Accusing BRICS TNCs of being equally brutal, People's Forum to hold global meet ahead of BRICS Goa summit

By Our Representative
In a major effort to influence international opinion ahead of the eighth BRICS summit, to be held in Goa on October 15-16, well-known Indian and foreign civil rights organizations have come together for an international convention in the state on October 13-14, accusing BRICS of working for merely promoting its own transnational corporations (TNCs), exploiting the poor.
Acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, BRICS summit is taking place following the Hangzhou G20 and the Venezuela Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summits, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi giving the latter a miss.
While the issues likely to be discussed at the summit include sluggish global economic growth, the breakdown of the Doha trade round at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the emergence of bilateral and regional Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), as for India regional cooperation in South Asia is likely to weigh heavily.
The People's Forum of BRICS, formed to hold the global convention ahead of the BRICS summit, will meet at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Alto Porvorim, Goa, with as many as 35 Indian and 12 civil rights bodies endorsing it.
Those from India include National Alliance of People's Movements, All-India People’s Science Network, All India Secular Forum, Centre for Finance Accountability, Citizens for Peace and Justice, Delhi Science Forum, Delhi Solidarity Group, Indian Social Action Forum, National Fishworkers Forum, South Asia Dialogues for Ecological Democracy, and Toxics Watch Alliance.
International endorsements consist of Beyond Copenhagen Collective, Angikar Bangladesh Foundation, Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development, Campaign for Climate Justice (Nepal), International Network of Catholic Social Justice Organisations, Globalisation Monitor (China), NGO Forum on ADB, and Brazilian Network for People´s Integration.
In a statement, the People's Forum of BRICS has said, it will attempt to “raise critical voices from below on social, ecological, political and economic concerns that are often ignored at big summits such as BRICS.”
Taking objection to developments following the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), such as the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA),the statement says, the agenda of all of it is no different from “the hegemony of western dominated institutions such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
“For example”, the statement says, “During a balance of payment crisis, the CRA forces a borrowing country to go to the IMF for a neoliberal structural adjustment programme after getting just 30% of its quota in CRA loans.”
The statement underlines, “BRICS’ transnational corporations (TNCs) that extract valuable resources from the world’s poorest regions are reported to be just as brutal in accumulating capital as northern TNCs. The BRICS’ record at the WTO, FTAs and at the UN climate negotiations has also been one of strategic accommodation with the global North.”
Pointing out that BRICS' focus is on “adherence to a largely neo-liberal development model and an export-led growth trajectory based on cheap labour, rising inequality, financial speculation and multinational corporate exploitation”, the statement says, it has “little consideration for social and ecological costs” involved in all this.
Accusing BRICS countries of trampling civil rights, the statement says, in India, any protests in India are dubbed “anti-national”, in Brazil, the country's democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff was ousted through a constitutional coup, in South Africa the neo-liberal policies have an unemployment rate of 40%, Russia is pushing an authoritarian capitalist model, China's capitalism is resulting in dispossession and pauperisation of the disempowered.

Comments

Missed call drive for VVPAT verification follows online plea to "pressure" poll panel

By Our Representative
Several political activists have begun a new campaign, asking concerned citizens to give a missed call on 9667655855 to “support the demand that 2019 Loksabha elections must be declared only after verification of 50% electronic voting machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) receipts.” The effort, supported by civil society networks across India, is meant to "further pressure" India's election machinery to ensure that the poll outcome becomes more transparent.

Did Modi own, buy digital camera costing Rs 7 lakh in 1987-88, also used email?

Counterview Desk
In an interview to the news channel News Nation, aired on Saturday last, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declaring that he had approved the air strike despite bad weather because he felt the clouds would hide Indian planes from Pakistani radar is known to have become a laughing stock across India.

When a neo-nationalist "invaded" hijab clad ladies, Bengali looking scholar in Delhi metro

By Aditi Kundu*
Travelling in Delhi metro on a daily basis to commute from Mayur Vihar to Dwarka, I see diverse people everyday. One can hear them talk about different aspects of life, from kitchen pilitics to national politics. On the morning of May 13, I witnessed a strange incident; disturbing and amusing at the same time.

Terror attacks: Difference in public reactions in India, those in Colombo, Christchurch

By Battini Rao*
Recently, on April 20 during Easter Sunday, more than 250 people were killed in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in churches and hotels in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Local Islamic organisations Thawheed Jamath (NJT) and Jamathei Milathu Ibrahim (JMI) are held responsible for the attack. Islamic State has also claimed responsibility.

Women lost 88 lakh jobs in 2018: Why Modi "failed" to address their disempowerment?

Counterview Desk
Five human rights leaders Anjali Bhardwaj, Shabnam Hashmi, Purnima Gupta, Dipta Bhog, and Amrita Johri of the Women March for Change have posed 56 questions (alluding to Modi’s claim of 56 inches chest) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP against the backdrop of his interview with a Bollywood star, which was allegedly masqueraded as a “non-political” conversation.

World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

Disproportionately high death sentences against Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims: UN told

Counterview Desk
In their joint submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee to meet for the listing of adoption of list of issues at its 126th session, July 1-26, 2019, top Dalit rights organizations have taken strong exception to, among other things, "disproportional application of death sentencing by the judiciary of minorities, such as Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis".

Ex-IAS, IPS, IFS officers tell Modi: Pragya Thakur doesn't represent India's rich heritage

Counterview Desk
In an open statement, a group of former civil servants have said that normally they would have dismissed the candidature of Pragya Thakur, who is BJP’s choice for the Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency, as an act of political expediency. However, they were forced to react to her candidature after none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed has as a “symbol of our civilisational heritage.”

India's 80% construction sites "unsafe", deaths 20 times higher than those in Britain

By Rajiv Shah
The Government of India may be seeking to project India’s construction sector as the country’s second-largest employer of the country after agriculture, providing jobs to more than 44 million people, and contributing nearly 9% to the national GDP, yet, ironically, its workforce is more unprotected than any other industrial sector of the country. Data suggest that the possibility of a fatality is five times more likely in the construction industry than in a manufacturing industry, and the risk of a major injury is 2.5 times higher.

India sans Modi preferable, Congress worthier recipient of Indians’ votes: The Economist

By Our Representative
In a strongly-worded and crucial commentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the electoral political battle is on, influential British weekly “The Economist”, has declared that “Indians, who are in the midst of voting in a fresh election, would be better off with a different leader”, even as pointing out that that under Modi, “India’s ruling party poses a threat to democracy.”

Counterview

Search This Blog