Thousands Protest Against Bharti-Walmart Joint Venture, Call on Corporations to 'Quit Retail'

On the heels of the announcement of the Bharti-Walmart joint venture, hundreds of thousands of traders, hawkers, farmers and workers protested across India. Protesters also included a group of American students who demanded that Wal-Mart not be allowed into India. Mass-based organizations called on the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi to immediately stop the Bharti-Walmart Joint Venture and not allow Wal-Mart’s backdoor entry into India. There was also a strong united call on all corporations—both foreign and domestic—to "Quit Retail". The protests were timed to commemorate the start of the "Quit India" movement, which started on August 9, 1942, with mass-based sections of society drawing parallels to the East India Company and companies like Wal-Mart, Bharti and Reliance.

Agitations took place in the metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata along with other major cities including, Kalicut, Bhopal, Jaipur, Ranchi, Balia, Meerath, Sonipat, Nagpur, Nasik, Pune and Indore.

In Delhi, thousands of traders, hawkers, farmers and workers protested in Chandni Chowk, a historical market, and burned effigies of Wal-Mart, Bharti and Reliance. Dharmendra Kumar, Director of India FDI Watch and national coordinator of the Vyapaar Aur Rozgaar Bachao Andolan said, "Both Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh have acknowledged the dangers of corporations entering into the retail sector. The Govt. has commissioned a report looking at the impact of the entire supply chain on livelihoods after Sonia Gandhi had written a letter of caution. Sonia Gandhi had also publicly refused to meet with Michael Duke, Wal-Mart Vice-Chairman during his visit in February after public demonstrations were held due to his arrival. However, both Sonia Gandhi and the PMO have remained silent on the Bharti-Wal-Mart deal and though they have publicly cautioned against corporations and commissioned a study, they have taken no subsequent actions. Mr. Kumar demanded that the Wal-Mart Bharti joint venture should be immediately revoked and all corporations should be stopped until thorough study has been conducted by an independent special task force comprising stakeholders."

Praveen Khandelwal, General Secretary, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said "The livelihoods of retail traders are at stake. If big retail giants like Wal-Mart and Reliance come into the country, small traders would be finished." A mass campaign would be launched to strike back and make corporations realise that we will not let them ruin our livelihoods, he said.

Vandana Shiva, Director, Navdanya said "India is a land of retail democracy- hundreds of thousands of weekly haats and bazaars are located across the length and breadth of our country by people’s own self-organizational capacities. In a country with large numbers of people, and high levels of poverty, the existing model of retail democracy is the most appropriate in terms of economic viability and ecological sustainability.".

Mr. Bhati of Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh, Delhi, Harbhajan Singh Siddhu, National Secretary, Hind Mazdoor Sabha, Sunil Kansal, Secretary, Rashtriya Vyapar Mandal, Hakim Singh Rawat, General Secretary, Delhi Hawkers Welfare Association, Banwari Lal Sharma, President, Aazadi Bachaon Aandolan, R K Sharma, Secreatry, UTUC-Lenin Sarani and Venkatesh of Lok Raj Sangathan also addressed the protesters in Delhi.

In Mumbai, thousands of retailers, hawkers, workers and cooperatives participated in a one day trade bandh and a mass public event organized by the Vyapaar Rozgaar Suraksha Kriti Samiti, a joint action committee of trade associations, hawkers groups, trade unions and others. Leaders of Federation of Associations of Maharastra (FAM), Retail and Dispensing Chemists Association (RDCA), India FDI Watch, Mumbai Mahanagar Vyapari Seva Parishad (MMVSP), Mumbai Vyapar Mahasang (MVM), Apna Bazaar, National Hawkers Federation, Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and Hind Mazdoor Kisan Panchayat (HMKP) addressed the protesters.

Kishore Shah, President of the Mobile & Telecom Retailers and Distributors Association (MTRDA), stated that around 12,000 retail shop-keepers deal in SIM cards and recharge vouchers of Air-Tel in Mumbai, generating business worth crores of rupees every day. Mr. Shah said "We have already informed all our members, distributors and wholesalers against selling any Airtel products".

