India's multi-billion dollar tea industry is under threat

INDIA TEA SOURCE: AP TELEVISION NEWS RESTRICTIONS: TECHNOLOGY CLIENTS ONLY LENGTH: 4:51 New Delhi - recent 1. Close of tea boiling in pan 2. Wide of street side tea vendor pouring tea through a sieve 3. Close of tea tumblers being taken 4. Various of man drinking tea 5. Close of tea-dust kept in a tin 6. Low angle of man drinking tea Dibrugarh , Assam 7. Tracking shot of tea gardens from car 8. Various of workers plucking tea-leaves in tea garden 9. SOUNDBITE (English): Manoj Jalan , Tea estate owner "You know we had a captive market. We had a...should I say...protocol based market. But with the thawing of the Cold War, these things have changed, so you know all of a sudden markets have disappeared." 10. Wide of workers queued up with their daily collection of tea-leaves 11. Shift focus from close of worker's face to another worker tying her hair 12. Various of daily collection of tea leaves being weighed using spring balance 13. Tilt down over factory with cobwebbed railing in the foreground 14. Wide of factory floor with mounds of tea and machinery 15. SOUNDBITE (English): Paban Singh , Assam Tea Workers' Organization "The planters are also responsible because they have not changed with the time. They have...many of them has not invested the money when they were making money for ..replanting of the tea...tea plantation. So with the old tea gardens it's very difficult to maintain the quality of the tea." 16. Wide of fermenting machinery at factory 17. Wide of tea being put in sack 18. Various of tea being carried by conveyor belt 19. Tea sack being taken off conveyor belt and piled 20. Various of tea being processed 21. SOUNDBITE (English): - Paban Singh, Assam Tea Workers' Organization "In Assam, 16...17 garden are closed. In a closed garden, everybody...everybody has to suffer. School going children, the worker and the dependent family members and that way also they are on the receiving end." 22. Various of tea processing; rolling, drying 23. Wide of tea factory 24. SOUNDBITE (English): Manoj Jalan, Tea estate owner "Tea is way of life for us. However...however, I hope that our generation comes up with some imaginative solutions so... which will ensure they inherit a viable industry...a viable business." 25. Various of workers in tea garden 26. SOUNDBITE (English): Dhiren Nath Boruah, Chairman, Assam Tea Planters' Association "For me, for the...looking after the garden is a great joy. I may not be earning anything, I tell you that, I may not be earning anything but the joy is to be involved." 27. Wide of road 28. Wide of tea garden workers walking LEAD IN: There is trouble brewing in the tea estates of Assam, places still steeped in the gentility of their former colonial owners - tea prices have plummeted, production costs have risen and estate owners are targeted by militants. Globalisation has been devastating to India's multi-billion dollar tea industry, roiling a business that goes back nearly two centuries and threatening a way of life for hundreds of thousands of workers. STORYLINE: From being a symbol of British elegance and style during the pre-independence days , drinking tea has come to be the most favourite addiction of millions of ordinary Indians. Across the country , you can find street vendors brewing cheap tea and pouring out steaming cups of the invigorating liquid to those stopping by for a break - and it costs less than 10 cents. India has long been famous for its tea, and the $1.5 billion industry launched by British colonials nearly two centuries ago is, after China, the world's second-largest producer. More than 1 million tons were grown in 2007, much of it here in the northeastern state of Assam. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/60aca4820075df185918d5158fe4b39e Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork