India under pressure to dilute stance on food subsidies

India is under pressure from China and Indonesia to dilute its stance over food subsidies as talks are headed for a collapse. The WTO is hoping to impose some curbs on food grains procurement and subsidies, which will hamper the rollout of the UPA's ambitious Food Security Bill. India has firmly come out against the WTO draft.

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Commerce minister Anand Sharma said the food subsidy is not a gimmick ahead of elections. "This is an old proposal. India has not suddenly remembered that there are going to be elections and pulled a rabbit out of the hat; that is not the case…. We have not come here as petitioners to beg for a peace clause. Restrained from what – that it is binding on us to accept 1986 to 1988 prices and make ourselves vulnerable to disputes and calculations? The answer is a firm no," said Anand Sharma, minister of commerce.
CNBC-TV18's Rituparna Bhuyan says it is obvious that China and Indonesia are not with India. In fact there are media reports saying that the Indonesian President will call up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to be a bit more flexible as far as the proposed deals in Bali are concerned.
Brazil is supposedly acting as a mediator. Only two big emerging markets which are backing India are South Africa and Argentina. Sources say India is fine with an arrangement where eight of the 10 proposed deals get signed in Bali. The rest two i.e. trade facilitation and public procurement and food security both go back to Geneva where trade diplomats will then try to negotiate and have a consensus on both these deals in the next six to eight months.