserve boards, our central banks around the world, it's over $25 trillion now. So then you kind of throw that into the mix, where any time there's any thought of inflation, and it just kind of peters away, right? And growth is hard to come by.

So one hand, we have these things that we're doing to get things going. But ultimately, stuck in neutral is that there is some embedded things that are causing things to not go like they used to.

The fifth one you talk about here, as well -- again, stuck in neutral, yearning for yield, rarefied air, Trump effect, and global a-go-go, just in terms of looking outside North American borders.

Yeah, and then the last piece is -- that still your equity allocation is a major part of your portfolio. And there's no secret that most Canadians have an incredibly domestic-oriented portfolio. And for the last six months, we had been speaking an awful lot about trying to move out from that and try to add positions in the United States. We still think that is a good place to be.

We have reduced our allocations across our platform in the United States, though. And we've really taken some of those proceeds, and we've taken some of the proceeds that we've reduced in allocations in Canada, and moved into international markets, particularly focused on Europe. And that's, again, really about in an earlier stage of return around compared to the United States.

They really didn't start this monetary cycle till about two to three years afterwards. And so now they're starting to see the early stages of that benefit. And valuations there on a comparable basis are much better.

When you put all that together, you talk about, again, from the wealth asset allocation committee, to having a cautious stance at this point, just given how well everything's pointing right now.

Yeah. No, so ultimately, I think the starting point, and it really leads our document, is that when we meet is ultimately we're trying to come down to, are we in an environment should you be really defensive? Should you be cautious? Is this the time to become a little bit more assertive, or is this a time to be aggressive? And we're cautious right now. And cautious doesn't need to be worrisome or calling market tops or anything of that nature.

It's just looking at the inputs of what's gotten us to where we are today. We think it's just time that you have a little bit of sober second thought and think about perhaps taking this time to readjust your portfolio.

Now, we've talked about this before as well. But when you take a look at the ingredients of what's happening in the world, that you need to bring it back and go, what does this all mean for me? And you talk about -- we've talked talk about the risk priority plus portfolios, the idea of risk. I think the one thing that's really interesting is that people may not realize that the traditional allocations -- fixed income, equity, those types of things -- you may be incurring a whole lot more risk than you are aware of because that risk bleeds between those allocations.

Exactly. Right. Yeah. And so what we've been really focused on in the last decade, particularly in the pension universe, has been this movement between building investment portfolios that have a broad category of asset allocations. And that can be equity, and that can be fixed income, but also use of absolute return strategies, use of private capital.

But that's still not enough. And you still have to get to this notion -- so think about a great diversifier along the lines of typically in an asset allocated portfolio was real estate. In fact, my team was just doing a portfolio review for a family that almost 50% of their investment portfolio was ultimately in real estate.

In our view of things, they were looking at this, well, this is good diversification. And our view is that real estate equals equity. There's nothing more, nothing less. And that's what a risk factor approach to investing means.

And why does real estate equal equity?

Ultimately, it is an investment that is a structure like an equity investment, right? It has its ups and downs, its revenues, its dividends that it pays out, which is ultimately very much an equity structure. And if you look at a portfolio, say, of real estate during a crisis like 2007 and 2009, yeah, it performed like that. And that was a big surprise for many.

So what we're seeing is that if you think about that, you go that that real estate has equity risk. Equities obviously have equity risk. And the fact is that if we had a big correction in an equity portfolio, many of those listed companies, where you have investment grade bonds, and your fixed income would also have an impact on them as well. And that's really what risk priority management is about and allocating like that. And it's not something that, really, universally we're seeing more and more of. And there's a fascinating section at the Canadian Pension Plan that actually discusses all this and says that this how they're allocating.

So we know it's a movement that we think that we're one of the leaders of. And we think it makes an awful lot of sense.

I've only got about 30 seconds left, but for the risk priority portfolios, and there's a number of them, what do they do, just in layman's terms, that address this risk issue, so that you don't have that real estate/equity problem or something like that.

Yeah, well, the bottom line is we still have the allocations there. But the first thing is, is knowing how to build a diversified portfolio is to understand the risks that you're taking, right? And so I think for us, the starting point is that if we can acknowledge that if I own a stock and an investment grade bond from the same company and one side of that gets hit, the other one will get hit.

