top of page

By:

Parashram Patil

14 January 2026 at 8:49:45 pm

Crops of Conflict

As water and climate become instruments of geopolitical leverage, India has an opportunity to turn agricultural resilience into a new form of South-South diplomacy. Climate change is making an old truth harder to ignore: food security is national security. As water becomes scarcer, harvests more erratic and trade policies more protectionist, agriculture is moving from the margins of geopolitics to its centre. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where fragile food systems intersect with...

Crops of Conflict

As water and climate become instruments of geopolitical leverage, India has an opportunity to turn agricultural resilience into a new form of South-South diplomacy. Climate change is making an old truth harder to ignore: food security is national security. As water becomes scarcer, harvests more erratic and trade policies more protectionist, agriculture is moving from the margins of geopolitics to its centre. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where fragile food systems intersect with contested rivers, conflict and disrupted supply chains. For India, this presents not merely a humanitarian challenge but an opportunity to practise a more strategic form of food diplomacy. Clear Warning The Nile basin offers the clearest warning. Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia depend heavily on the river, directly or indirectly, for agriculture and livelihoods. Egypt obtains roughly 90-95 percent of its water from the Nile, with most of its withdrawals going to agriculture. Wheat, rice, maize and cotton are therefore inseparable from the country's water security. Sudan is similarly dependent on the Main Nile and its Blue and White Nile tributaries for crops including sorghum, wheat, cotton and sugarcane. Ethiopia, by contrast, relies much more heavily on rain-fed agriculture, but the Blue Nile remains crucial to its plans for agricultural and economic expansion. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has transformed this already delicate equation. The Blue Nile supplies roughly 85 percent of the Nile's runoff, giving Ethiopia substantial geographical leverage upstream. Egypt and Sudan, downstream and more dependent on the river, have consequently viewed the dam through the prism of food and water security. The dispute has its roots partly in the 1959 agreement that allocated Nile waters between Egypt and Sudan, but the rise of Ethiopia as a major upstream power has altered the political balance. The stakes are enormous. A disruption to water availability is not simply an environmental problem when millions depend on irrigated agriculture. It can affect food prices, livelihoods, migration and political stability. Across the basin, the consequences potentially extend to hundreds of millions of people. The lesson is straightforward: rivers can become geopolitical infrastructure, and crops can become strategic assets. Critical Role This is where India can play a useful role. Its longstanding diplomatic, commercial and maritime links with Africa give it an established platform. Its experience in producing wheat, rice and millets, meanwhile, gives it something more tangible: the ability to contribute to food-supply resilience. Egypt, for instance, remains heavily dependent on imports and is projected to require around 13 million tonnes of wheat imports to bridge its consumption gap. Sudan’s agricultural crisis is still more acute. Conflict and climate stress have sharply reduced cereal production, leaving output well below recent historical averages. India could therefore build food diplomacy around two complementary tracks. The first is supply. Predictable grain arrangements and strategic food buffers could help vulnerable countries absorb shocks in international markets. The second is technology. India's experience with micro-irrigation, precision farming and water-use efficiency offers tools that may help African farmers produce more with less water. The Per Drop More Crop component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana is one example. Drip irrigation, improved canal management, seepage reduction and precision agriculture cannot resolve a dispute over the Nile, but they can reduce the amount of water required to produce a given crop. For this to become a durable strategy, however, India will need to move beyond individual projects. Bilateral agricultural agreements with African countries could be converted into longer-term trade corridors and grain-supply arrangements. Multilateral platforms, including BRICS, could provide mechanisms for greater transparency in food distribution and market stabilisation. Seed exchanges could focus on drought-tolerant millets, biofortified wheat and heat-resistant maize suited to increasingly volatile climates. Indian private enterprise could be brought into this architecture. Agritech startups and Farmer-Producer Organisations could be encouraged to enter African markets through export-linked grants, incubation programmes and risk-sharing mechanisms. EXIM Bank credit lines and export guarantees could reduce the financial risks of deploying solar cold chains, irrigation systems and agricultural technologies in politically volatile markets. Public-private partnerships could also help Indian firms adapt AI-based crop advisory systems and IoT-enabled water sensors to African soils and farming practices. The larger opportunity is strategic. India’s relationship with Africa need not be confined to trade, infrastructure or diplomatic declarations. Agriculture offers a practical form of South-South cooperation in which food, technology and water efficiency reinforce one another. (The writer is a member of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission. Views personal.

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Writer: Mangesh Kulkarni
Mangesh Kulkarni
Sep 9, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Being the first person from the private sector to be appointed as chairperson of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as part of the government’s lateral initiative, Madhabi Puri Buch also holds the honour of being the first woman to hold the top post as capital market regulator.

But the laurels that the former private sector banker enjoyed in her earlier stint with ICICI Bank, was marred with allegations that she and her husband were having a stake in offshore entities, which were used to artificially inflate shares of Adani group companies.

Terming the allegation as `character assassination, Buch clarified that all disclosures have already been furnished and the fund in question did not invest in any securities involving the Adani group.

When it rains, it pours. This allegation was subsequently followed by Congress Party allegation that Buch had received salary and post-retirement benefits from ICICI Bank after she quit the private sector bank.

In its clarification to the stock exchanges, ICICI Bank asserted that the payments made to Buch were purely retirement benefits after her exit from the bank and they were neither salary nor employee stock options.

Prior to these allegations, Buch tenure at SEBI was all about bringing in quick reforms on operational issues by changing the format of consultation paper to bring in larger responses digitally. Being data savvy, the rationale of her decisions were democratic based on big data analysis derived from the responses received to the consultation papers.

Further she bifurcated the duties of the SEBI staff between operations and enforcement, which were done by the same persons earlier. Having worked for the private sector in the capital market domain space, Buch had a better understanding of the subject compared to officers from the administrative service in the past that reflected even in her orders as a whole-time director at SEBI before becoming the chairperson. As a whole time director at SEBI, her orders on adjudication issues were more directional to the capital market space, according to experts in the compliance space. She was also quick to revamp the old provisions of the 90s at SEBI.

Being tech and data savvy, Buch enhanced regulatory surveillance and detection of market manipulation, insider trading and fraud while also emphasizing on strengthening corporate governance by introducing stricter rules for independent directors and enhancing disclosures for related-party transactions.

To put in perspective, the annual report of the capital market regulator in the just concluded financial year revealed that the number of investigations related to insider trading jumped to 175 in 2023-24 from 85 in the preceding year while probes related to front running jumped over three times to 83 from 24 in the preceding year.

Transparency in mutual funds by implementing measures to protect retail investors along with tightening norms for initial public offers, particularly in the SME platforms were some of her other positive initiatives including confirmation of denial of any market rumours within 24 hours for the top 100 listed companies which will be extended to top 250 companies from December 1. However increased transparency and compliance with tightening regulations led to increased operational costs for the market participants and hence faced resistance from certain quarters. Born in 1966, Buch completed her primary education in Mumbai and graduated with specialization in Mathematics from Delhi and later obtained a management degree from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In between, she got engaged to Dhawal Buch, a director at a consumer goods multinational at the age of eighteen and got married at the age of 21.

Besides ICICI Bank, Buch also worked as a lecturer at a college in England, worked at Greater Pacific Capital in Singapore and ICICI Securities as its CEO. She also worked as executive director on several private sector companies and as a consultant for New Development Bank (Brics Bank).

What now remains to be seen, is whether Buch, who survived the 26/11 terror attack when she along with her husband, was attending a meeting at Taj, be able to overcome the current ordeal. Keeping fingers crossed for the times to come.

Comments

bottom of page