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[1] From: "C.K. Vishwanath" <ck_vishwanath2000@yahoo.com> Date: Tue Aug 30, 2005 Subject: Re: [Mahajanapada] A REPORT ON POLICE ATTACK ON HONDA WORKERS india's new industrial experiment is just like Honda company.Foreign direct investment is being attracted at any cost.workers are on defensive.Milton freidman's ideological support to india's coservative political thought will give much boost to free capital.recently,several studies by labour economist Jan breman has pointed out the horrible picture of indian labour.Indian trade union's old strategies are no longer produce any result for labour. --- Regi P George <george_regi@...> wrote: > > Questions From a Worker Who Reads > > A poem by Bertolt Brecht > > Who built Thebes of the seven gates? In the books > you will find the names of kings. Did the kings haul > up the lumps of rock? And Babylon, many times ---------------------------------- [2] From: Mukul Dube <arhardal@netscape.net> Date: Tue Aug 30, 2005 Subject: Re: [indiathinkersnet] Re Viji's post -- Racism's Biblical basis mukul_dube I always did believe that we damn fools had something going for us. MD sshankar@... wrote: > The manusmriti talks on and on about the Shudras, how they > should be treated etc. Untouchability has not been invented > yet, so imagine the treatment of people whom Hindus consider > "untouchable", yet hindu? Shiva Shankar. > > ------------------ > > Manusmriti ^?– Law book of the Hindus, some excerpts - > > > IX ^?– 317. A Brahmin, whether learned or ignorant, is a > powerful divinity. > -- --------------------------- [3] From: Regi P George <george_regi@yahoo.com> Date: Tue Aug 30, 2005 Subject: Alternatives to Foreign Investment Alternatives to Foreign Investment Reinvestment of profits from lucrative export industries and strategic domestic enterprises via public ownership back into the domestic economy. Profits, which would be remitted abroad by foreign capital, are channeled inward to expanding local production, producing a ???multiplier??™ effect and increasing local consumption demand in a virtuous circle. Control of foreign trade would increase retention of foreign exchange in order to avoid overseas seepage, allocate hard currency to priority enterprises which increase local production, employment and popular consumption. Invest pension funds in productive activities and distribution rather than holding them in private banks or trust funds. Create development banks to channel overseas workers??™ remittances into productive, job-creating activities. In many countries overseas remittances as a leading source of hard currency, are used for local family consumption and marginal economic activities. The neo-liberal state uses the hard currency to service the foreign debt. Moratorium on debt payments based on the need to investigate whether earlier loans took place within a legal framework, whether they resulted in productive activity and whether they financed corrupt practices and unproductive uses (military expenditures). Determination should be made whether the original principal has been paid and if loans were originally borrowed by private firms, in which case debt payments should be cancelled or referred back to original borrowers. The state should not accept socializing the bad debts of private firms??™ mismanagement and poor judgment in investment decisions, nor the careless high-risk loan decisions by creditor institutions. Past lenders and borrowers should assume the risks of profits and losses, rather than saddling the populace with payment for loans from which they were neither consulted nor benefited. Recovery of treasury funds stolen and property illicitly privatized by previous regimes. Overseas accounts based on illicit transfers especially by business and political elites should be impounded as part of an anti-corruption commission headed by independent tax lawyers and representatives of the mass organizations. Enterprises privatized under dubious circumstances should be re-nationalized. Recovery of unpaid taxes especially through tax evasion by MNCs and international firms. Offenders should be investigated and prosecuted, including stiff penalties. The state should demand full recovery of back taxes or undertake seizure of physical and liquid assets of the delinquent foreign firms. The state can demand that the accounting sheets of MNCs be open to public inspection, to foil the common practice of intra-firm ???transfer pricing??? and thus artificially and illegally lowering profits and income to evade adequate tax payments. Graduated land taxes and expropriation of underutilized or speculative land can provide land for agrarian reform and low-income public housing. This will increase agricultural productivity and food for local consumption as well as exports. Extensive estates and plantations illegally occupying public lands should be expropriated without compensation. Compensation for expropriated land should be paid in long-term bonds based on past tax-declared value (or at market value, if the estate owners are willing to pay back taxes on the difference between the declared and market value.) Overseas holdings or investments by public firms should be liquidated and the revenues reinvested in upgrading national productive infrastructure and processing industries. Excessive foreign reserves should be downsized and put to work in diversifying the economy. Reserves should be held in diverse currencies and should not be deposited in overseas banks, where an imperial adversary could hold the funds hostage. Holding a ???devaluating??? currency because of past ???reputation??? or because of ???neo-colonial??