Skip to main content

G7 meet hides 'ugly side' of corporatisation of medicine, privatisation of vaccine production

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* 

The recently concluded meetings of the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) countries in Cornwall from June 11 to 13, 2021, have reaffirmed their commitment to a post pandemic world based on twin planks; i) revive capitalism and ii) reinstate imperialism. These twin decaying and dangerous ideals are central to the Carbis Bay G7 Summit Communique by the White House on June 15, 2021.
It follows the same old imperialist propaganda model in the name of ‘freedom, democracy and multiculturalism’ to capture the innate goodness of the masses. The summit did not spare any opportunity to isolate Russia and China. The jamboree of the Carbis Bay imperialism is trying to expand its imperialist legitimacy by inviting leaders from the postcolonial countries like Australia, India, South Africa, and South Korea.
The agenda for global actions are designed to restore imperialist hegemony by outsourcing its failures to China, North Korea and Russia. These three countries are the devils in old imperialist playbook. The slanderous campaign against these countries as ‘a systemic challenge’ is part of the imperialist mind ghettoised ideals of colonial hangover.
The Carbis Bay G7 Summit Communique by the White House talks about ending the pandemic by “increasing and coordinating on global manufacturing capacity on all continents; improving early warning systems; and support science in a mission to shorten the cycle for the development of safe and effective vaccines, treatments and tests”.
This vague commitment hides the ugly side of the corporatisation of medicine, privatisation of vaccine production and distribution by the giant pharmaceutical corporations. The global health crisis before the pandemic is the net outcome of privatisation of health services that failed to protect life during the pandemic.
The privatisation of health service is not an alternative for post pandemic global health security. The hoarding of vaccines by the developed countries can never be branded as global approach to ending pandemic.
Post-pandemic world deserves peace, stability, human development, security. Ethos of  Carbis Bay submit is destroying these hopes
The Communique promises to reinvigorate the economy and advance its recovery with $12 trillion of support plan. It failed to outline the details about the plans. The history of crisis reveals that the capitalist states and governments provide support to the bankers, industrialists and corporates for their recovery while working people face basic survival challenges.
The Communique further promises to secure prosperity with the old model of free and fair trade. The centuries of free trade has revealed that it is neither free nor fair. It is colonial in spirit and imperialist in practice.
The free trade has helped the corporates to consolidate their wealth by plundering people and the planet. It ruined the life and livelihoods of people and destroyed environment. The promise of green revolution and the idea of climate finance under capitalism is the idea of salvation after death.
The global partnership is impossible without democratisation of IMF, World Bank and WTO. The global economic infrastructure needs democratisation to strengthen partnership. However, the Carbis Bay G7 Summit is silent on the democratisation agenda of these powerful institutions.
These institutions protect the interested of the advance capitalist countries ensuring neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism by implementing policies detrimental to people across the globe. Therefore, the promises of ‘democracy, freedom, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights’ are myths under capitalist system where people suffer without medicine, food, water and oxygen.
The pandemic has revealed the failures of privatisation of health. The G7 Summit promises ‘at least $2¾ billion for the Global Partnership for education’. The privatisation and commercialisation of education has not only destroyed the availability and accessibilities to basic education but also ruined the quality of education in all levels.
The colonialism and imperialism are two basic pillars of the G-7 countries committed to capitalist global system. The Shared Agenda for Global Action by the G-7 is a statement of shared vision and ambition to expand unbridled capitalism, which destroys democracy, freedom, human rights and environment. The Carbis Bay submit in Cornwall revives the colonial and imperialist hangover of the G7 countries.
The Secretary-General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels started the slanderous campaign against China immediately after the Carbis Bay G7 Summit Communique by the White House. The revival of NATO’s legitimacy is an instant outcome of the G7 meeting. It intends to revive the delaying military-industrial alliances in the post pandemic world by reviving military conflicts. The G7 summit has crystalised the anti-Russian and anti-Chinese axis led by USA.
The crisis produces profit. The corporates flourish and people perish during this pandemic. The imperialist and colonial world system led by the G7 countries did not show any concern for people while ensuring profits for corporates. The hegemonic agendas of G7 countries are threatening world peace and destroying all abilities of people and their governments moving in the direction of prosperity.
The ideological propaganda, trade and military warfare are three strategic directions of the G7 countries. The post pandemic world deserves peace, stability, human development and security. The ethos of the Carbis Bay submit is destroying these hopes by reviving old colonial and imperialist designs.
---
*University of Glasgow, UK