They move together.

They'll move together. So really, for us is that saying that we are looking at building an investment portfolio, that just saying how much I have in fixed income and equity isn't enough. Ultimately, we have 10 different models that we're running, that all can be customized and changed because we also think that in 2017, having something that is finished and done that's kind of down from and set upon in front of a client is long over. We live in a world where we very easily can sit down and meet with somebody with one of our professionals and custom make something for the person sitting in front of them.

So for us, it's a starting point, back to our tailor analogy, right? We send out the cloth, right? But ultimately, you're going to take those tapestries, and you're going to take that tapestry and get it to fit the client. And that's really what our whole process is all about.

Brad, thanks very much.

No, thank you.

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Chief Wealth Strategist: A Time Of Grand Distortions - Seeking Alpha

Noel Baker follows in the footsteps of Pippa Middleton and pays a visit to Glengarriff and the Eccles Hotel.

One delightful aspect of Pippa Middletons recent visit to Glengarriff was how, at the end of an evening, she tucked into a Tayto sandwich. Surely its only a matter of time before Irelands premier crisps are being served at Buckingham Palace.

The younger sister of the future Queen of England was in this glorious part of West Cork for a wedding and stayed in a bridal suite at the Eccles Hotel.

It certainly made for some fabulous advertising for the village and its surrounds, even if, as one local told me on a recent visit, for a few days afterwards it was a case of Pippa this, Pippa fecking that...

Pippa and co may have been over a wedding but Glengarriff has had its fair share of famous visitors and residents over the years, not least the late Maureen OHara, whose five-bedroom house went on the market earlier this year.

My gang arrived in Glengarriff at lunchtime on a Saturday and we headed straight for Jims Coffee house, located just at the point the road begins to slope down into the village. The sun was beaming, dogs were frolicking in the back garden and the place was packed.

We devoured some delicious sandwiches the korma pitta bread is a real hit and then made our way to the Eccles Hotel, with its unmissable cast-iron verandah catching the eye every bit as much as the view opposite it.

Luckily, our family room opened out onto the waterfront and its the kind of vista you just want to drink in. You can see why high profile figures have decamped here over the years, among them George Bernard Shaw and WB Yeats.

And given there has been accommodation available at this site since 1745, there have been many years. Pictures of Yeats et al feature at various points in a building that reeks of history and heritage.

Its not your identikit nouveau hotel with feng shui sofas and ergonomically-enhanced bar stools.

Its a treasure trove of windy stairways and open fires, where the heritage seems to bounce off the walls back at you.

Recently brought under new ownership, it will be interesting to see how those in charge maintain and even develop this rich and vital sense of classy antiquity, no matter what other tweaks are made to this beautiful old building.

Its understood the new management want to push Eccles as a choice wedding venue. Clocking the spacious dining area and the views out the windows, its easy to see the appeal.

Whatever changes, that view will not, and for that we can all be truly grateful. Across to the right is Garnish Island, a planned subtropical haven of exotic plants and architectural delights.

The ferry trip across takes just a few minutes but the journey is enlivened by the expanding panorama of the bay and the chance to witness seals slouching on the rocks or bobbing along by the boat.

Once across, follow the maps to make your way around the Italian Garden, Happy Valley, and down the Dell.

There are some spectacular vantage points, not least the Martello Tower, which dates from 1805, well before businessman Annan Bryce and architect Harold Peto transformed Ilnacullin into the wonder it is today.

Back on dry land, we headed off to the Ewe Experience a few kilometres out the Kenmare Road.

This is obviously a labour of love, using the side of the mountain as a canvas for a marriage of ideas and nature.

Kurt Lyndorff, formerly an overseas reporter with Danish media, chiefly Jyllands Posten, and his partner Sheena Wood, an artist and ecologist, had previously lived on Mizen Head before they moved here and built a home and garden unlike any other.

Youre greeted at the entrance by artworks including a sheep poking its head out of a Morris Minor. Inside the theme continues, with eye-popping sculptures and artworks that range from a pig in a bath to a dinosaur peaking over the undergrowth to a dragonfly made out of tin and metal.

