AGARTALA, Dec 19 (TIWN): In one hand a microphone and in another hand some papers, pretending those papers were the notes that Tripura Agriculture Minister Ratan Lal Nath prepared before today’s event. Nath was addressing the farmers in an agri-development research cum training center inauguration program on Friday. The event was attended by officials, students and a few local farmers and families. Amid his many data, one data striked because he claimed, earlier India used to “import rice from outside” and now “India is No-1 in rice export.” In other words, he asserted that it is happening because of the BJP Govt in power.

Fact is India was always in the high position for rice export since Indira Gandhi started massive campaigning for food surplus. Her speeches are recorded in history where she was saying, day will come India need not be dependent on other countries for food and it started happening. 

MS Swaminathan, the Godfather of the Green Revolution, the late 1960s saw India adopting new farming techniques and technologies and it is recorded in global history.

Infact in the Modi era, farmers’ bills caused the largest ever farmers’ protest in India, where many farmers died amid protest.

Whereas Ratan Lal Nath’s claim that India is exporting contradicts the past exporting trend of the country, the fact is even in 2012, India emerged as the highest rice exporter country in the world.

India exported a record 10.3 million tons of rice in 2012, following Manmohan Singh’s big step in September 2011, when India removed restrictions on exports of non-basmati rice. 

This was only one such example! The Indian economy has been dependent on agriculture for decades, but some politicians’ speech writers might need to do more homeworks.