™ linkages is both bad politics and bad economics. Maximizing employment of under-employed labor ??“ running in some cases to 80% of the labor force ??“ in large-scale infrastructure projects can compensate for ???scarce capital??? and become a source for initial capital accumulation. Likewise underutilized educated, skilled workers and professionals can provide innovations and organizational breakthroughs, which can increase total output and increase productivity. Any serious examination of the social economy of most countries would discover there are multiple national sources of capital without relying on foreign capital. These sources have all the advantages of raising the rates of capital investment with none of the political uncertainty, economic vulnerabilities and social inequalities associated with foreign capital. ------------------------------ [4] From: "River Basin Friends\(NE\)" <riverbasinfriends@yahoo.co.in> Date: Tue Aug 30, 2005 Subject: ST status for Reangs, Rongmais demanded in Assam-FYI FYI.-- ST status for Reangs, Rongmais demanded HAILAKANDI, Aug 29 ??“ District Tribal Sangha of Hailakandi has demanded the recognition of Scheduled Tribe status to the Reang, Rongmai Naga, Khasi, Jaintia, Chakma and Sakachep tribes living in Hailakandi district. In a memorandum to the Prime Minister, the Sangha alleged that the ST status has been provided to these tribes only in the two hill districts (North Cachar Hills and Karbi Anglong) but in the plain districts of Assam they have not been categorised this depriving them from electoral reservation, which they term ???discriminatory??™ and ???unconsitutional??™. They also demanded the extension of the provisions of the Sixth schedule of the Constitution of India in the plains of Barak Valley in accordance with the Article 244 (2) for the protection and safeguard of district cultural heritage of the tribal people. The memo further alleged that about 6000 Reang people have been evicted from the hill areas of southern Hailakandi bordering Mizoram by some doubtful Bangladeshi nationals and these tribal people are now living a nomadic life in sub-human conditions and Sangha demanded immediate implementation of Assam Forest Land and Environment Protection Act, 1980 to evict these doubtful dwellers from their land. As per the clauses of Assam Accord, they demanded the demarcation and installation of boundary pillars in the forest tribal villages of Hailakandi. The Sangha has also provided a list of villages where the doubtful Bangladeshi nationals have forcefully evicted them. These are ??“ Baldabaldi Nandagram (800 Reang people), Damcherra (500), Betcherra (300), Karnabasti (200), Sahebmara (150), Teracherra (200), Golhacherra (100), Lalcherra (100), Lalcherra (180), Jalnecherra (300), Baruncherra (250), Kachurthol (300), Kanchiwala (300), Yakubnala (100), Manikcherra (200) and Duttapur (2200). Mentioning about the problems of about 7000 Tripuri tribe people of Cachar, Karimganj, Hailakandi, North Cachar Hills and Karbi Anglong and Nagaon districts, the Sangha alleged that these people have not been given any status in Assam following which these people are facing acute troubles. Sangha said that the SC/ST Atrocities Prevention Act, 1989 and Rules 1995 are not being implemented in Hailakandi district and the killing, rape of tribal girl, cheating and police atrocity are common phenomena in the tribal villages of Hailakandi district. A total of 30 tribal villages in the Assam-Mizoram border facing problems due to the long pending border dispute. Assam government have not given any attention in these villages the memo alleged. The Sangha expressing resentment stated that district is more than 30,000 but in the census 2001, it has been shown as 821 only. Further the columns of Reang, Rongmai Naga, Khasi, Jantia, Hrangkhol, Tripuri, Mizo etc have also not been mentioned in the census report . http://www.assamtribune.com River Basin Friends AKAJAN District-Dhemaji.787059. Assam. India E mail.assamravi@... --------------------------------------- [5] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Tue Aug 30, 2005 Subject: Experts Urge UN to Resist Efforts to Weaken Disarmament Commitments From: "Daryl G. Kimball" <dkimball@...