The centre's answer to food inflation? Eat less!

Bhonk, Bhonk! Living large in GK II

Life is like a room full of mirrors; if you're not careful,  you can end up seeing things backwards!

A year or so ago, a pair of scientists from New Zealand claimed that having a pet dog is actually worse for the environment than having an SUV. Apparently, it's not a joke--dogs are carnivores and eat a lot of meat. Meat takes a lot of land to raise, which means forests are cut, which means more greenhouse gases in the air--and less land for vegetarian food crops. The fall in food supplies that results means higher prices, as any first year student of economics knows. I'm not saying, as plasticgraduate did, that we should eat our pets. But maybe we should think twice before getting new ones.

Or maybe we could solve the food inflation problem by asking poor people to eat less food.

Before you think I've gone off the deep end, consider that the centre is blaming food inflation on increased consumption by poor people. That's a strange way of framing the problem, but it does leave rich people and their pets--both here and abroad--off the hook. Which is probably why George W. Bush said something similar back in 2008. 

On a strangely similar note, US president Obama recently blamed high oil prices on increased consumption in India and China, which may be half true, but obviously ignores who's historically consumed--and who continues to consume--most of the world's oil.


Arguing that poor people or poor countries are responsible for tight supply when they begin to consume more food or oil is a little like looking at the world through a mirror; it makes sense when you are combing your hair, but it can lead to problems when you are attempting tasks that require higher order thinking--like reading the newspaper or pondering the world's many problems.  And we'll never be able to lower food inflation--or solve the oil supply problem--by blaming poor people.

When it comes right down to it, this all reminds us of something we'd do well not to forget: sometimes our perspective really does matter; sometimes we can come to conclusions that seem perfectly reasonable--demonstrably true, even-- by looking at a problem from exactly the wrong point of view. It's time we stop putting up with this kind of backward logic, and look at the problems facing us straight on.

Hard times ahead? Fertilizer, famine and the future of our farms

Is the sun setting on the "green revolution"?

In which I explain what my father-in-law and Karl Marx forgot to tell us about the source of wealth and food...

Last week The Hindu ran two pieces which, when taken together, serve to remind us how very vulnerable our whole system of food production is to forces beyond our control. First, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh takes on the whole issue of fertilizer subsidy, explaining that our reliance on chemical fertilizers is really a reliance on foreign petrochemical companies and fertilizer producers:

There have been concerns raised by several policy experts and others that the fertilizer policy of the country is only helping to move out the Indian tax payers' money to foreign petroleum companies and fertilizer producers. It is to be noted here that fertilizer production is highly dependent on fossil fuels, and that most fertilizers are imported.

Even more interesting, is the whole question of what the farmers think about soil degradation. What farmers know--and don't know--about that topic is striking. Here's Singh again:

In the mad rush to balance the chemical fertilizer kitty with global prices, policy makers are forgetting a huge problem that is staring us in the face — the deteriorating soil in the country and the resultant threat to food security. However farmers are aware of the crisis, but are helpless in the absence of support systems from the government. A recent Greenpeace India report, “Of Soils, Subsidies and Survival,” based on social audits conducted in five Indian States, has revealed that 96 per cent out of the 1,000 farmers surveyed were of the opinion that the use of chemical fertilisers led to soil degradation but they continue to use them as there was no other option. Ninety-four per cent of the surveyed farmers believed that only organic fertilisers can maintain soil health. However, only one per cent of the farmers received any kind of support for production and the use of organic fertilisers. Ninety-eight per cent of the surveyed farmers were ready to use organic fertilisers if they are subsidised and made easily available...Further, only 34 per cent of them knew that chemical fertilisers are subsidised. Of those who knew, only seven per cent knew that a new subsidy system (NBS) was introduced by the government for chemical fertilizers. Even at the subsidised rate, 94 per cent of them thought that chemical fertilisers are unaffordable and not economical.