The trail takes you through the trees, climbing up alongside a waterfall, with the artworks and associated poems developing themes such as the evolution of the planet and mans role within it.

From an adult perspective there is much here to ponder, from a childs perspective it is simply a wonderful place to move from one surprise to the next. My three struggled to observe the no running rule, but in any event, we all had a workout.

Just down the road from the Ewe Experience is the local nature trail, and you cant turn left or right around these parts without a sign pointing you in the direction of a lake or a walkway.

The proximity of sea and mountain is really something, as is the sight of the sun setting in the distance over Garnish Island. We were all wrecked by the time we made it back to the Eccles Hotel.

One perfectly-cooked steak later, I was ready for the scratcher, although I did treat myself to a drop of Jameson and water as I sat outside on the veranda and watched the world go by - not that much did. And I bought my wife a bag of Tayto.

The following morning we took a stroll up through the village, which was already gearing up for a busy Sunday and busloads of tourists, breaking things up with a visit to the playground and another stroll along the walkway that brings you across the waters edge.

After that it was time to leave, but even then this part of the world had another surprise in store. Until this particular morning I must have been the only man from West Cork to have never travelled the route from Glengarriff to Kenmare.

Having now done so, I can only marvel at the scene, the mountains and valleys and the sea disappearing in the rear view.

Its only when you take in the sheer breadth of the geography here that you remind yourself that this country is still a knockout.

Disappear through the tunnel hoven out of ancient rock and appear out the other side, looking over into Bonane and south Kerry and marvel at the surrounds. Even Pippa and co might agree: it puts Bucks House in the hapenny place.

Where to stay:

Glengarriff has plenty of options. Rooms at the Eccles Hotel start at 135 per night, see wwweccleshotel.com

Where to eat:

Again, loads of options. Jims Coffee House is great for lunch but be warned, they dont take cards so have some cash handy. See their Facebook page for food details. McCarthys Bar in the village also comes recommended.

What to do:

The Ewe Experience (www.theewe.com) is well worth a visit, while another option is the Bamboo Park (www.bamboo-park.com).

There is also the local nature trail and various walks, plus the boat to Garnish Island is a must - enquire at the pier and see http://www.garnishisland.com. After that, theres always just lounging around looking at the scenery.

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Follow Pippa Middleton and head to Glengarriff in West Cork - Irish Examiner

Sunday Business Post

West Cork residence has streak of the poet Sunday Business Post West Cork residence has streak of the poet View Gallery. Built as a hotel in the late 1800s, Grove House was popular with artists and writers. A home which was once an artist's retreat frequented by George Bernard Shaw offers a respite for the creative ...

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West Cork residence has streak of the poet - Sunday Business Post

I see that my colleagues are referring to the new online Encyclopedia of Libertarianism as a Wikipedia for libertarianism. I suppose thats sort of true, in that its an online encyclopedia. But its not exactly Hayekian, as Jimmy Wales describes Wikipedia. That is, it didnt emerge spontaneously from the actions of hundreds of thousands of contributors. Instead, editors Ronald Hamowy, Jason Kuznicki, and Aaron Steelman drew up a list of topics and sought the best scholars to write on each one people like Alan Charles Kors, Bryan Caplan, Deirdre McCloskey, George H. Smith, Israel Kirzner, James Buchanan, Joan Kennedy Taylor, Jeremy Shearmur, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Norman Barry, Richard Epstein, Randy Barnett, and Vernon L. Smith, along with many Cato Institute experts. In that regard its more like the Encyclopedia Britannica of libertarianism, a guide to important topics by top scholars in the relevant field.

The Britannica over the years has published articles byAlbert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Marie Curie, Leon Trotsky, Harry Houdini, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Milton Friedman, Simon Baron Cohen, and Desmond Tutu. They may have slipped a bit when they published articles by Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Lee Iacocca. And particularly when they chose to me to write their entry on libertarianism.

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Is the Encyclopedia of Libertarianism like Wikipedia? - Cato Institute (blog)

Working with business leaders, I am struck by the challenges that my clients experience, leading companies in such a radically changing and dynamic world.

