BRICS bank fails to define sustainable infrastructure, yet "promoting" it to help corporates, MNCs: NGO meet

By Our Representative
A civil society convention in New Delhi has taken strong exception to the National Development Bank (NDB), which is the joint initiative of the five BRICS countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa -- for failing to define “sustainable infrastructure” even as seeking to promote it, wondering whose interests it is serving.
Held ahead of the NDB’s Second Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the New Development Bank, which began on March 31 and will end on April 2, 2017, the meet, titled, “NDB: Peoples Perspectives”, was addressed by academicians, economists, environmentalists, journalists and indigenous communities from BRICS countries.
Focusing on issues related to the lack to transparency, accountability, benchmarks about the environmental and social, grievance redressal mechanisms, and spaces of engagement for the civil society organizations and peoples’ movements in NDB, the convention decided that it would come up with a detailed response to the outcomes of NDB meet.
Speaking on the occasion, Ciao Borges, a lawyer representing Conectas, a not-for-profit organization with the consultative status from UN-ECOSOC from Brazil, said, “the NDB given its wide implications ought to have an accountability and transparency structure.” The convention was held on March 30.
He said, so far the Shanghai based Bank, which claims to focus on ‘sustainable infrastructure’, has approved seven investment projects in all member countries for a total of over USD 1.5 billion, with 75% investments on renewable energy.
Despite this, he said, the Bank has not felt the need to define the concept of sustainable infrastructure. “This leaves the door open for investments which are profit oriented and not completely sustainable in nature”, he opined.
“Moreover”, he added, “With lack of transparency and redressal mechanism, the affected communities would have no recourse to file their complaints and concerns.”
Soumya Dutta, convener, Climate & Energy Group of Beyond Copenhagen Collective, and one of the founders of India Climate Justice Platform, said that none of the investment made was related to health, education etc., and all has gone to construction of roads, solar and hydropower plants.
“This leaves one wondering if all money has gone to the needs of the industry where corporates can come into play”, he said, even as taking strong exception to the concept of climate proofing of infrastructure, which, according to him, “protects investments from climate change but not people who are at the receiving ends.”
“All this achieves considerable significance in the wake of recent statement of Bank’s president KV Kamath, who announced that the Bank would double its lending every year over the next 2-3 years to leverage its USD 10 billion capital in first 6-7 years”, Dutta added.
Madhuresh Kumar, convener of the National Alliance of Peoples Movement (NAPM), who has worked on displacement issues in the Narmada Valley, said, “We are not against renewable energy but it has to be decentralized. The current funding is for the large scale projects, which leads to the large scale displacements. For any project to be sustainable and inclusive the benefits have to be equally distributed.”
Susana Barria, Project Coordinator, Public Service International, gave the example of the promotion of the rooftop solar panels as a strategy to reduce displacement, pointing out, since NDB will “only facilitate the norms of the dominant global financial systems, we cannot expect much from them to work in peoples favour.”
Others who addressed the convention included Nagesh Prabhu, Prof Biswajit Dhar, Leo Saldhana, Atul Bhardwaj, Ram Wangkheirakpam, Himanshu Damle, Benny Kuruvilla, and Joe Athialy.

Comments

India’s climate tech ecosystem in dire need of both early, growth-stage funding: Report

By Our Representative India’s climate tech ecosystem, which boasts over 800 startups, is in dire need of both early and growth-stage funding to leverage its full potential, according to a report by Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (Ventures) and MUFG Bank , Japan. Despite a robust initial funding landscape, with approximately two-thirds of climate tech startups receiving seed capital, growth-stage investments remain critically lacking.

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded reaction in the form of a link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

Modi govt distancing from Adanis? MoEFCC 'defers' 1500 MW project in Western Ghats

By Rajiv Shah Is the Narendra Modi government, in its third but what would appear to be a weaker avatar, seeking to show that it would keep a distance, albeit temporarily, from its most favorite business house, the Adanis? It would seem so if the latest move of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) latest to "defer" the Adani Energy’s application for 1500 MW Warasgaon-Warangi Pump Storage Project is any indication.

Bayer's business model: 'Monopoly control over chemicals, seeds'

By Bharat Dogra* The Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has rendered a great public service by very recently publishing a report titled ‘Bayer’s Toxic Trails’ which reveals how the German agrochemical giant Bayer has been lobbying hard to promote glyphosate and GMOs, or trying to “capture public policy to pursue its private interests.” This report, written by Joao Camargo and Hans Van Scharen, follows Bayer’s toxic trail as “it maintains monopolistic control of the seed and pesticides markets, fights off regulatory challenges to its toxic products, tries to limit legal liability, and exercises political influence.”

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah* The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.

105,000 sign protest petition, allege Nestlé’s 'double standard' over added sugar in baby food

By Kritischer Konsum* 105,000 people have signed a petition calling on Nestlé to stop adding sugar to its baby food products marketed in lower-income countries. It was handed over today at the multinational’s headquarters in Vevey, where the NGOs Public Eye, IBFAN and EKO dumped the symbolic equivalent of 10 million sugar cubes, representing the added sugar consumed each day by babies fed with Cerelac cereals. In Switzerland, such products are sold with no added sugar. The leading baby food corporation must put an end to this harmful double standard.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

UNEP report on how climate crisis is impacting displacement, global conflicts, declining health

By Shankar Sharma* A recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), titled "A Global Foresight Report on Planetary Health and Human Wellbeing," warrants urgent attention from our country’s developmental perspective. The findings, detailed in the report, should be a source of significant concern not only globally but especially for our nation, which has a vast population and limited natural resources.

Industries fueling climate crisis draining public funds in Global South: ActionAid

By Our Representative A new ActionAid report has exposed the alarming financial drain on the Global South, as climate-wrecking industries like fossil fuels and industrial agriculture receive over US$600 billion annually in public subsidies. The report, "How the Finance Flows: Corporate Capture of Public Finance Fuelling the Climate Crisis in the Global South", reveals that an average of US$677 billion in public finance is directed toward climate-destructive sectors each year, depriving crucial social sectors such as education.

Search This Blog