Later in the week, Andrew Simms gave us "Our addiction to oil is draining every drop." Simms reminds of two sobering facts: first, most of our economy depends on cheap fossil fuel, and second, we are running out of that cheap fossil fuel. Here's a taste:

We all became, and remain, hooked on its convenience. Today's energy supplies provide the equivalent of the work of 22 billion slaves, according to former oil industry man Colin Campbell. But now the wave of oil looks set to leave us high and dry. At well over $100 per barrel, prices are climbing again to the level last reached in 2008. Since then, however, the tone of commentary has changed.

That comment about slavery, by the way, reminded me of my university days, when many of my red friends were fond of announcing, "labour creates all wealth, comrade!" Come to think of it, I think I even announced that a few times. Today, I don't really feel up to a full discussion of c+L=W or other aspects of the Labour Theory of Value... or the opening paragraph of Marx's Critique of the Gotha Progamme...or even my father-in-law's take on all that in an Indian context: FARMS+ the Labour of Farmers=Wealth. 


Anyway, if I really did go and try to write a full on critique of Marxist economics, I'm sure someone from SARAI would take me to task for lack of intellectual rigour and the rest of you would stop reading. 


But permit me this much at least: wealth cannot be generated and food cannot be grown over the long run if it is not done so sustainably. And our current systems of industrial and agricultural production depend on us using fossil fuels (which is really ancient solar energy) and what is left of the organic content of the soil (which is more recent solar energy) in a way that is unsustainable. See, that's the thing neither Marx, nor my father-in-law ever completely got their large minds around.


And if that was too confusing, I think these three simple statements may be a bit more clear:
1) Over-farmed Indian soil increasingly requires fertilizer in order to give food.
2) Fertilizer requires a lot of fossil fuel to produce.
3) Oil supplies are falling and prices are rising--in the short and long term.


Add those up, and you can see we are in trouble, even without taking into account falling water tables and climate change. The problems are easy to understand, but the solutions are much more complex. And the price of failure is high indeed: lacking a real solution to these problems, the best we can hope for is that hunger will continue to stalk the land; at worse, we will see famine and the widespread breakdown of social order. 

***

For more on food, check out our Food Security page. Also, Mira Kamdar's series in Slate: On the front lines of the global food crisis.

Making fun of meat

Since we've been focusing on food for the past few posts, I thought some mention of meat was in order. The greenest kind of diet is almost certainly a vegetarian one.  I'm not saying you can't be green if you eat meat from time to time. But you can probably be greener if you eat less meat. There are many reasons for that.  If you want some serious ones, look here for some basic information, or read what Jonathan Safran has to say in "Against Meat." 

People in Argentina eat the most beef per capita, but Americans eat a lot-- 27.3 billion pounds in 2008, according to the USDA.  That is a LOT of meat! The slogan there is, "Beef, it's what's for dinner!"  I'm not just not up to writing a serious essay about all that.  Instead, I'm going to make fun of it.  No, scratch that--I'm going to outsource that job to comedians in the US.  Here are a pair of funny beef videos: something from the Onion and "Cows with guns." Enjoy.

Photo feature: Buying grain from a village shop

by Lina Krishnan

I don’t know if too many kids nowadays know that rotis are made of atta, and that atta itself comes from wholewheat grain. I guess we are so separated from the process that we have almost forgotten these basics. I remember though, in my childhood in Delhi, one bought kanak (wheat) and took it to the chakki (grinding house), where it was first sifted, then ground into flour. The bright colors of the odhnis of the Rajasthani women who worked there, the golden color of the wheat spread out in the sun, the harmonious chak-chak of their sieves as they worked, it was all from another time and space. Now we buy boring packaged atta in a chain store, adding to the plastic on the planet, and distancing ourselves from the source. Which is why it felt so good the other day finding myself at a village shop buying grain. 