I believe there are two key traits that are crucial for todays business leaders to help them meet those challenges adaptability and self-awareness.

READ MORE: Management news

Because todays marketplace is so unpredictable, leaders need to be ready to learn fast and move quickly. Their role is to help their organisations adapt and flourish amid the constantly changing political and economic landscape a very different role from the more traditional and structured hierarchies that most of us witnessed earlier in our careers.

The choices are hard, especially when it comes to letting go of some of our core beliefs and ways of thinking that have worked for us in the past. Todays business leaders now need to step back, look at whats happening and what lies ahead, keep asking what is working, learn from their mistakes, and most importantly, learn to thrive from this approach.

A recent McKinsey article, based on research from the worlds largest organisations, highlighted how different everything feels from just a decade ago. Leaders are operating in a bewildering new environment in which very little is certain; the pace is quicker, and the dynamics far more complicated. Business leaders worry that its impossible to stay on top of all the things they need to know. And yet, there are great examples of success where adaptive organisations are leading the way in the market.

Take Amazon for example. I find being a customer so easy, and their response matches what I want. A lot has been written about their CEO Jeff Bezos, but his philosophy of making bold investment decisions, building the culture, taking risks and thinking long term, has resulted in huge global success.

200 Voices: find out more about the people who have shaped Scotland

In todays economic environment, a leader being adaptable is no longer a nice to have, its the new normal if you want your company to deliver a real competitive advantage. There is a Chinese proverb that says that the wise adapt themselves to circumstances, just as water moulds itself to whatever vessel it is in.

Adaptive leaders show clear direction, dedication and ambition traits that inspire others to follow them. These individuals are willing to experiment, take calculated risks, encourage innovation, and have a style that is very open. The essence of this approach is that they learn how to follow, and followers learn how to lead.

Perhaps a more difficult skill to craft is self-awareness. This requires digging deep and looking closely at your personality all of your strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Its a quality that allows you to understand other people and how they perceive you, your attitude and how you respond to them.

So why do we need to develop greater self-awareness now? Quite simply, because in todays economic climate we need to make changes in how we think, in our emotions and reactions.

Self-awareness is the first step in creating what we want and mastering where we focus our attention, our emotions, reactions, personality and behaviour, determining where we go in life. Until we are aware of this and regularly take a good look at ourselves, we will find it difficult to respond appropriately and keep up with the 21st century challenges.

Any high-performing sports person or musician is relentless in honing their craft. Business leaders need to apply the same principles. That might be learning how to play to their strengths and improving the areas they are weaker on, or surrounding themselves with people whose strengths will complement their own and learn from each other.

Either way, its time for our captains of industry to take a good look at themselves and start building up their leadership muscles!

Caroline Donaldson is director at Kynesis Consulting

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Caroline Donaldson: Self-awareness is key to leadership - The Scotsman

WorkshopTheInternal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) ofSt. Edmunds College is organising a 1-day workshop on Higher Education: Reshaping The Learning Space onSaturday at theCollege Auditorium. Prof K.V. Nagaraj, HOD DepartmentMass Communication, Mizoram University will be the chief guest and the resource person on the occasion.IQAC is also preparing for the NAAC re- accreditationfor the third cycle which will take place toward the end of the year.

DemonstrationThe United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), in its meeting held in Mumbai last month has decided to hold a centralised joint demonstration on Friday at 5:30 pm in front of SBI Zonal office Shillong, Bawri Mansions and Dhankheti. All the employees, both supervising and award of different bank branches and offices within greater Shillong are requested to take part in the programme.

Freshers meetThe Kuki Students Organization, Shillong will organize its 56th Freshers social function on Saturday at Sri Aurobindo Institute of Indian Culture, Auditorium, Bivar road.

Cleaning drive As part of the observance of Swachhta Pakhwara, the NSS Unit of the College in collaboration with NSS Cell, NEHU organised a special cleaning drive in Police Bazaar and its adjoining areas on Tuesday.

Felicitation Shillong Socio-Cultural Assamese Students Association will felicitate meritorious Assamese students in the SSLC and HSSLC examinations from MBOSE, CBSE, ICSE and other boards, and rank holders in the graduation level on September 9. Eligible students can contact 9615072576 before Sept 4.

