Economic co-operation in South Asia: The Dilemma of SAFTA and beyond

This paper attempts to evaluate the Pareto optimality of SAFTA for all the member states. Besides, the welfare optimality of three other alternative sets of coordinated trade policies that go beyond SAFTA has also been studied here. These include (a) extended preferential trading between SAFTA and three other major trading blocs (ASEAN, NAFTA and EU27), (b) coordinated full trade liberalisation (carried out unilaterally or as part of a multilateral agreement) by South Asian countries, and (c) SAFTA plus a customs union (two variants with 5 and 10 CET). The analysis, using the standard static GTAP model, shows that the welfare basis for establishing SAFTA or for deeper trade policy coordination is not very strong. Nor is it obvious that cooperation among the South Asia would be forthcoming given the anticipated welfare impacts.

Trade liberalization, poverty, and food security in India:

food security, Nutrition, Computable general equilibrium (CGE), Globalization, Markets, trade,

Trade Liberalization, Poverty and Food Security in India

This paper attempts to assess the impact of trade liberalization on growth, poverty, and food security in India with the help of a national level computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. It shows that GDP growth and income poverty reduction that might occur following trade liberalization need not necessarily result in an improvement in the food security / nutritional status of the poor. Evidence from simulations of (partial) trade reforms reflecting a possible Doha-like scenario show that the bottom 30% of the population in both rural and urban areas suffer a decline in calorie and protein intake, in contrast to the rest of the population, even as all households increase their intake of fats. Thus, the outcome on food security / status with regard to individual nutrients depends crucially on the movements in the relative prices of different commodities along with the change in income levels. These results show that trade policy analysis should consider indicators of food security in addition to overall growth and poverty traditionally considered in such studies.Doha negotiations, India trade policy, poverty, food security, CGE model

Spoof detection using time-delay shallow neural network and feature switching

Detecting spoofed utterances is a fundamental problem in voice-based biometrics. Spoofing can be performed either by logical accesses like speech synthesis, voice conversion or by physical accesses such as replaying the pre-recorded utterance. Inspired by the state-of-the-art \emph{x}-vector based speaker verification approach, this paper proposes a time-delay shallow neural network (TD-SNN) for spoof detection for both logical and physical access. The novelty of the proposed TD-SNN system vis-a-vis conventional DNN systems is that it can handle variable length utterances during testing. Performance of the proposed TD-SNN systems and the baseline Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) is analyzed on the ASV-spoof-2019 dataset. The performance of the systems is measured in terms of the minimum normalized tandem detection cost function (min-t-DCF). When studied with individual features, the TD-SNN system consistently outperforms the GMM system for physical access. For logical access, GMM surpasses TD-SNN systems for certain individual features. When combined with the decision-level feature switching (DLFS) paradigm, the best TD-SNN system outperforms the best baseline GMM system on evaluation data with a relative improvement of 48.03\% and 49.47\% for both logical and physical access, respectively

Reforming Foodgrains Management : Achieving Food Security with Cost-Effectiveness

This paper examines the efficacy of the current system of public foodgrains management and policies in promoting food security in the country. It argues that the system has outlived its usefulness, and that continuing with the same only stifles growth in foodgrains, with very little welfare benefits to the poor. The paper then presents a series of suggestions for reforming and modernizing the foodgrains management system in the country that would be welfare improving and also efficient, saving vast amounts of resources that can be used to invest in augmenting agricultural, especially foodgrains output.Food grains management, Food policy, food security

Reforms in Indian Agro-processing and Agriculture Sectors in the Context of Unilateral and Multilateral Trade Agreements