Ragi, the ubiquitous staple of Karnataka. It is ideal for dryland farming. Adding a bit of it to your daily diet gives a lot of energy, plus strengthens the bones. We got ragi grain for Rs 12 a kilo (plus Rs 1 per kg for grinding), as opposed to Rs 25 that one pays here at the supermarket for a kilo of ragi atta. What’s more, it was naati (desi) ragi, a lot more nutritious than the factory product. 

 
Shopping becomes a friendly encounter, with a leisurely chat about the crops, rain, his village, our route. Since we were tempted to buy quite a bit, and ground ragi doesn’t keep for so long, the shopkeeper offered to come along to the nearby chakki and explain that we wanted the grain only to be cleaned for now.

 

The chakki is a powerhouse on the go, despite working out of a limited space. 

It’s also quite a hub, so you get to meet neighbours as you wait.


 
Or watch children playing hopscotch

 

Wall art at the chakki: religious prints, a map of Karnataka and a world map


A village home. Even they use plastic pots now


 
Harvest drying, what a stunning sight!

 

Farmers put out their new harvest on the roads to be crushed by passing traffic

 

Cows find a handy trough and some shade from the midday sun

Okay, I guess it’s time to get back.

  ****

Lina Krishnan blogs over at Jude Sessions. It's full of good writing about important things. 

For more about food-related issues, check out the dhaba's food security page. And if YOU have something interesting to share, why not send it our way?

Saving seeds: Natabar Sarangi goes against the grain

This week we are focusing on food. On Tuesday, Kabir Arora shared a photo report from last month's Millet Festival, organized by the Deccan Development Society and the Millets Network. He also sent us a link to this interesting video about Natabar Sarangi, who is working to save indigenous seeds in an era where Monsanto would like us to believe that genetically modified, copyrighted seeds are our only option.

But Monsanto is wrong: we can't afford to lose the knowledge of the past because it may hold the key to our survival in the future. Here's a bit of the intro that's posted with this video on Youtube:

Natabar Sarangi is just one of a growing number of farmers throughout the world who realise that if we do not begin to repair the damage taking place to our agricultural systems and our environment, we will lose not just our cultural identity but our fundamental right to a truly sustainable system of food security...Natabar continues to find, save and share his indigenous rice seed with local farmers.  To date he has managed to re-introduce over 350 varieties.

Now here's the video. 

For more about related topics, check our the dhaba's food security page.

Photo Report: Millet Festival organized by Deccan Development Society and Millets Network of India

A week or two back, I wrote about the green side of peanuts. Kabir Arora read the post and sent in this report about another aspect of green agriculture: millets. Millets matter not just because they are good for you, but because they use less water and are more resistant to the affects of climate change: heat, drought, flooding, etc. For that reason, it's good to have Kabir's report, and I would love to run more on the subject by people who know more than me.

 *****

Here are some photographs from the Millet festival organized by Deccan Development Society and Millets Network of India in Medak Andhra Pradesh recently.

Millets are considered to be the most nutritious cereals which can be grown in any climatic condition. They are drought resistant and at many places flood resistant, need minimum investment. With the spread of Green Revolution, millet cultivation was discouraged both by the government and society. But still Indian population is largest producer and consumer of millets. All over India millets are grown in rain fed areas with minimum use of chemicals-in other words they are a part of Organic Sustainable Agriculture. Mostly, millets are grown by Dalits, Adivasis and women. So they are the key for their empowerment. 

 
The Millets Network of India and the Deccan Development Society are working for the promotion of Millet Farming. Because of  their constant lobbying with the government, millets are going to be included in "Food Security Bill", that is the only positive thing of the bill. A couple of weeks back, they they organized the festival to celebrate the heritage of millets. People from all over India participated. Views like Medak for Millets, Organic agriculture is just a tool, food security is the goal were put forth.

For more in formation information about organizing for millets, go to the website of the Deccan Development Society.
For more on food security, check out the dhaba's food security page.