Originally posted here:
News Capsule - The Shillong Times

It is 11 years since agronomist M.S. Swaminathan handed over his recommendations for improving the state of agriculture in India to the former United Progressive Alliance government, at the height of the Vidarbha farmer suicides crisis, but they are still to be implemented. To address the agrarian crisis and farmers unrest across the country, he urged the government to take steps to secure farmers income. As India marks 50 years of the Green Revolution this year, the architect of the movement says sustainability is the greatest challenge facing Indian agriculture. Excerpts:

The greatest challenge facing Indian agriculture 50 years back was achieving self-sufficiency in foodgrain production. What is the greatest challenge today?

There are two major challenges before Indian agriculture today: ecological and economical. The conservation of our basic agricultural assets such as land, water, and biodiversity is a major challenge. How to make agriculture sustainable is the challenge. Increasing productivity in perpetuity without ecological harm is the need of the hour. In Punjab, and in other Green Revolution States, the water table has gone down and become saline. Further, during the Green Revolution the population was about 400-500 million; now it is 1,300 million and it is predicted to be 1.5 billion by 2030. The growing population pressure has made it pertinent to increase crop yield.

Also, the economics of farming will have to be made profitable to address the current situation. We have to devise ways to lower the cost of production and reduce the risks involved in agriculture such as pests, pathogens, and weeds. Today, the expected return in agriculture is adverse to farmers. Thats why they are unable to repay loans. Addressing the ecological challenge requires more technology while the economics requires more public policy interventions. In my 2006 report, I had recommended a formula for calculating Minimum Support Price, C2+50% (50% more than the weighted average cost of production, classified as C2 by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices). This would raise the current MSP and has now become the clamour of farmers and the nightmare of policymakers.

The NDA government has said it wants to double farmers incomes by 2022. But they havent implemented the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission Report that you submitted to the UPA government in 2006.

Yes. All kinds of excuses have been given by governments for not implementing this recommendation like food price inflation. But the question is, do the farmers of this country, who constitute nearly half of the working population, also not need to eat? The government is willing to pay Seventh Pay Commission salaries to insulate government servants from inflation, but they cannot provide a higher income for farmers to improve their lot? If you really look at what is happening now, farm loan waivers are posing a bigger burden on the government exchequer compared to what higher pay for farm produce will incur. But the government is not prepared to give the Rs. 20,000 crore or so for farmers by way of higher MSP. In 2009, the UPA government gave Rs. 72,000 crore as farm loan waiver, but no government is prepared to take long-term steps to ensure the economic viability of farming.

There are three ways to improve the incomes of farmers. MSP and procurement is one. We also need to improve productivity. The marketable surplus from agriculture has to be enhanced. We should also look at making a value addition to biomass. For example, paddy straw is a biomass product that could be used to make edible mushrooms.

The incidence of farmers committing suicides has shown no signs of abating. What needs to be done to address the crisis?

We are not really analysing the causes of farmer suicides. Instead, we are simply attributing it to the inability to pay off debts. Some serious thought needs to be given to how we could reduce the cost of farm production, minimise risks and maximise returns. The solution for ending farmer suicides is not only paying compensation. Ive seen in Vidarbha so many men have committed suicide and their families are left in the lurch. One of the first projects we initiated in Vidarbha at that time was to rescue children and give them education. Farming is the most important enterprise in this country and farmers are an integral part of our country. In China, farms are owned by the government, and farmers are mere contractors. In our case, land is owned by the people. How do you treat this largest group of entrepreneurs? Unfortunately, all policies today are related to corporate powers. What about food security and 50 crore farmers? We need to think about them too.

The Green Revolution of 1967-68 may have resolved the food crisis in the short run, but the heavy use of pesticides and high-yielding varieties of paddy have resulted in environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity. How do we cope with these adverse effects?