> Subject: ADVISORY: Experts Urge UN to Resist Efforts to Weaken Disarmament Commitments ARMS CONTROL ASSOCIATION MEDIA ADVISORY "Arms Control Experts Urge UN Members to Resist U.S. Effort to Weaken Arms Control and Disarmament Commitments" For Immediate Release: August 26, 2005 Press Contacts: Daryl Kimball, (202) 463-8270 x107 (Washington, D.C.): World leaders will meet Sept. 14-16 at the United Nations in New York to address critical challenges confronting international peace and security and development. But the Bush administration, led by Ambassador John Bolton, is jeopardizing the meeting's chances of success by seeking to dilute and eliminate a raft of commitments to reduce the dangers posed by biological, chemical, conventional, and nuclear arms from the UN meeting's draft final document. The nonpartisan Arms Control Association and other nongovernmental organizations are encouraging governments to preserve essential nonproliferation and disarmament commitments from the U.S. axe. Reportedly, the administration's hit list includes declarations of support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), negotiations on a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT) to end the production of key materials for building nuclear arms, the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines, small arms regulations, and nuclear-weapon-free zones, which are regions where countries forswear nuclear weapons. Most troubling is the administration's move to strip away all references to disarmament obligations, say the experts. The 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) codified a deal in which countries without nuclear weapons would not seek them and nuclear-armed states would progress toward eventually giving them up. Although the administration supports retaining a call in the draft UN document for all countries to adhere to the NPT, it is seeking to cut more explicit language spelling out the actual disarmament obligations of the treaty. "Ignoring one half of the NPT equation jeopardizes the other half," warns Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association (ACA). ACA joined with Greenpeace International, the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, and New York-based Reaching Critical Will project in sending letters August 17 to all UN member states recommending they conclude an outcome document that would "recommit the nuclear-weapon states, and all states, to the fulfillment of their nuclear disarmament obligations." The organizations also urged states to maintain a nuclear testing moratorium pending the CTBT's entry into force. Referring to the administration's opposition to the accord, the organizations wrote, "If one or another state cannot at this time endorse this goal, that state should not be allowed to silence the vast majority that do." "The upcoming UN meeting represents an excellent opportunity to bolster international efforts to counter the threat posed by dangerous weapons, but the Bush administration is on the verge of sabotaging it," stated Kimball. He added, "Other governments should avoid becoming accomplices and instead stand up for a meaningful nonproliferation and disarmament outcome." The text of the draft outcome document is available at <http://www.un.org/ga/59/hlpm_rev.2.pdf>;. The text of the August 17 letter to UN missions is available at <http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/1com/1com05/NGOlettertoGovernments.html>;. For more information on the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, see <http://www.npt2005.org>. # # # The Arms Control Association is an independent, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to promoting public understanding of and support for effective arms control policies. ____________________________________ Daryl Kimball, Executive Director Arms Control Association 1150 Conn. Ave NW, Suite 620 Washington, DC 20036 (ph) 202-463-8270 x107 (fax) 202-463-8273 website <http://www.armscontrol.org> email <dkimball@...> ____________________________________ From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <foesyd4@...> IMMEDIATE USE 29/8/2005 FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE AMBASSADOR BOLTON GUTS UN SUMMIT DOCUMENT US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton has gutted the draft outcome statement for the upcoming UN Millennium Plus Five summit, removing from it --All references to nuclear disarmament --All references to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) introduced to the UN in 1996 by Australia --All references to a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty . --All references to nuclear - free zones. Bolton's deletions total about 750, and cover not only nuclear disarmament but wide areas of arms control, human rights, environmental protection, trade, climate change, UN reform, and other topics that will be discussed at the september14-16 UN Millennium Summit. He has in many ways trashed not only the nuclear disarmament sections of the UN summit, but the entire summit. Australian peace groups have joined US and international nuclear disarmament groups in condemning the deletions and calling on governments to resist and to reverse them. According to Australian peace groups: "Bolton's approach is completely destructive. He is trying to put a bulldozer through the entire nuclear disarmament edifice built up by patient work since about 1995 by both Governments and citizens worldwide." "Citizens must ask their governments to stand firm on nuclear disarmament commitments entered into by governments worldwide at successive NPT review conferences and at sessions of the general assembly over the last decade. " "If we don't to this, the entire process is going to unravel and we will get the nuclear proliferation cascade that experts from El Baradei downwards are predicting. This is potentially a disaster for the whole world." Contact: John Hallam FOEA 02-9567-7533 02-9810-2598 Sue Gilbey APC 08-8410-3784 Irene Gale APC 0419-032-896 |
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