Peanuts: a green Delhi snack

Instead of buying a factory-packaged, oil-heavy snack, why not treat yourself to some environmentally friendly roasted peanuts this winter? In Delhi, Rs 10 buys you a small newspaper bag full of warm nuts. Nothing is better on a cold winter's day.

And peanuts are much better for the earth than a lot of other things you could be eating. In addition to the recycled/recyclable bag they come in, peanut cultivation uses a lot less water and produces a less carbon than meat-based foods with a comparable amount of protein.The PB&J Campaign, which encourages people to eat more peanut butter and less meat, has a lot of information on that. And peanuts are generally good for you, as long as you're not allergic to them. 

India trails only China in worldwide peanut production. Peanuts are so popular among farmers because they help 'fix' nitrogen in soil; they are thus used in rotation with crops (like corn and cotton) that require a lot of nitrogen. Don't get me wrong--peanuts are not without their environmental problems. I read a lot about peanut agriculture and a lot of what I read was...complicated, like most things in life. But I'm convinced that if you weigh the costs and the benefits, and compare peanuts with other comparably priced foods, you'll find they come out looking--and tasting--better than most!

More often than not, the best greentech is low-tech. To read more, read our low-tech green page.

Pressure cookers: an essential part of any green kitchen!

There are people who argue that a raw food diet is the only healthy way to go.  A friend of ours followed this way of eating for a time, and she seemed to be healthy enough, though I worried when she talked about her non-veg preparations!  There is no doubt that many foods are tasty and healthy when eaten raw. Still, I don't think I'd want to give up cooked food completely, forever.  

In fact, I think good cooking is, and continues to be, one of the greatest--and least recognized--cultural achievements of human kind. How many women (and men) over how many years refined our understanding of the joys of the coconut, say, or the mango? What about those who figured out how to grow and prepare rice, dal, wheat? And we mustn't forget yogurt and beer. We know who invented peanut butter, but most of the great food inventors are long forgotten.  This is probably because food preparation and innovation has always been low status work. Ancient kings were not in the habit of building memorials to cooks; and considering the wages earned by most people who cook for a living today, it would appear that things haven't changed much.

Cooked food is important for reasons other than the joy we get from eating.  Cooking kills many harmful bacteria.  Cooked food is also easier and more efficient to digest, which means it gives more energy.  In fact, some scientists argue that the increased energy that we get from cooked food was part of what allowed human beings to evolve relatively large brains and relatively small stomachs as compared to other primates. Raw food is fine, they say, for a sedentary life, but it just won't cut it for people who hunt--or do hard manual labour--for a living.  In fact this argument is much more complicated and interesting than that; Steven Mithen wrote a fascinating article about it in the New York Review of Books a few months back, which you should read. It's no longer available on-line, but I found another version of it here; you just need to scroll down past its Danish introduction.)

That, my friends, is my defense of cooked food: it's one of the finer things in life, and it gives us the energy we need.  That said, cooking is not without its environmental consequences . Everyone knows that cooking requires heat, which typically comes either from some sort of flame or from electricity. That means pollution, climate change and more.

Given that we have to cook, it makes sense to do it as efficiently as possible. One way to do this would be to spend huge amounts of money remodeling your kitchen in a "green" way, as this couple in the US did. That way makes an architect, a contractor and any number of companies happy.  But there are other options for people who care about the planet. Like the good old pressure cooker! In the US, few people use pressure cookers, perhaps because, as one blogger wrote, they "suffer a bit from that grandma image." 

Of course pressure cookers never went out of style in India.   That's because they save a LOT of energy--up to 70%, in fact.   Pressure cookers are so efficient because they create a high pressure cooking environment. That higher pressure makes water boil at a higher temperature-- and that makes cook faster! And as if that weren't enough, if cooked right, foods prepared in a pressure cooker can also be more nutritious than food boiled conventionally. 

