Date:04/07/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/07/04/stories/2006070403310801.htm

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

WTO talks

The failure of WTO talks is not surprising. The industrialised countries that focus only on penetrating market access in the developing countries are responsible for the impasse. They are also the countries that have set a global target for achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Trade liberalisation should not be viewed as a technical issue; it should have a human face. Thousands of farmers have ended their lives in India in the past decade alone because of debt, crop failure and other economic reasons.

M.J. Ruben,
Chennai

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If our agricultural products are not competitive in the international market it is because of excessive dependence on the monsoon for a good crop, inefficient production techniques, intensity of the labour involved, poor quality of seeds, and improper storage and transportation. Successive governments have done nothing to lift our farm sector from its medieval state and make it a dynamic, profit making business enterprise.

V. Venkatasubramanian,
Mumbai