Comments

TRENDING

New RTI draft rules inspired by citizen-unfriendly, overtly bureaucratic approach

By Venkatesh Nayak* The Department of Personnel and Training , Government of India has invited comments on a new set of Draft Rules (available in English only) to implement The Right to Information Act, 2005 . The RTI Rules were last amended in 2012 after a long period of consultation with various stakeholders. The Government’s move to put the draft RTI Rules out for people’s comments and suggestions for change is a welcome continuation of the tradition of public consultation. Positive aspects of the Draft RTI Rules While 60-65% of the Draft RTI Rules repeat the content of the 2012 RTI Rules, some new aspects deserve appreciation as they clarify the manner of implementation of key provisions of the RTI Act. These are: Provisions for dealing with non-compliance of the orders and directives of the Central Information Commission (CIC) by public authorities- this was missing in the 2012 RTI Rules. Non-compliance is increasingly becoming a major problem- two of my non-compliance cases are...

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu.  He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Gujarat agate worker, who fought against bondage, died of silicosis, won compensation

Raju Parmar By Jagdish Patel* This is about an agate worker of Khambhat in Central Gujarat. Born in a Vankar family, Raju Parmar first visited our weekly OPD clinic in Shakarpur on March 4, 2009. Aged 45 then, he was assigned OPD No 199/03/2009. He was referred to the Cardiac Care Centre, Khambhat, to get chest X-ray free of charge. Accordingly, he got it done and submitted his report. At that time he was working in an agate crushing unit of one Kishan Bhil.

Budget for 2018-19: Ahmedabad authorities "regularly" under-spend allocation

By Mahender Jethmalani* The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC's) General Body (Municipal Board) recently passed the AMC’s annual budget estimates of Rs 6,990 crore for 2018-19. AMC’s revenue expenditure for the next financial year is Rs 3,500 crore and development budget (capital budget) is Rs 3,490 crore.

Licy Bharucha’s pilgrimage into the lives of India’s freedom fighters

By Moin Qazi* Book Review: “Oral History of Indian Freedom Movement”, by Dr Licy Bharucha; Pp240; Rs 300; Published by National Museum of Indian Freedom Movement The Congress has won political freedom, but it has yet to win economic freedom, social and moral freedom. These freedoms are harder than the political, if only because they are constructive, less exciting and not spectacular. — Mahatma Gandhi The opening quote of the book by Mahatma Gandhi sums up the true objective of India’s freedom struggle. It also in essence speaks for the multitudes of brave and courageous individuals who aspired to get themselves jailed for the cause of the country’s freedom. A jail term was a strong testimony and credential of patriotism for them. The book has been written by Dr Licy Bharucha, an academically trained political scientist and a scholar of peace studies and Gandhian studies, who was closely associated throughout her life with those who made the struggle for India’s independence the primar...

Warning bells for India: Tribal exploitation by powerful corporate interests may turn into international issue

By Ashok Shrimali* Warning bells are ringing for India. Even as news drops in from Odisha that Adivasi villages, one after another, are rejecting the top UK-based MNC Vedanta's plea for mining, a recent move by two senior scholars Felix Padel and Samarendra Das suggests the way tribals are being exploited in India by powerful international and national business interests may become an international issue. In fact, one has only to count days when things may be taken up at the United Nations level, with India being pushed to the corner. Padel, it may be recalled, is a major British authority on indigenous peoples across the world, with several scholarly books to his credit. 

Covid response? How, gripped by fear and groupthink, scientists 'failed' children

By Bhaskaran Raman*  “Today’s children are tomorrow’s future”, “Nurture children’s dreams”, “A child’s smile is sunlight”. These are some cliches, rendered rather uninspiring through repetition and obviousness. However, for nearly 2½ years, society forgot these cliches, children suffered as science failed and groupthink prevailed. Worse, all of this has been swept under the rug.