Modern, well-maintained pressure cookers are safe to use if you follow some basic safety tips--don't place the cooker in a heated oven;don't force the lid open; don't get drunk and pass out while cooking your rice.  You can read more of these here. And happy cooking!

Sometimes low tech is the best greentech; for more examples like this, check out our low tech greentech page.

5 links to follow, and why

1.  M Rajshekhar on Food Security

When we consider policies meant to insure 'food security' for all people, we find the problems are enormously complex.  But it's something we all need to think more about. M Rajshekhar's excellent piece in the Economic Times looks at some of what has--and has not--worked in Chhattisgarh’s 'right to food' programme. Rajshekhar covers interesting ground, and his piece raises important questions...How does Chhattisghar's flagship food programme affect different kinds of farmers and farm labourers? How does it impact the economy in general? Is it making food crops more or less diverse?  Are these effects given, or could they be modified under a modified food distribution regime?  This is good reporting; read it and pass it on.

2. and 3.  A personal narrative and a photo essay on children at Commonwealth Games construction sites.

When I read 'Footpath,' Mridula Koshy's short narrative about her walk through the CWG construction zone on Khel Gaon Marg, I immediately thought of 'Bricks for Bread and Milk,'  a photo essay, which ran in Foreign Policy earlier this year. When I went back to look at that essay last week, I was surprised by something I hadn't noticed before: many of the people leaving comments couldn't believe the photos or tried to minimize their impact.  One said, "These pictures cannot be from India. They must be from Pakistan, or Bangladesh or from some other downtrodden place...." Another compared the children of CWG workers, who spend their days at construction sites, to the children of reporters, who spend the occasional Saturday in the newsroom with one parent when the other can't mind them. 'I'm a journalist, and I have seen many of my colleagues bring their kids to the office on a Saturday just like that.' Just like that--except of course that the children of his colleagues don't get struck down by trucks hauling construction material as they play in the newsroom. Whether or not you've seen the kids on Khel Gaon, you won't think of them in the same way once you've read Koshy's piece and looked at the FP photo essay. 

4. Frontline on Unilever's poisonous factory in Tamil Nadu

With the flu and dengue going around, thermometers are getting a lot of use.  'Poisoned Ground'--the cover story in the current issue of Frontline about the continuing problems caused by an old Hindustan Unilever thermometer factory in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu--reminds us that even good things like thermometers often come with a price.  Back in 2003, Unilever had to admit it had a problem and went so far as to ship tonnes of mercury contaminated soil back to the US.  But Unlilever seems to be having a hard time accepting their responsibility for the contamination and health problems that remain.  I know Frontline has a reputation for being boring.  I prefer the word 'thorough,' though I can't say I read it cover-to-cover.  But this article--and the102 footnotes that accompany it-- remind us why it's good Frontline is still around.  Let's hope the mainstream press gives this issue the attention it deserves.

5. What research says about how--and how not to--study.

 It's exam time in many Delhi schools, so this article, which ran in The Hindu, but was originally published here in the New York Times, is timely. It's gotten a lot of attention for a lot of different reasons.  Students, if you read it, you may actually take away a few useful study tips.  Did you know that you will learn better if you study the material in more than one location than you will if you study only in one location? And teachers, this article is a reminder to give mixed practice:

Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time. Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills.

In other words, endless word problems (or just sums) that only use subtraction is not good practice--and there's research cited that proves this.  Far better to give less work and mix it up.  And last minute mugging (something I'm seeing a lot of this week in my own home) may work--but not for long:

Cognitive scientists do not deny that honest-to-goodness cramming can lead to a better grade on a given exam. But hurriedly jam-packing a brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase, as most students quickly learn — it holds its new load for a while, then most everything falls out...“With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material” when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.” 

The problem, of course, is that our whole system is built on cramming for high-stakes tests.  Testing itself is not bad--and this article makes that clear.  But it's much better to ask students to demonstrate deep understanding of a smaller amount of content than it is to ask them to study a huge amount of content in a shallow manner.  Parents, teachers, and older students would do well to read and consider this article.