The Mumbai APMC—wholesale— market remained closed, along with thousands of retail shops across the city, including all chemists and druggists shops. Apna Bazaar, Maharastra’s largest cooperative store also downed its shutters and wholesale markets remained closed in Nasik and Pune.

At an evening event at Shanmukananda Hall in Mumbai mass-based groups laid out a future course of action and adopted a charter of demands. They called on the Center to immediately repeal the Wholesale Cash-n-Carry Permission, and all licenses granted under the permission; repeal the APMC Model Act, implement the National Policy on Street Vendors, take measures against predatory pricing and formulate a national policy on retail trade and small scale industries.

In Bangalore thousands protested at the town hall and burned effigies of corporate retailers like Wal-Mart and Reliance. The protest culminated in leaders presenting the Governor with a memorandum calling on the state to repeal the recent passage of the APMC Model Act. A Charter of Demands, same as was passed in Mumbai, was also placed before the District Collector. Smaller protests were organized throughout the state in different districts including Kodagu, Bijapur, Gulbarga and Davangere districts.

In Jaipur fifty American students joined with hawkers demanding that Wal-Mart leave India and demanding implementation of the National Policy on Street Vendors. The American students and hawkers demonstrated in the old city and held signs saying "Americans Oppose Wal-Mart Everywhere". Ms. Cheryl, an American citizen, learning Hindi at Jaipur said that Wal-Mart has a disastrous impact on small shopkeepers and neighbourhood communities in America and called Indians to learn from their experience and not to allow Wal-Mart to operate in India. Ms. Cheryl said that the world is moving from ‘Corporate to Cooperative’ and Indians should not corporatize their cooperatives.

In Kerala the Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayi Egono Samiti organized protest marches in over 1000 places across the state. In Kalicut over 10,000 traders protested in front of the corporation’s office and submitted a memorandum demanding that corporations keep out of retail and the immediate halt to Wal-Mart’s backdoor entry and the repeal of the Wholesale Cash-N-Carry permission.

In Kolkata the Federation of Trade Organizations (FTO) of West Bengal organized protests in all the 12 districts of the city along with protests across West Bengal, including in front of malls. Tens of thousands traders participated in the protest. In the evening, thousands of hawkers took out a protest march from the city museum.

In Ranchi, Uday Shankar Ojha who led the vegetable vendors before Reliance Fresh in May and has only recently been released from Jail, lead hawkers and vegetable vendors at Albert Ekka Chowk in Ranchi, demanding that Reliance Fresh and all other corporations leave the retail sector and "withdraw their sinister plans to displace millions of livelihoods".

In Bhopal there was a state-level protest meeting in the morning at Gandhi Bhavan and traders sat on a dharna at Roshanara Chowk in the afternoon and burn effigies of Wal-Mart, Bharti and Reliance. A call for Bhopal Bandh was given for 21 August to oust corporate from retail trade.

J & K High Court Issues Notice Over Fake Encounter

The Jammu and Kashmir has issued notice to the State Government in the case of killing of a Kulgam youth, Ghulam Rasool, allegedly in a fake encounter by suspended Superintendent of Police Hansraj Parihar five years ago.

The family of the slain youth filed a petition before the Court and alleged that a team of Special Operations Group personnel and government gunmen picked up Ghulam Rasool, on April 12, 2002 and detained him in a camp. After the SOG refused to release the youth, his family went to local police. Police refused to cooperate. The family later learnt that Rasool had died due to torture by five government gunmen identified as Shakeel, Rahman, Fayaz, Ashraf and Shabir Bhat in the presence of Parihar who was then SP Kulgam. The body was buried inside the camp.

The petition charges the police and civil administration of not taking any action against the accused despite passing of seven years. The petition also seeks initiation of criminal proceedings against Parihar and other accused.