In this paper, we explore the potential impacts of trade and investment-related policy reforms on Indias agro-processing sector. We consider the direct effects of policy reforms within the processing sector, and the indirect effects on agro-processing of policy reforms in the primary agriculture sector, in the Indian economy as a whole, and in a multilateral framework. Towards this, we develop a 22-sector, 16-region version of the GTAP computable general equilibrium (CGE), global model for our analysis. We find that trade and investment-related reforms in agro-processing together can help the sector to grow. Policy reforms that stimulate investment and help to improve productivity will be crucial in offsetting the contractionary pressures of trade reform alone on the production of processed agricultural products. We also find that indirect effects on agro-processing from Indias policy reforms in other sectors are more important than reforms in agro-processing itself. Our findings argue for an economy-wide perspective when targeting reform or development of the agro-processing sector in India. Compared to trade reform, comprehensive domestic reforms in the agro-processing and agriculture sectors relating to investment are critical for achieving growth in agro-processing. However, while the impacts of trade reform per se seem to be small, trade reform - by ushering in a higher degree of competition - could itself be a stimulus for investment and productivity gains in India. At present, unilateral reforms, especially those that improve productivity in agro-processing and in primary agriculture, are more important to agro-processing than multilateral trade reforms. Nevertheless, our findings also suggest the importance of pursuing a domestic reform agenda within a multilateral trading strategy that can accommodate the expected economic growth of India and its future role in global markets, with general equilibrium effects on agro-processingagriculture, Agro-processing, Trade agreements, CGE models

Supply and demand for cereals in Nepal, 2010–2030:

This paper attempts to estimate the future supply and demand for cereals in Nepal. While there has been considerable research in the past examining the agricultural sector in Nepal, to the best of our knowledge there has been no analysis of the supply-demand scenario for food grains in the country. The analysis undertaken in this paper attempts to bridge this gap in the literature by estimating supply and demand models for the three most important cereals in Nepal's food basket: rice, wheat, and maize. The supply projections have been carried out on the basis of a single-crop production function model using data for the period 1995–2008. For estimating the demand function and projecting future demand, data from the Nepal Living Standards Survey II (NLSS II), undertaken in the year 2003/04, are used.cereal supply, cereal demand,

Reforming foodgrains management: Achieving food security with cost-effectiveness

This paper examines the efficacy of the current system of public foodgrains management and policies in promoting food security in the country. It argues that the system has outlived its usefulness, and that continuing with the same only stifles growth in foodgrains, with very little welfare benefits to the poor. The paper then presents a series of suggestions for reforming and modernizing the foodgrains management system in the country that would be welfare improving and also efficient, saving vast amounts of resources that can be used to invest in augmenting agricultural, especially foodgrains output.Food grains management, Food policy, Food security

A review of input and output policies for cereals production in Nepal:

This study examines the existing status, policies, and institutions for promoting agricultural output in Nepal, in particular cereals. In this context, it reviews the policies on agricultural input such as seed, fertilizer, water, agricultural equipment, research and extension, and agricultural credit. It also provides an overview of the policies and programs related to agricultural output marketing and procurement of food grains in Nepal.cereals, maize, Wheat,

Reforms in Indian agro-processing and agriculture sectors in the context of unilateral and multilateral trade agreements

In this paper, we explore the potential impacts of trade and investment-related policy reforms on India's agro-processing sector. We consider the direct effects of policy reforms within the processing sector, and the indirect effects on agro-processing of policy reforms in the primary agriculture sector, in the Indian economy as a whole, and in a multilateral framework. Towards this, we develop a 22-sector, 16-region version of the GTAP computable general equilibrium (CGE), global model for our analysis. We find that trade and investment-related reforms in agro-processing together can help the sector to grow. Policy reforms that stimulate investment and help to improve productivity will be crucial in offsetting the contractionary pressures of trade reform alone on the production of processed agricultural products. We also find that indirect effects on agroprocessing from India's policy reforms in other sectors are more important than reforms in agro-processing itself. Our findings argue for an economy-wide perspective when targeting reform or development of the agro-processing sector in India. Compared to trade reform, comprehensive domestic reforms in the agro-processing and agriculture sectors relating to investment are critical for achieving growth in agro-processing. However, while the impacts of trade reform per se seem to be small, trade reform - by ushering in a higher degree of competition - could itself be a stimulus for investment and productivity gains in India. At present, unilateral reforms, especially those that improve productivity in agroprocessing and in primary agriculture, are more important to agro-processing than multilateral trade reforms. Nevertheless, our findings also suggest the importance of pursuing a domestic reform agenda within a multilateral trading strategy that can accommodate the expected economic growth of India and its future role in global markets, with general equilibrium effects on agro-processing.Agriculture, Agro-processing, Trade agreements, CGE models