A Green Defense of Oil Subsidies: thoughts on the Bharat Bandh

There are few things more complicated than fuel price policy, which is mostly why I've avoided writing about it up until now. But few things are as important in the day-to-day lives of most people.  Fuel helps move us and the goods we need.  It powers the stoves that cook our food.  Farmers need fuel for their tractors, and much of  the fertilizers and pesticides used in modern agriculture are made through energy-intensive processes--processes that require fuel.   It is all very well and good to say we should move toward methods of agriculture that require less fossil fuel.  We should do that, but that shift will take time and a political commitment that doesn't seem to exist at the moment.  In the meantime, it is easy to see that fuel price hikes affect the entire economy from food prices to auto fares.

I wish I could say I've got the answers to the problem of rising fuel prices all figured out and ready to serve up in an easily digestible form.  I don't, but the Bharat Bandh, which aimed to shut down as much of the country as possible in protest of fuel price hikes and the decontrol of petrol prices, left me feeling compelled to take a stand: I support the stated goals of the bandh as far as they go--but I don't think they go nearly far enough.

As much as I hate to say this, in order to understand this issue, you have to understand a few simple things about how fuel prices work in India. I'll promise to make this as painless as possible, if you promise not to click the back button. 

First, about 70% of our oil is imported, so that oil is purchased at prices set by the international market.  Then, various government bodies levy a variety of taxes, which all add up to a large share of the final price charged for fuel in the domestic market.     However, the government has always sought to cushion the economy from the ups and downs of the international market by controlling domestic oil prices and by partly subsidising state oil firms for the losses they incur when international market prices are higher than the government-mandated domestic prices.  So the government gains by taxing oil; but it also loses to the extent that it has to subsidize the losses of state run oil companies for the money they lose due to domestic price controls.

The government has decontrolled the price of petrol because it no longer wants to pay these subsidies--and it's only a matter of time before it tries to decontrol the price of diesel as well. I think these moves, on the whole, are a bad idea. 

Now many of you may ask, why should we subsidize oil, of all things?  Haven't you always said that we should make people pay the full cost of the products they consume? Doesn't subsidized oil lead to more unsustainable use of cars and other problems?

Let me be clear; I think that, as a rule, public subsidies should be designed to help move us toward a move sustainable future--or to help insure access to basic rights, such as food or education. While it is true that cuts in oil subsidies may solve some problems, in the long run, unless they are accompanied by a comprehensive, justice-based program of sustainable development, these cuts will simply result in a massive transfer of wealth upward. That's because a good bit of those subsidies benefit poor people in this country, either directly or indirectly.  Given that fuel is already heavily taxed, I don't think price controls designed to help keep food and cooking costs low are unreasonable--in fact, in the current context, I think they are necessary. In a country where more than 800 million people live on less than Rs. 20 per day, policies that lead to food inflation are not just mean spirited, they are murderous.

Let's put this subsidy issue in proper context.  The current budget offers direct cuts in income tax for the upper middle class and rich, while it's spending on poverty reduction, social services and educaton remains largely stagnant.   And of course, as P. Sainath pointed out in his speech at IIC last week, the government continues to grant massive giveaways to the wealthy in this country through tax write offs and other subsidies. (If you missed the speech, you can read this or this as consolation.)  

Given that the government is drastically increasing the support it gives to the richest in this country, it seems hard to believe that the removal of oil subsidies is motivated solely by a desire to lower the fiscal deficit; rather it is motivated by a desire to cut subsidies to poor people in order to pay for subsidies already promised to rich people. The market is just a useful smokescreen. My, that sounds a bit extreme, doesn't it?  Sorry, but extreme policies tend to sound... extreme, when demystified.

Having said that, there is a lot that is very, very wrong with our current energy policy, and these things need to be fixed.  