After the Green Revolution, I came up with the concept of the Evergreen Revolution. In this we will see increase in farm productivity but without ecological harm. This will include integrated pest management, integrated nutrient supply, and scientific water management to avoid the kind of environmental damage witnessed during the Green Revolution. Ive addressed these issues in my 2016 paper on Evergreen Revolution. I recommended mandatory rainwater harvesting and introduction of fodder and grain legumes as rotation crops to be adopted by wheat farmers in States like Punjab to ensure sustainability of farming. We can also declare fertile zones capable of sustaining two to three crops as Special Agricultural Zones, and provide unique facilities to farmers here to ensure food security. Soil health managers should be appointed to monitor and ameliorate the soil conditions in degraded zones and rectify defects like salinity, alkalinity, water logging, etc.

The Prime Minister recently went to Israel. We have several practices to emulate from there. They have a clear sense of where water is needed and where its not. The idea of more crops per drop has been implemented well in Israel. We should adopt those practices here. You should see how a water controller works in an Israeli farm. Everything is remote-controlled. They know exactly which portion of the field requires how much water and release only the exact amount. We cannot sacrifice on productivity now, because land under crop cover is shrinking. Post-harvest technologies like threshing, storage, etc. will have to be given greater attention now.

Opinion is divided on the benefits of genetic modification technology to improve yields of food crops. Can GM technology help address food security challenges?

There are many methods of plant breeding, of which molecular breeding is one. Genetic modification has both advantages and disadvantages. One has to measure the risks and benefits before arriving at a conclusion. First, we need an efficient regulatory mechanism for GM in India. We need an all-India coordinated research project on GMOs with a bio-safety coordinator. We need to devise a way to get the technologys benefit without its associated risks. At MSSRF (M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation), we used GM technology with mangroves to create salt-tolerant varieties of rice. For this we took the genes from the mangroves and inserted them it into rice. To make the most of GM technology we must choose a problem where there is no other way to address the challenge.

Barring the U.S., most countries have reservations about adopting GM technology. Europe has banned it on grounds of health and environmental safety. Id say GM in most cases is not necessary. Normal Mendelian breeding itself is sufficient in most cases 99% of what is being done under GM initiatives is not justifiable. Parliament has already suggested a law based on the Norwegian model where there are considerable restrictions on GMOs.

What is the scope for organic farming when it comes to addressing food security?

Organic farming can have a good scope only under three conditions. One, farmers must possess animals for organic manure. Two, they must have the capacity to control pests and diseases. Three, they should adopt agronomical methods of sowing such as rotation of crops. Even genetic resistance to pests and diseases can help organic farmers.

If you look at the organic farms in Pillaiyarkuppam near Puducherry that were started by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, it is a good model to follow for organic farming. They have adopted the requisite crop-livestock integration.

Climate change has upset rainfall patterns and we have this cycle of droughts and floods, which has rendered farming risky. How do we address these challenges?

Both less rainfall and a higher mean temperature affect farming adversely. Currently we are witnessing drought, excess rainfall, sea-level rise There are both adaptation and mitigation measures to follow in this regard. Ive evolved a drought code and a flood code... some of the recommendations Ive made in recent times include setting up a multi-disciplinary monsoon management centre in each drought-affected district, to provide timely information to rural families on the methods of mitigating the effects of drought, and maximising the benefits of good growing conditions whenever the season is normal. Animal husbandry camps could be set up to make arrangements for saving cattle and other farm animals because usually animals tend to be neglected during such crises. Special provisions could also be made to enable women to manage household food security under conditions of agrarian distress.

In the case of temperature rise, wheat yield could become a gamble. We should start breeding varieties characterised by high per day productivity than just per crop productivity. These will be able to provide higher yields in a shorter duration.

Indias ranking on the Global Hunger Index has become worse over the years and we missed out on the Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger. What are the steps we should take to address the matter?

India has done well in production, but not in consumption. What we are witnessing today is grain mountains on the one side and hungry millions on the other. The Food Security Act must be implemented properly to address the situation. We should also enlarge the food basket to include nutri-millets.

The idea of more crops per drop has been implemented well in Israel. We should adopt those practices here.

Farm loan waivers are posing a bigger burden on the government exchequer compared to what higher pay for farm produce will incur. But the government is not prepared to give the Rs. 20,000 crore or so for farmers by way of higher MSP.

Read the rest here:
'Why can't the government provide a higher income for farmers?' - The Hindu