Silent Sit-In in Srinagar by Families of Disappeared

The Mirwaiz Faction of Hurriyat also known as Hurriyat Conference (M) held a ‘silent’ sit-in on Wednesday in Srinagar to demand the whereabouts of the Kashmiris missing in custody of different forces agencies since 1990.

Greater Kashmir reports that led by the Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, families of the missing persons, holding photos of their dear ones, gathered at Srinagar’s Municipal Park.

Mirwaiz said the families of the disappeared had a right to demand whereabouts of their kin, but the government has been maintaining a “criminal silence” over the issue. He referred to reports dished out by human rights groups from time to time which peg the number of disappeared in Kashmir at 8-10 thousand.

“It’s a shame for India that claims to be the world’s largest democracy. Indian Parliament has been mute on disappearances in the Kashmir Valley,” Mirwaiz said.

Reactions to Novartis Petition

R. Vaigai, counsel for Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA) of India, hailed the verdict and said:

“It’s a very important judgment. If Section 3(d) is valid, the only remedy left is not to challenge the provision of law, but file an appeal under the Indian Patents Act. It reiterates the people’s authority to decide for themselves what is law. The law is a sovereign instrument, TRIPS is merely a contractual agreement of international parties on trade interests. This precedent is the first of its kind. It will have implications the world over for access to medicines.”

Ellen t’Hoen, policy director of MSF Access to Medicines Campaign, rubbished the notion that refusal of patents for incremental innovation will lead to denial of access to new and better medicines for patients and said:

“The reality today is that despite the fact that patent protection has increased, innovation has declined dramatically in terms of new products. If you assess them form a therapeutic point of view, they are less and less meaningful. You cannot say more patents lead to more therapeutic benefits for patients. If it does lead to more therapeutic benefits, patents lead to a situation where only a minority of the population can benefit because only a few people can afford them — what kind of innovation is that?”

Meanwhile, it appears that the Swiss Government is unlikely to lodge a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute settlement mechanism against India’s intellectual property right (IPR) regime. The Swiss Federal Councillor in the Department of Economic Fffairs, Doris Leuthard, currently on a visit to India, said the issue was between a private company and the Indian judicial system, and the Swiss government did not have anything to do with it.

Madras High Court Dismisses Novartis Challenge to the Indian Patents Law

The Madras High Court has dismissed a petition filed by the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG, challenging the constitutional validity of the Section 3 (d) of the Patents (amendment) Act 2005, under which its patent application for beta crystalline form of imatinib mesylate, was rejected.

Novartis had argued, inter alia, that the concerned provision, which precluded patents for mere new use of a known substance, contravened the international agreements on intellectual property at the WTO.

Dismissing it, a division bench comprising Justice R Balasubramanian and Justice Prabha Sridevan held that the Court cannot strike down an Act on he ground that it is not in accordance with trade related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) agreement or not.

The Bench stated that the international treaties and agreements were essentially in the nature of a contract, the Bench said, adding that the TRIPS Agreement provided for a comprehensive dispute settlement mechanism, which was binding on its member-States. The verdict noted:

“We see no reason at all as to why the petitioner, which itself is a part of that member-State, should not be directed to have the dispute resolved under the dispute settlement mechanism…We see no reason at all as to why we must disregard it…”

The Bench also dismissed the contention that the impugned Section conferred uncanalised and arbitrary discretionary powers on the Patents Controller. It averred:

“The argument that the amended Section must be held to be bad in law since, for want of guidelines, it gives scope to the statutory authority to exercise its power arbitrarily, has to be necessarily rejected.

We find that there are in-built materials in the amended Section and the Explanation itself, which would control/guide the discretion to be exercised by the statutory authority. In other words, the statutory authority would be definitely guided by the materials placed before it for arriving at a conclusion.”

Source: The Hindu

More Question Marks on the Nuke Deal

Dr. A.N. Prasad, Former Director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and a Consultant with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) avers:

"The preamble in the 123 text is the only portion faithful to the Joint Statement issued by both the parties on July 18, 2005. What follows in the document is an exercise of clever and at times dubious, depending on which side you are looking at it from, use of the language and words to give an illusory impression that the concerns arising from diverging interests and constraints of both sides have been duly reflected."