Most obviously, a good deal of the current fuel subsidies do not do what they should be doing. Diesel fuel is taxed at a much lower rate than petrol, because it is used extensively in transportation and agriculture; lower diesel prices, we are told, are necessary to keep down food inflation.  Fair enough.  But in reality, a good deal of diesel goes into private cars. In fact, according to the CSE, the government's own Kirit Parikh panel conceded that "cars use up 15 per cent of the total diesel in the country – compared to 12 per cent by buses and agriculture, 10 per cent by industry, and 6 per cent by the railways."  The explosion of private diesel cars in Delhi and elsewhere has been driven by the low price of diesel fuel. This has nothing to do with food; but it has a great deal to do with the rise in pollution we are seeing.

A comprehensive fuel policy needs to figure a way around this.  In an ideal world, we would have a tax and subsidy structure that supported sustainable uses of fuel over unsustainable ones. Public transportation would be expanded and ticket prices kept low for all.  Fuel for shared taxis and three wheelers would be kept low, especially in areas where buses and trains are not available or adequate. 

Fuel for tractors, trucks and freight trains would be inexpensive, but animal powered farming and transportation would also be encouraged where practical. And we'd encourage local food production whenever possible: why subsidize the transportation of Punjabi rice to Kerala, if the same money could encourage southern farmers to plant more rice? All private cars would pay full price at the petrol pump since they pollute the most and take up the most room on our roads, per person. And diesel for private cars would be more, not less, expensive, since it causes more pollution. 

The problem is that we don't live in an ideal world, and so efforts to price the same fuels differently depending on how they are used invite fraud and corruption.  For example, if these policies were implemented, farmers all over the country would be tempted to resell their subsidized diesel to corrupt middlemen who would resell it for use in private cars. 

So what kind of fuel policies might a practical government implement if it wanted to be both environmentally friendly and fair?  After a lot of thought, two general approaches suggest themselves:

Approach I: Maintain fuel subsidies, but...

First, there are a host of things the government could do to encourage a more sustainable economy within a framework of fuel subsidies. We could start by encouraging good things directly. For example, public transportation could be further expanded and subsidized. Delhi buses are too crowded, and most Indian cities lack any viable system of public transportation at all.  There's a lot of room for growth in this sector! 

We could also do things to discourage unsustainable behavior. If we can't figure out how to tax private cars adequately at the pump (especially those that use super-polluting diesel fuel), then we could do other things to make them more expensive--increased fees at the point of purchase, parking taxes, etc. I'm not an expert here, but you can read this piece from CSE for a taste of how this might work in one context.

And there is a lot of good we could do simply by not investing public money in stupid places. As P. Sainath rightly said last week, it is pointless to subsidize "sunset industries" like automobiles. I'd add "World Class" airports to that list, by the way.  Mark my words, within a decade, rising oil prices--subsidized or not--are going to make the public money we've spent on encouraging the manufacture and use of cars and airplanes look silly, if not criminal!

 Approach II: Cut fuel subsidies, but...

There is another road, of course.  The government could cut fuel subsidies, while at the same time vastly expanding the support it gives to the people who actually need it. I'm not going to go into a lot of details here, because the list is long;  a few examples will have to do.  Instead of trying to keep food inflation down by subsidizing oil prices, the government could do things that would reduce hunger directly.  A universal public food distribution system would not be nearly as expensive as many people assume and it's favoured by some very bright people.  In transportation, many of the measures mentioned above, would work, with or without subsidies.  Expanding access to work under the NREGA--and increasing the wages offered under that scheme--would help, as would increasing the access of small farmers to credit at reasonable rates.

Those who complain that subsidies distort markets and should be done away with either fail to see--or fail to admit--that all economies and societies rely on some kind of subsidies.  India is no exception.  The only question is, who subsidizes who?  The problem with the current cuts in fuel subsidies is simple: at root, they are all about getting poor people to pay for subsidies to wealthy people and wealthy companies.  From where I sit, that just doesn't add up!