An anonymous writer states in The Hindu that the two clear source of motivation for the 1-2-3 Agreement for the United States are:

"...the commercial gain from nuclear commerce, and the more important one of containing India’s nuclear weapons programme, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Bringing the breeder reactor programme under international safeguards, pushing India to sign the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) and continuing embargoes on uranium enrichment and re-processing are all part of this strategy."

Left Questions Over Nuclear Deal Yet to be Answered

Amidst the hype and euphoria over the 'historic' nuclear deal between India and the United States of America, Seema Mustafa writes that the nine objections raised by the CPI(M) against the India-US civilian nuclear energy agreement have not been addressed in the 123 agreement.

1. The CPI(M) was concerned that the deal required India to pursue a foreign policy congruent to that of the US; and to secure India's full and active participation in US efforts to sanction and contain Iran.

2. The deal would not allow full cooperation on civilian nuclear technology, denying India a complete fuel cycle.

3. Steps to be taken by India would be conditional upon and contingent on action taken by the US.

4. The US will not take the necessary steps to change its laws or align the NSG rules to fulfil the terms of the India-US nuclear deal.

5. The additional protocol referred to in the original agreement would be intrusive and not India-specific.

6. India is placing its facilities in perpetuity while the US President can prevent the transfer to India of equipment, materials or technology from other participating governments in the NSG, or from any other source.

7. India's fissile material stockpile will be restricted.

8. The deal includes physical verification and suitable access to be provided by India to US inspectors, and not just IAEA safeguards.

9. The military programme will also be subject to monitoring by the IAEA and the US.

Asylum Seekers Have a Right to Seek Refugee Status

The Supreme Court of India has declared that though India does not have any international or bilateral treaty for according refugee status to foreigners seeking asylum in the country, the judiciary recognises the right of the asylum seekers to seek refugee status.

"There is some dichotomy in this regard. The executive does not recognise the refugee status, but the Indian judiciary recognises the same as we did in the case of Chakma refugees from Bangladesh," a Supreme Court bench comprising of Justice C.K. Thakker and Justice Markandeya Katju observed.

The Court also reiterated that the foreigners living in India are entitled to the protection of the right to life and liberty as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court made these observations while directing the Centre to file, within two weeks, its reply to an appeal filed by Iranian national Fred Babakhanian to challenge his deportation. The appellant was earlier arrested by the West Bengal police for overstaying his visa limit and spent three years in jail. Subsequently, the Kolkata high court asked the authorities to hand him over to the Iranian embassy for his deportation, following which he moved the top court.

Source: The Asian Age

Naga Peace Process: A Paradigm Shift

The latest extension of ceasefire between the Government of India and NSCN-(IM) marks a seminal change in the ten year old peace talks between the two parties. Departing from the earlier practice of having time-bound ceasefire extension, NSCN-(IM) has agreed to an 'indefinite' ceasefire linked to progress in talks.

The past ten years of ceasefire, while opening up new democratic space for peoples' groups and organisations, have failed to live up to the initial expectations and have not yet resulted in any tangible gain on the core issues under negotiations. Periodic extensions of ceasefire also enabled the Government of India to rest complacently as they ensured maintenance of law and order and continuation of the talks even in absence of any reciprocal political commitment. Thus, the peace process has been completely bereft of any tangible progress towards a just and honourable resolution of the Naga question even after an entire decade.

The new dispensation will force the Central Government's hand in so far as the peace process may be liable to be called off by in case of any tardiness in the talks. Thus, one hopes that the Central Government will now be more proactive in breaking the impasse on the core issues.

The Central Government must realise that any attempt at stalling the process by refusing the discuss the core issues or arming other groups will only dissipate the expectations and good will generated in last ten years and result in only more violence and bloodshed.