Resistance Recorded

Wiki protest!

2012-01-18T10:27:00.003-05:00

What do netizens do when Wikipedia decides to protest?
Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge
is a protest by Wikipedia against anti-piracy legislation in the U.S.

The bill in question is Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
that has the backing of motion picture and recording industries to put an end to piracy on the internet. But this, the biggest web companies say, will transform the web as we know it.

It is a 24 hour black out, but wiki has been tweeted all over today. In solidarity!

Protesting poets

2012-01-16T15:40:00.002-05:00

Protest against sponsor Aurum: T S Eliot Prize

TS Eliot prize: Second poet withdraws in sponsor protest

This is a good story. Heartening to read about people who say that "This does not agree with my personal politics and ethics". A great way of registering protest. It is tougher to practice politics you believe in, especially, as in this case, the Poetry Book Society is reportedly in a difficult position.

The question of whether this particular sponsor is above board is another matter. The poet who withdrew from the prize - John Kinsella endorsed the decision of another poet Alice Oswald who did the same. Oswald is quoted as saying "poetry should be questioning not endorsing such institutions". The prize is worth 15,000 pounds.

Here is a link to Hari Kunzru's comment on why he refused the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize sponsored by what he called "the xenophobic Mail on Sunday" in 2003.

Piercing the corporate veil

2012-01-16T15:31:00.002-05:00

Check out this story on why parents companies should be made responsible for actions of their subsidiaries.

In this story the author discusses the Shell case as an example on "how corporate ownership structures can affect legal redress in alleged human rights violations."
I had touched upon this in my story on the Bhopal disaster.

There is an interesting link to an organization called task force on financial integrity and economic development
.

Social Audits in India- The Guardian Development Blog

2012-01-16T15:22:00.003-05:00

Social audits in India – a slow but sure way to fight corruption

Grassroots campaigners have a new tool to plug the leaks in India's public expenditure, and one state is leading the way

By Priti Patnaik
Friday 13 January 2012

It is not uncommon for dead people to get paid in India. But it's not the family of the deceased who benefit, it's middle men or public servants who cheat the state subsidy system or swindle wages by fabricating names on the payroll. It affects most welfare schemes in India.

Now, though, for the frustrated corruption fighters seeking to reform public service delivery, there is hope. A new tool is emerging to plug the leaks in public expenditure – "social audits", a grievance-redressing mechanism that gives the poor an opportunity to seek justice.

Jairam Ramesh, India's former environment minister, made a name for himself as being unafraid to tackle big industrial corporations. Curiously, he was moved to the ministry of rural development last autumn. Not an altogether bad move, considering the portfolio entails a staggering $20bn of annual expenditure, 8% of the government's budget. The jewel in its crown is a massive jobs guarantee programme, which ensures 100 days of employment at the minimum wage and accounts for half the ministry's disbursal.

However, corruption in the scheme is rife. Villagers are employed in civil work programmes at the minimum wage. Often, they are not paid, ghostworkers abound, and procurement guidelines are violated. To counter this, an independent body – mandated by law – is set up to conduct an audit of the expenditure. Officials are obliged to share documents with village-level auditors trained by the independent social audit team.

A record of the accounts of the civil works is read out in public in the presence of beneficiaries of the scheme and the alleged perpetrators of corruption. This garners interest in the proceedings, and encourages villagers to question transactions – breaking barriers of social hierarchy. The government takes action against those guilty of siphoning off funds. This unique effort at accountability helps to ensure good governance.

These audits were first made statutory in a 2005 Rural Employment Act. Ramesh is now pushing to institutionalise social auditing as a monitoring tool for major welfare schemes across the country. Since more than 50% of the government's budget goes towards welfare schemes, it's important to track how, and how much, money is diverted away from intended recipients.

Most Indian states have delayed conducting social audits, despite these being in place since 2006. They are held back by a lack of political will and entrenched vested interests. However, one state, Andhra Pradesh, has taken a lead. The state set up the Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency, an autonomous body insulated from government interference. Over the years, contractors and middle men have been eliminated.

"Transparency is a big spinoff," says Sowmya Kidambi, who heads the country's first successful social audit team in Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh."It empowers people to question elected representatives who attend these social audits on a continual basis – and not just during elections. The public is now as much a part of governance as the elected representatives."

Kidambi has worked with the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghathan social movement to mobilise support for a Right to Information (RTI) Act and a job guarantee scheme.

Access to records and a public forum are fundamentals of the social audit process. While it is mandatory for the government to share records, the RTI act also makes access easier. It obliges the state to disclose information regardless of whether or not an RTI application is filed. And "reading it aloud in public" is the crux of a social audit. Many of the corrupt individuals involved in the delivery of these welfare schemes are extremely wary of the public scrutiny.

The Andhra Pradesh model is undoubtedly a success, with more than 3,200 social audits and more than 38,000 disciplinary cases brought against officials involved with the jobs scheme. Hundreds have been suspended or punished. In the past three years, the team has been able to recover almost a quarter of the $24m of irregularities detected.

The dissemination of information is proving instrumental in checking corruption. For the first time, officials can use real-time information generated from social audits to redesign delivery of public goods. Hiran Sammeta, an entrepreneur who founded Inputo Technology Solutions, provides "programme intelligence" for social audits in Andhra Pradesh.

His team is trying to bridge the gap between policymakers and those affected. Their work has involved mining about 250,000 documents in the state over the last few years and using the extracted data to predict fraud. He calls this data mining and investigation "predictive analytics". "We need to know how fraud works in order to track corruption," he says.

The social audit process was recently endorsed by the public finance watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Vinod Rai, head of the CAG, says: "All over the world, there is a growing perception among the supreme audit institutions that it is important to partner with civil society to ensure the latter's participation in service delivery and public accountability."

Far from the televised revolutions that made fighting corruption fashionable for the Indian middle class last year, a quieter revolution is taking shape – this time not just in Indian cities, but in hundreds of villages.

--

For some of the hyperlinks in the original story, please visit the Guardian page. There are links to the social audit team in AP among others.

Development Studies

2012-01-16T15:12:00.002-05:00

At the risk of sounding conceited,I apologize that I have disappointed the readers of this blog, for I have not been regular in posting on this page. I perhaps, have good reason, although there is never a good reason for being lazy.
Lets just say I have been figuring out the next stage in life. Have now gone back to school at The Graduate Institute in Geneva for a masters in development studies.

Must confess, I have enjoyed going back to studying again. It has given me a great perspective to understand some of the most acute development challenges facing the world today. More importantly, it is providing me context to comprehend where these debates are located and the underlying politics behind say, the water crisis (one of the electives this past semester.)

So overall, I think my engagement on this page will reflect my increased awareness on development issues, as opposed to my former role as a business journalist interested in economic issues.

I hope you will enjoy, engage and think about some of the subjects that will feature on this blog.

Struggles to save a mountain

2011-05-20T05:24:00.003-04:00

Here is a documentary on the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa where Vedanta is mining for Bauxite against the wishes of the people.

Sunita Narain has rightly said that the anti-Vedanta movement here, is not spearheaded by urban green lobbies, but by indigenous people who are willing to lay down their lives to preserve their livelihood and the mountain - that they see as their God. Can people with bows and arrows, take on this British company that has blessings of the state government? For the record, central environment ministry has in August 2010 cancelled the environmental clearance given to the $1.7 billion bauxite mining project. But who knows if the ministry will reverse the decision, as it did in the case of POSCO.

p.s. Cannot follow the language in the documentary entirely, because it is not mainstream Oriya. But became sentimental listening to my mother tongue! Barring the completely unnecessary background score in English towards the end, it is a fairly decent introduction to the resistance of the tribals to the mining company.

There was more trouble for Vedanta earlier this month, when there was a red mud-spill at the Lanjigarh Alumina refinery. Some villagers caught the spill pouring into a pond on their mobile phones. Here is a video clip.

Are people and companies the same?

2011-04-01T05:06:00.002-04:00

The Economist's Schumpeter column analyzes if corporates and people should have the same rights and obligations. Me thinks, it is a bad idea.

You can read it here:
Peculiar people
How far should one push the idea that companies have the same rights as ordinary people?

Amusing that the corporation behaves like a psychopath, with callous disregard for others, the article says quoting a film by the same name!

Taking this argument to India, the Tata's would insist on privacy! And Dow Chemicals USA will continue to defend that it was technically not present in India during the Bhopal gas disaster in 1984. But that's the thing. It can cut both ways.

The article raises these relevant concerns: "Aren’t they likely to use their collective muscle to trample over the little people? And won’t they invoke the rights of ordinary people without burdening themselves with the responsibilities?"
And of course, mighty corporations can have personal political affiliations that can directly counter interests of the people. We surely know the direction that governments will take, when faced with huge Goldman Sachsesque contributions as against our friend John Smith who teaches in a school.

No right to life?

2011-03-11T10:15:00.002-05:00

People fighting for the rights of the excluded, seem to have no right to life of their own.

The murder of Niyamat Ansari, an activist for the National Rural Employment Guarantee program, who helped labourers file applications related to right to information, right to work, is another failure of the state of Jharkhand. He was also working on the right to food campaign.

This only adds to the long list of contemporary unsung Indians who are giving up life to restore institutions and people’s right to good governance.

Tehelka had a column in late February on the dangers of doing good in India. It takes off from Binayak Sen. I quote journalist Shoma Chaudhary, the author of this article:

“Doing one’s duty is no longer an imperative in India. Nothing governs us as a society now except the miracle of individual choice. We are secured by the fact that some people choose to be good, no matter what. But there are myriad dangers in that. There is not just the might of the State to confront. There is also the temptation at every turn to just give up, part the skin and slip over into the silken side where one half of India is living a charmed life. If you don’t fight the ugliness of the State, it will behave in benign ways with you. That is one of the hardest lessons being good in India teaches you.”

A whistleblower in Russia

2011-03-11T09:08:00.004-05:00

In the age of Assange, whistle blowers are in vogue.

The Guardian had a story on Russian blogger Alexey Navalny and his efforts to jail the corrupt!

The article describes him as "Russia's chief whistleblower – a one-man WikiLeaks" who has made a career of going after Russia's untouchables. He uses publicly available information - an audit report in this case to get after Transneft - the state pipeline monopoly. How cool is that!

The story concludes on his quote - "But Navalny says he has no fear. "Any person who undertakes independent action in Russia – in journalism, business, anything – takes on risk," he said. "I can understand they can do whatever they want, but that won't stop me."" May force be with him.

Technology and capitalism

2011-03-11T08:05:00.002-05:00

The cover story in the Wired magazine this month, certainly made me sit up and take notice. Not that poor labor conditions for the manufacture of iPhones was new, the fact that the cult magazine gave it cover story status was something.

You can read it here:
1 Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Who’s to Blame?

People will not stop buying iPhones or numerous other products, they may not boycott Apple and other companies, but hopefully they will take notice. There is a great cost to our conveniences that somebody else far away, in another part of the world, is paying for.

Of course, many believe that 17 is a small number. But that there is a number at all is worrying.

Why businesses buckle under pressure?

2011-02-01T11:34:00.002-05:00

The Institute for Human Rights and Business has analyzed the decision of why internet service providers and telecom companies gave in to Mobarak's pressure too easily.

Seriously, why do companies have "to leave" before they "actually" have to leave? They seem all too powerful when dealing with customers and people in general, but where does the corporate bravado and muscle go when it comes to facing up to the State in the eye? Barring Google's stance in China, I can't recall too many instances. In this case, will the companies compensate Egyptians for plugging out services when they needed it the most? One can only shudder to think about families of victims of police brutality struggling without communication services.

By turning up at Tahrir Square today, more than a million Egyptians, have stolen the thunder from the symbols of new media - namely twitter and facebook. A reporter on Al Jazeera rightly said, that tweets or no tweets this revolution has festered.

I really hope the winds of change blow in India too. To take back democracy from the people who have made a mockery of it. And this should not be limited to fighting for the murder of a model in the capital city.

Amen.

Editorial: Access to justice for the poor

2011-01-24T09:40:00.002-05:00

Poor justice
Harsh Sethi / January 19, 2011, 0:37 IST
Business Standard, India

It is somewhat intriguing that in the intense discussions about strategies to ensure inclusive growth and development, both our politicians and policymakers have consistently sidestepped, if not neglected, the problem of the numerous barriers to accessing basic legal services within the justice system. Despite our Constitution incorporating civil and political rights, and the directive principles underscoring respect for human rights and human dignity, it is uncontestable that in our laissez-faire system, justice, like any other commodity, is something that can be bought by those who can afford the cost. Abstract statements about “equality in and before law” cannot hide the ugly reality that the poor and the underprivileged are doubly penalised by our legal system — first on account of the costs of access, poor knowledge of the archaic court procedures, and so on, and because the legal system differentially favours those with greater resources and better social networks. No surprise, then, that in every scheme and programme, the poor feel that they are being squeezed out, often through the working of law. It is, thus, critical that all discussions of development must necessarily contend with the vexed questions of both equality before law and justice if we want to avoid the abuse of power and lawlessness that have become a part of the lot of the poor.

For too often the discussions about access to and equality before law have focused on supply-side constraints — the insufficiency of courts, judges and lawyers — as also procedural innovations to make the legal system cheaper, faster, more transparent and fair. Unfortunately, we have spent insufficient energy on understanding and deconstructing the relationships between law, justice and fairness, concepts that are deeply influenced by history, ideology and culture. In a multi-cultural and plural society such as India, with a multiplicity of legal cultures, with different social segments incorporating different notions of right and wrong, it is hardly surprising that judgments rarely produce any sense of satisfaction. Moreover, as Upendra Baxi so convincingly points out, improving access to law should not be conflated with access to justice. “Further, because law is not exhausted by adjudication and crucially entails law as legislation, implementation and enforcement, a primarily court-centric talk eludes a fine regard for considerations of political justice, that is, critical engagement with the impunity of holders of public power” (p. 75). Nothing exemplifies this better than the fate of riot victims or those displaced by development projects as they struggle to resume “normal” life in the face of continuous opposition from those who had victimised them, and this includes the state.

All of this has only become more vexed in the context of globalisation as now we have to contend with multiple national contexts and a (severely contested) body of international law. Remember Bhopal and the inability to bring the Union Carbide Corporation to justice.

The book under review, a product of the UNDP programme on Access to Justice, a subset of the work of its Democratic Governance Group, brings together a range of essays, both conceptual and empirical, on efforts to improve access to justice in the developing world. There is great merit to such collections, for not only do we learn that our situations and problems are not unique (arguments about Indian exceptionalism) but also because it becomes possible to learn from the experience of others. Most importantly, we learn that issues of law and justice cannot be left to the internal deliberations of lawyers and judges, and to courts, and need to involve other elements in civil society if we are to move towards a more fair and just system.

Of particular interest are the essays on access to justice in plural legal systems, more specifically the role of community justice systems (shades of our khap panchayats) as also communitarian and religious laws and how they undermine the rights and dignity of women (Hudood Ordinances in Pakistan). Equally instructive is the discussion on how public interest litigation or social action litigation, which India can claim as its contribution, has travelled to other countries as diverse as South Africa and Nigeria, and countries in Central and Eastern Europe. R Sudarshan’s overview of the evolution of legal understanding from our initial encounter with western law through colonialism, which resulted in an “individualisation without rights and bureaucratisation without the rule of law” as also the disjunction between state law and the role of non-state legal institutions, deserves a close reading. Equally, the discussion on the limits of both legal liberalism and legal radicalism, particularly in contemporary climes of neo-liberalism, proves once again that even as we may have normatively internalised the new language of human rights, larger economic and social processes continue to disempower the weak and the poor.

It is indeed unfortunate that despite a recognition of the centrality of law and legal processes, so much of our discussion of development choices seems oblivious to the rich literature produced by legal scholars. Equally, it is instructive that in none of our Planning Commissions have we ever thought it necessary to induct a jurist.

For a government never shy of claiming its orientation towards the aam admi, maybe this is a move that might help.

JUSTICE FOR THE POOR
Perspectives on Accelerating Access
Edited by Ayesha Kidwai Dias and Gita Honwana Welch
Oxford University Press
xxii + 678 pages; Rs 895

The killings of India's information warriors

2011-01-23T06:39:00.002-05:00

This has been flagged by Tehelka before, but NYT continues its focus on India. The very prolific Lydia Polgreen narrates the death of an information activist - unfortunately a trend in India.

Read it here

How about some protection mandated by law for these information activists? Else, it becomes meaningless. These activists are laying down their lives to protect people from the tyranny of opacity within the country's borders. No recognition when they die. They are modern day soldiers, fighting enemies within. But they are too ill-equipped to counter armies of well-funded politician-businessman mafias. May force be with them.

Peruvian villagers want more from Chinalco

2011-01-20T09:57:00.001-05:00

FT: Peru village seeks better deal from China mine

This is a multimedia story from the FT.
"The Aluminium Corporation of China, or Chinalco, bought the mining rights for Toromocho, Peru, back in 2007. But as the FT's Andes correspondent Naomi Mapstone found out when she travelled to the mining community Morococha, located in the mountains of central Peru, not all the villagers feel their needs are being met."

Sedition and the Indian state.

2010-12-25T10:37:00.002-05:00

Dr Binayak Sen was found guilty of sedition in India this week. This has shocked the nation and unfortunately, points to the farce that Indian democracy has become.

Arundhati Roy was also threatened to be tried for sedition on her remarks on Kashmir earlier this year.

The Free Binayak Sen group on Facebook has sent the following text:

Mohandas K. Gandhi On His Conviction for Sedition:
I owe it perhaps to the Indian public and to the public in England to placate which this prosecution is mainly taken up that I should explain why from a stanch loyalist and cooperator I have become an uncompromising disaffectionist and non-cooperator. To the court too I should say why I plead guilty to the charge of promoting disaffection toward the government established by law in India.

My public life began in 1893 in South Africa in troubled weather. My first contact with British authority in that country was not of a happy character. I discovered that as a man and as an Indian I had no rights. More correctly, I discovered that I had no rights as a man because I was an Indian.

But I was not baffled. I thought that this treatment of Indians was an excrescence upon a system that was intrinsically and mainly good. I gave the government my voluntary and hearty cooperation, criticizing it freely where I felt it was faulty but never wishing its destruction.

I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically. A disarmed India has no power of resistance against any aggressor if she wanted to engage in an armed conflict with him. So much is this the case that some of our best men consider that India must take generations before she can achieve the Dominion status. She has become so poor that she has little power of resisting famines. Before the British advent, India spun and wove in her millions of cottages just the supplement she needed for adding to her meager agricultural resources. This cottage industry, so vital for India’s existence, has been ruined by incredibly heartless and inhuman processes as described by English witnesses. Little do town dwellers know how the semi-starved masses of India are slowly sinking to lifelessness. Little do they know that their miserable comfort represents the brokerage they get for the work they do for the foreign exploiter, that the profits and the brokerage get sucked from the masses. Little do they realize that the government established by law in British India is carried on for the exploitation of the masses. No sophistry, no jugglery in figures can explain away the evidence that the skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye. I have no doubt whatsoever that both England and the town dwellers of India will have to answer, if there is a God above, for this crime against humanity, which is perhaps unequaled in history. The law itself in this country has been used to serve the foreign exploiter. My unbiased examination of the Punjab Martial Law cases has led me to believe that ninety-five per cent of the convictions were wholly bad. My experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion that in nine out of every ten the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in the love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the courts of India.This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my opinion the administration of the law is thus prostituted consciously or unconsciously for the benefit of the exploiter.

The greatest misfortune is that Englishmen and their Indian associates in the administration of the country do not know that they are engaged in the crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that many Englishmen and Indian officials honestly believe that they are administering one of the best systems devised in the world and that India is making steady though slow progress. They do not know that a subtle but effective system of terrorism and an organized display of force on the one hand, and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation or self-defense on the other, have emasculated the people and induced in them the habit of simulation. This awful habit has added to the ignorance and the self-deception of the administrators. Section 124-A, under which I am happily charged, is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizens. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has an affection(sic) for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote or incite to violence. But the section under which Mr.Banker [a colleague in non-violence] and I are charged is one under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime. I have studied some of the cases tried under it, and I know that some of the most loved of India’s patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a privilege, therefore, to be charged under that section. I have endeavored to give in their briefest outline the reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill will against any single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection toward the King’s person. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected toward a government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system. India is less manly under the British rule than she ever was before. Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to have affection for the system. And it has been a precious privilege for me to be able to write what I have in the various articles tendered in evidence against me.

In fact, I believe that I have tendered a service to India and England by showing in non-cooperation the way out of the unnatural state in which both are living. In my humble opinion, non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good. But in the past, non-cooperation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evildoer. I am endeavoring to show to my countrymen that violent non-cooperation only multiplies evil and that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support for evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty of non-cooperation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the judge, is either to resign your post, and thus dissociate yourself from evil if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil and that in reality I am innocent, or to inflict upon me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country and that my activity is therefore injurious to the public weal.

A song by indigenous group of people: Orissa, India

2010-12-18T05:35:00.002-05:00

"Gaon chodab nahi" -
This is a song from Orissa, India. A glimpse of what mis-directed development is doing to the tribes in the state.

India's hypocrisy on human rights?

2010-12-16T05:15:00.004-05:00

A series of articles debate the Indian State's hypocrisy on human rights, in the context of China's peace activist winning the Nobel.

Many believe that India went ahead to endorse the Nobel peace prize, only to "prove" she is not afraid of China, than to stand up to the spirit of recognizing and encouraging dissent.

Here is a piece in the Economic Times, analyzing what would New Delhi do, if Irom Sarmila were to be awarded the prize. Irom, the poet activist from Manipur has been on hunger strike for a decade.

Another article speaks for Arundhati Roy winning the prize. How would the State react, if Roy, given her stance on Naxals and Kashmir has upset the establishment.

It can be countless others in the country who silently protest human rights abuses in the so-called democracy that India is, how will the State react to the recognition of these struggles?

NYT: Poem by Liu Xiaobo - China's Nobel Peace Laureate

2010-12-09T12:50:00.001-05:00

Liu Xiaobo, a poet and literary critic, is the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. China has forbidden him to travel to the award ceremony, which will be held on Friday in Oslo. This poem was translated by Jeffrey Yang from the Chinese.

By LIU XIAOBO
Published: December 8, 2010
New York Times

from “Experiencing Death”

I had imagined being there beneath sunlight
with the procession of martyrs
using just the one thin bone
to uphold a true conviction
And yet, the heavenly void
will not plate the sacrificed in gold
A pack of wolves well-fed full of corpses
celebrate in the warm noon air
aflood with joy

Faraway place
I’ve exiled my life to
this place without sun
to flee the era of Christ’s birth
I cannot face the blinding vision on the cross
From a wisp of smoke to a little heap of ash
I’ve drained the drink of the martyrs, sense spring’s
about to break into the brocade-brilliance of myriad flowers

Deep in the night, empty road
I’m biking home
I stop at a cigarette stand
A car follows me, crashes over my bicycle
some enormous brutes seize me
I’m handcuffed eyes covered mouth gagged
thrown into a prison van heading nowhere

A blink, a trembling instant passes
to a flash of awareness: I’m still alive
On Central Television News
my name’s changed to “arrested black hand”
though those nameless white bones of the dead
still stand in the forgetting
I lift up high up the self-invented lie
tell everyone how I’ve experienced death
so that “black hand” becomes a hero’s medal of honor

Even if I know
death’s a mysterious unknown
being alive, there’s no way to experience death
and once dead
cannot experience death again
yet I’m still
hovering within death
a hovering in drowning
Countless nights behind iron-barred windows
and the graves beneath starlight
have exposed my nightmares

Besides a lie
I own nothing

U.S. Class Action Suits for Bhopal Victims

2010-12-06T03:33:00.008-05:00

Federal class action lawsuits for Bhopal victims
Priti Patnaik
New York, July 2010

Far away from the heat and dust of Bhopal, two federal class action lawsuits are under way here in New York City.

The Bhopal cases filed in the U.S. have had a circuitous history, not unlike in India.

The cases, Sahu Vs. Union Carbide et al, are civil cases filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Plaintiffs are seeking remediation to address personal injury and damage to property. They are also fighting for medical monitoring. They claim that UCIL’s Bhopal plant produced hazardous wastes during its normal operations that contaminated the soil and drinking water of local communities. These cases are different from the claims arising soon after the 1984 disaster. Those initial claims were thrown out on grounds of forum non conveniens – a doctrine where the district court refused to take jurisdiction over the matter citing a more appropriate forum available to the parties.

In their complaint filed in 2004, plaintiffs Janki Bai Sahu et al, have said that UCC and its former CEO, Warren Anderson, should be held liable for their injuries on the grounds that they were “direct participants and joint tortfeasors in the activities that resulted in the pollution, that UCC worked in concert with UCIL to cause, exacerbate, or conceal the pollution and that UCIL acted as UCC’s alter ego, justifying piercing the corporate veil”.

Richard L Herz, Earth Rights International, co-counsel in the Sahu case, said, “The aim is to establish that UCC and Warren Anderson are liable for the pollution that has contaminated the plaintiffs' drinking water and that of thousands of their neighbors.”

At present, UCC maintains that the company cannot be held liable for the actions of the Indian subsidiary. “By requirement of the Government of India, the Bhopal plant was detail designed, owned, operated and managed on a day-to-day basis by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) and its employees,” Tomm F. Sprick, Director, Union Carbide Information Center said in an email. The company has chosen to “recharacterize 20 years of its association with UCIL, as a period of minimum involvement,” H. Rajan Sharma and lead counsel in the Sahu litigation said.

Plaintiff lawyer, Mr Herz cited company documents dating back to 1973 demonstrating UCC’s involvement with the Indian subsidiary. “UCC was intimately involved in all aspects of the Indian operation that caused the pollution that continues to contaminate drinking water in Bhopal. It transferred technology that was inadequate, approved plans for design of the plant and participated in the creation of the toxic landfill that ultimately failed,” he said.

The journey of these cases through U.S. legal system has gone on for the better part of this decade, but it is imperative for the Indian government to act immediately. On June 24th 2008, the Indian government communicated to the district court that they would cooperate with any clean up by the UCC. “But that has not proven to be sufficient,” Mr Sharma said.

In the past, the District Court which is the lower court, was of the opinion that a US court may have trouble issuing a binding enforcement for an environmental clean up in another country, because the court believed this could interfere with the sovereignty. “Although the Plaintiffs do not believe that such concern is warranted, for this reason, the Union of India’s participation has been sought in the action,” Matthew K. Handley, Attorney, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC said.

In light of the recent judgment in India, the government must take concrete steps to address the issue. There are fundamental reasons for doing so. “For example, the government should intervene in the New York litigation based on the fact that it owns the land on which the Bhopal plant is located and which is now badly polluted,” Mr Sharma added.

Notwithstanding yet another attempt by the reconstituted Group of Ministers (GoM) on Bhopal, the Government of India should now be a “party” to the cases currently in litigation in the U.S. to push for faster resolution. Not holding UCC liable would mean that the Indian government will have to pay up to clean the site. And that essentially means the Indian taxpayer. Further, it would amount to giving a public subsidy to a company that allegedly perpetrated one of the worst industrial disasters in the world.

Further, UCC, now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, may be held liable under a principle known as piercing the corporate veil. In the past, the district court has said that there was no evidence that UCC was directly responsible for the actions occurring in Bhopal. Usually a corporation is solely responsible for its liabilities. But under exceptional circumstances, the corporation may be held responsible for the liabilities of its shareholders and directors and in this case a subsidiary, thus piercing the corporate veil.

So how critical is it to pierce the corporate veil in this case? “While piercing UCIL’s corporate veil is one of our claims, it is only an alternate approach. We believe that UCC was directly involved in the operations of UCIL and had oversight over implementation, cleanup and training at UCIL. Even if this were not the case, however, UCC’s domination of UCIL should give rise to a piercing of the corporate veil claim and will make UCC liable for its Indian operations,” Handley said.

Besides, unlike before, ‘forum non conveniens’ can no longer be an escape route. Actions of the company are under the jurisdiction of the District Court since UCC was incorporated in the state of New York. Also, UCC has been criminally indicted in India and will never suggest that the case be moved to India. United States District judge J.F. Keenan presided over the case in the 1980s when the case was sent to India on the grounds of forum non conveniens. He said that the court was convinced that the Indian legal system was in a far better position than the American courts to determine the cause of the tragic event and thereby fix liability. He continues to preside over the on-going cases at the District Court now. This district court is an influential one, under its jurisdiction are the major financial centers of New York. Usually, a publicly traded company whose shares are traded on NYSE falls under the jurisdiction of this district court.

When asked to comment on the cases that are in progress, Sprick of UCC said, “Neither Union Carbide nor it attorneys will discuss matters currently in litigation. This was in response to an email query sent to defendant lawyer William A Krohley, partner at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP.

At present, plaintiff lawyers have been allowed limited discovery but have not been allowed to conduct depositions or interrogations. Reaching the jury trial stage in the case is at least two years away at the earliest. This is assuming plaintiffs are successful. (See time-line). If the verdict of the jury trial at the District Court is in favor of the plaintiffs, UCC can choose to appeal against the verdict at the appellate court. But UCC will then have one final opportunity.

Appeals from the Southern District of New York are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, an appellate court. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It appears the appellate court has, in the past, largely agreed with the stance of the plaintiffs and believes they have a valid claim. The final word will be of the appellate court. Amen.

EoM

A version of this story was carried in the Financial Express, India.

This was originally filed in July this year in New York. I loved the fact that I could access all court documents simply by showing my NYU student card. This is impossible in India.

Here is an update in late September 2010 from Law.com: Court was unconvinced about the principle of piercing the corporate veil. The New York Law Journal also reported that papers revealing UCC's general knowledge of UCIL's operations were too insufficient to show that UCC worked in concert with UCIL.

Foreigners can't file human rights suits in America?

2010-12-04T07:11:00.003-05:00

In a major setback for people queuing up at American courts to seek justice, denied in their own home countries, one American court ruled that businesses may not be held liable for their actions overseas.

Here is an October article in The Economist on Alien Tort Claims Act. The second circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled on September 17th that corporations could not be held liable under the Alien Tort Claims Act for breaches of international law abroad.

The article is optimistic, that if not America, another country will take up the "baton" as it were.

Predictably businesses will be relieved. In fact Dow Chemicals used this measure to throw out the Bhopal claims in the past. But plaintiffs in the Bhopal case, are now using another approach. More on that, soon. (Clearly it is more complicated because Dow is incorporated in the U.S. and the problem has political-diplomatic dimensions.)

The revolution will be tweeted

2010-12-04T06:48:00.003-05:00

You would have already read this near-scathing take on Twitter by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker on how the Revolution will not be tweeted. I agree to many of the points he makes on the exaggerated successes of twitter, but it comes off as a very old media argument. I mean, wake up and smell the technology.

The Indian media is in the midst of a super denial: caught on tape some journalists are "heard" "prostrating" to accommodate powerful corporate interests. Predictably, this was blacked out in the mainstream media - one cannot distinguish one newspaper from another - many media groups have blood on their hands. But few nondescript twitter-ers, many possibly not from the media at all, have kept the issue burning and alive.

This is, but just one example. Give it time. Microblogging will not change the world, but it may do so incrementally.

Disclosure: I am a self-confessed compulsive twitter-er, so I may not be completely objective about this.

Hari Kunzru on the privatization of public space

2010-12-04T06:02:00.002-05:00

This is super sensitive take on net neutrality, the use of language to produce identity, privately held networks of public space and the role of writers in all this.

Hari Kunzru's address at the European Writers Conference in Istanbul in November.

Excerpts:
"New technologies of communication and distribution of information have already changed the space in which we, as writers, live and work. The transnational networks are now the place in which we make our writing, where we research, where our work is archived and where we reach our readers. They are not, it goes without saying, a natural space, but one whose protocols and conventions are set – by engineers, by administrators, and by the companies who own the infrastructure and make the equipment we use to access it. It’s already the case that without access to the internet, people are denied participation in much of world culture. I think the production of this new space is too important to be left to engineers, administrators and corporate executives. We, as writers ought to help set the terms. Of those three groups, our natural allies are the engineers. We should be talking to them. What kind of information space do we, as writers, want to occupy? Where do we want to live and work? What values should be embedded in that space, what protections, what sanctions?

Issues such as net neutrality (the equality of all information traffic), censorship, data collection, personal privacy, and the lack of a persistent archive are of great importance to us. But there are two major tendencies emerging, both of which are having a profound impact."

India's environment minister - too much of an activist?

2010-12-04T04:51:00.002-05:00

Read a WSJ story on Jairam Ramesh. A politician doing his job!

Finally, corporates are made liable for the laws they have been skirting around for years. As of now the minister has blessings from the Congress leadership. God speed to him.

I would still be looking out for corporates wars and political slants in many of the licenses being revoked on environmental grounds. I think most journos like Jairam Ramesh.

Tech protests

2010-09-24T14:20:00.004-04:00

Flagging a story in the Economist on Technology and Protest. Digital activism in all its shades.

Clicktavism and how cross-border campaigning for causes is bringing people together.

The right to development

2010-09-13T10:35:00.001-04:00

So what you do think about this Indian Express edit?
Right on Rights?

Livemint: Public purpose redefined.

Is development a dirty word? Solution by the judiciary for a governance problem.

Here is a short piece I had written for one of my formal employers, a few years ago:

It is almost natural that policy-making in India is more often than not fraught with complications and contradictions. Why is the Argumentative Indian struggling to articulate, killing himself on expression rather than execution? To attribute this lack of coherence and clarity in policy-making to the sheer diversity in the country is in part explicable.

A scheming minority having vested interests, who claim to be articulating the concerns of a larger majority, is particularly stark in a developing country where nearly half the population is not even aware of their rights, let alone voicing them.

In a society as large as this, to organise a dialogue to arrive a decision based on consensus with the participation of all stakeholders concerned is clearly impossible. To get a rational dialogue flowing, driven by seemingly different and contradictory concerns is a dilemma that is perplexing.

In a milieu like India's where different stakeholders have access to policy-making, there is a tangible benefit of diversity of perspectives the stakeholders carry with them. But just too much time is spent on arriving at a minimum common ground which is necessary as a starting point for participatory policy making.

Further, when complex and controversial issues get engaged through a participatory approach involving stakeholders drawn from widely different backgrounds the process is even more difficult. But given the framework of the law and existing governance systems, little is done as opposed to what can really be done.

In India more so, adding to the confusion are stakeholders in policy-making who may refashion their interests and position them differently for short term gains contrary to the larger common good. In this politics of exclusion, arguments are apriori tuned out.

Formations of cliques in a diverse society is based on differing perceptions of 'value'. To arrive at the lowest common denominator or a representative value for a large group is still possible, despite various differences in cultural sensibilities and sensitivities. But just how much representation is required? And who regulates this representation?

The broader objective of achieving social equity is distant from where policy-makers actually sit and crystallize decisions affecting millions of people. Seldom can the costs of a democracy that a generation has to pay, is offset by the larger social equity met.

While there is no way to quantify the costs of a democracy, there is no shying away from the fact that the pace of growth is reduced while servicing the larger idea of equity. So what is the inflection point, where one has the authority to outweigh moving forward despite limited representation as against maintaining status quo and still not bringing stakeholders into the fold? No easy answers there.

Analyzing the death of a RTI activist

2010-09-06T05:58:00.003-04:00

Tehelka probes into the death of RTI activist Amit Jethwa who had filed a PIL against illegal mining near the Gir National Park area in Gujarat.

People like Amit are modern day martyrs, giving up their lives defending the right to know - denied by our very own countrymen. But RTI is a revolution that has been uncapped - never to be contained again.

On National Public Radio - for workers

2010-09-06T04:48:00.003-04:00

Stumbled on this nice clip from NPR Music on the eve of Labor Day in the U.S. Mostly music for workers in South America by artists from the region - but relevant world over. Trapped Chilean mine workers - this is for you.

Read a piece from the Guardian on the Chilean government questioning mine owners about the incident.

Protest against rising food prices in Mozambique

2010-09-06T04:32:00.002-04:00

Here is an AP story on police firing at a crowd that was protesting against rising food prices in Mozambique.

Have a look at this nice interactive graphic of the Financial Times laying out the recent spike in wheat prices.

Food prices and land grab - beginning of a war?

Sam Kalaynee - Thai journalist in Burma: Obit

2010-09-06T04:22:00.002-04:00

Obituary: Sam Kalayanee - an article in The Irrawaddy.

A rare light that shone over the opaque and difficult challenges for democracy that Burma faces.

Here is another link for Burma VJ on youtube - a film that Kalaynee co-produced. Any journalist who has held a camera and shot covertly can feel for the video reporter. The despondency and existential angst of this Burmese reporter, is a question that many of his tribe face the world over. Does it matter?

Hunger-striker dead - protested Chavez land nationalisation.

2010-09-06T04:12:00.002-04:00

Read a Reuter's report here on a Venezuelan hunger-striker who protested Hugo Chavez's land nationalization policies. This was compared to Orlando Zapata - a Cuban protestor who died earlier in the year.

Amendment in U.S. finance bill - disclose conflict minerals

2010-08-31T03:59:00.003-04:00

An editorial comment in the Financial Times recently, talked about conflict minerals

It is a first step. One hopes consumers and companies will become more sensitive about participating in a supply chain that ends with blood.

Maoist leader on mining practices

2010-08-31T03:46:00.002-04:00

Open Magazine has carried a piece by Kobad Ghandy on illegal mining practices and its implications for development.

Banks take a harder look at environmentally destructive borrowers?

2010-08-31T03:17:00.004-04:00

Here is a New York Times story on banks reviewing lending standards for companies involved in environmentally unfriendly activities.

But it may not affect companies in question, because I surmise, they are big enough to access capital on their own. Unless, capital really becomes constrained enough to stop financing of such projects.

An excerpt from the story - that highlights organizations working in this area:
"The Rainforest Action Network, which has headed a campaign to highlight financial institutions with connections to the mining, said this month that the policy shifts were chipping away at the financing."

Quid pro quo for Bhopal continues

2010-08-30T04:31:00.002-04:00

Check out a WSJ blog post on a leaked email between US and Indian authorities.
In the email, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Michael Froman, tries to negotiate terms of Dow Chemicals by suggesting a chilling effect on investment relationship between the two countries.

Land acquisition and the politics for the tribal vote

2010-08-30T04:02:00.003-04:00

The Politics of Land: Indian Express on the Land Acquisition Act

Also read a good edit by Seema Chisti is in the same publication. Another Avatar - a commentary on what the Congress hopes to get having Rahul Gandhi as a soldier for the tribals in New Delhi. The problem of singling out a specific mining project as opposed to having holistic policies for tribals and illegal mining.

Safety Award for Vedanta withdrawn

2010-08-30T03:52:00.002-04:00

More bad news for mining giant: Financial Times has reported --
Vedanta safety award is withdrawn

The British Safety Council has withdrawn a safety award, based on an accident in Korba that killed 41 construction workers. Vedanta's subsidiary Sterlite industries holds a majority stake in Bharat Aluminium Company (BALCO).

Indian Tribe Defeats British Giant: CNN

2010-08-29T05:35:00.002-04:00

Indian Express: Orissa’s unobtainium

Suddenly, it appears mainstream media is possessed by the possibilities of tribal protest. Earlier, a remote probability, now a reality. The press in India is awash with this development.

South Africa defends Neo-Colonialist China?

2010-08-25T06:09:00.003-04:00

Check out this FT story here: Pretoria defends China’s Africa policy.
Excerpts:
"China has many supporters in Africa, particularly among ruling elites who often benefit personally from its allocation aid and investment without attaching conditions.

But Beijing also has many African critics, and Chinese companies and workers have been targets of animosity and violence in places such as Algeria, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, where they have a growing presence."

The story also cited South African data - the country's $6.57bn in exports to China last year were mostly natural resources while its $9.45bn of imports from China were value-added manufactured goods.

Follow the money....

Indian govt. blocks Vedanta's mining plan

2010-08-25T05:55:00.004-04:00

In a great victory for dissenting voices of tribals and environmentalists - the Indian government - Jairam Ramesh- minister for environment has ordered for suspension of Vedanta's plan to mine bauxite in Orissa, has also questioned an existing plant. It is alleged that the company has violated several forests related acts.

There is hope!

Indian Express carried another story that the government views the POSCO investment, also in Orissa as strategic.

Keshub Mahindra re-elected to M&M board

2010-08-03T10:12:00.003-04:00

Jesus! Mahindra & Mahindra re-elects Keshub Mahindra - former non-executive chairman of Union Carbide’s Indian subsidiary. He was the most senior executive to be convicted of negligence in a court ruling over the Bhopal disaster.

Here is a quote of from the FT story:
Salman Khurshid, the minister of corporate affairs, has been drawing up new legislation to update the 1956 Companies Act to strengthen the role of non-executive directors in companies...Mr Khurshid has described Mr Mahindra’s decision to remain chairman as reflecting a well-considered “legal consultative process” and has warned against any hasty government intervention.

Where does the buck stop?

BP oil spill confirmed as ‘world’s worst’ - FT

2010-08-03T10:01:00.002-04:00

BP oil spill confirmed as ‘world’s worst’ -
Can we trust these estimates ? Size of penalties may go up, this FT story says.

The Rising Power of China's Workers

2010-07-31T12:39:00.002-04:00

Flagging the new cover story of the Economist.

Vedanta and its business in Orissa

2010-07-23T16:45:00.002-04:00

I guess, not surprisingly, Vedanta has been found wanting in its attitude towards tribals in Orissa.

Here is a story in The Hindu - that talks about Amnesty International's report that the government and Vedanta had failed to protect tribals from health hazards of mining.

Another story in the Business Standard, about tribals protesting violation of forest rights to the National Advisory Council and the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Tribal Welfare Vs Mining Company Profits

2010-07-22T15:46:00.000-04:00

A slightly dated story on mining in Orissa and the larger issue of land acquisition in the country. A good story with lots of figures - one that keeps the big picture in mind. Businessweek - What's holding India Back.

Resource nationalism, economic sovereignity, role of a welfare state - highly complicated issues with no simple answers.

Child Labor and the Bt-Cotton Boom

2010-07-22T15:34:00.001-04:00

I love telling this story. When I began as a journalist six years ago, I was never allowed to cover pharma at this business newspaper in Delhi, because my editor thought I was biased against Monsanto. During the interview, I told him how business newspapers should write about Monsanto's experiments with GM crops in India.

Well, here is a story that as far as I know - draws attention for the first time - a link between child labor in Rajasthan and the Bt-cotton boom. I am not so sure about sourcing in this Hindustan Times story - but nevertheless it is a first.

Minimum wage in Hong Kong and NREG in India

2010-07-22T15:08:00.000-04:00

This article in The Economist calls a minimum wage battle in Hong Kong - The end of an experiment - departure from the "swash-buckling, free-market ways" of HK. Figures in the story allege that unemployment will go up with an increase in minimum wage. It goes on to say that because Hong Kong is getting more regulated, it may become less prosperous! Sounds familiar?!

Here is in some ways, a similar prescription from the editorial pages of the Financial Express. Minimum wages is not the answer - skills development is. Fair enough.
Excerpts from this argument in FE:
A 100-day job under NREG violates more than 37 labour laws: minimum wages, contract labour, ESI, EPFO, etc. So the government—unlike Left parties and trade unions—seems to recognise that the good is not the enemy of the great and a job is better than no job. But any state intervention programme in labour markets that ignores the issue of labour law reform ignores the very real costs of our current regime; unorganised employment, capital substitution and corruption. The labour law issue is important to the poverty and skill issue because it is very difficult—if not impossible—to sustain third party financing of skill development unless it leads to organised employment.

Ethical Sourcing

2010-07-22T14:51:00.000-04:00

A Newsweek story on ethical sourcing links potential supply chain issues of tech companies to war ravaged mines of Africa - Congo in particular. There is talk about certified trading chains for international companies. I guess when such deals become a part of trading agreements between countries, some of these issues can be addressed.

Part of a quote from the story:
David Sullivan, policy manager for Enough Project, “We [have] yet to see a smoking gun from a conflict mine to a major electronics brand, but the companies are fairly upfront about the fact there’s no mechanism in place to ensure these minerals are not seeping into their supply chains.”

WB loan for Tehri doubtful?

2010-07-15T16:50:00.000-04:00

Any one who has visted the Tehri site will be astounded at the scale of operations -after all India's largest hydropower project. For years people have been protesting about the ecological disaster that this has created / can inflict, in addition to the arbitrary displacement of local communities that happens ever so often in India today.

It turns out that the World Bank (!) is now concerned about all the environmental implication the projects has had / can have, before it approves a $600 million loan. Here is a story by Mint - Tehri hydel project under scrutiny.

TIME has a photoessay here - Holy Water - Controversy on the Ganges. and a story - How India's Success Is Killing Its Holy River

Read Sunita Narain's article on the larger issue of water crisis in India.

Gag order in Kashmir

2010-07-15T16:41:00.000-04:00

Contesting the gag order in Kashmir.

I tweeted about this, but for the record on Resistance Recorded - here is a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The rage in Kashmir: FT.
This part of the story sounds straight from a film, too bizarre. Excerpts:

"Jameela Akhtar, a Kashmiri housewife, sent her teenage son, Ishtiyaq, to a bakery in their middle-class Anantnag neighbourhood to buy bread. It proved to be a fatal errand. A kilometre away, teenagers were hurling stones at police on the national highway, part of an upsurge of violent clashes pitting frustrated local youth against the might of Indian security forces across Kashmir.

It is unclear whether Ishtiyaq, 15, joined the agitation or was simply caught in the chaos. But police – chasing protesters through the narrow, twisting alleys of the residential colony – pursued him home, then shot him in his courtyard, where he died in front of his family. A friend and a bakery employee were also shot and killed on the spot.

...The story goes on with a quote:
His older cousin, Asif Khandey, an engineer, asks: “How is it possible that they would have shot three people at point blank range? Is this justice? Is this India? Is this democracy?”

--

Defending - Crude - The Film!

2010-07-15T16:39:00.000-04:00

A federal appeals judge in New York heard arguments this week on an important First Amendment case. Documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger is fighting Big Oil Chevron – for his film called Crude. The company has demanded 600 hours of the fimmaker’s footage.

Read a Fortune story The media vs. Chevron: Bring it on.
Also an interesting argument of whether documentary filmmakers should be protected under a journalist’s privilege.

Here is an update on this week’s hearing brought to you by Courthouse News Service.

Ban on iron ore in India?

2010-07-15T16:26:00.000-04:00

A potential resource crunch? The Indian government is doing some serious thinking about giving away raw materials for steel mills in China and elsewhere. Interesting. Hope the establishment will also spare a thought or two for the people who are routinely displaced from mines.

Here is the FT story: India seeks ban on iron exports, by James Lamont in New Delhi. July 13, 2010.

Also, check out this link for the organization that has been fighting for the rights of people on mineral resoruces. Mines, Minerals and People.

Former UCC lawyer regrets in hindsight.

2010-07-09T14:06:00.000-04:00

Fali S Nariman on his role as a counsel for UCC in the Bhopal case.

Minutes of the meeting of GoM on Bhopal

2010-07-08T16:55:00.000-04:00

Fantastic: Down To Earth publishes “Secret” minutes of the meeting of the Group of Ministers on Bhopal.

The fashion industry and garment workers in Bangladesh

2010-07-07T15:59:00.001-04:00

Here is a great piece of reporting by Jacob Resneck in The Caravan - an Indian magazine.

Read the story of garment workers in Bangladesh susceptible to lung diseases, even as multinationals exert a downward pressure on prices to appease Western consumers.
A disclosure: I do buy stuff from H&M. Just as one would expect people to keep buying Apple products inspite of labor violations by its subcontractors in China.

This set me thinking when I was in school last year. Based on Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational, we were asked to design an experiment that would bring out signs of irrational behaviour in consumers.

Here is what I found:

Two friends of mine, who hold diametrically opposing views on the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, set me thinking when I designed this experiment. While both my friends are Indians, one is of Jewish origin and the other is Muslim. (My Muslim friend claims that he has nuanced opinion about Israel.) Both of them are not exactly comfortable with each other. I think this was strange because here are two Indians who disagreed strongly with each other about the resolution of a conflict thousands of miles away, but one, both felt passionately about. My Muslim friend does have a dislike to a few things from Israel and my Jewish friend is highly intolerant of anything from the Arab world. My belief is that the world is more liberal than it appears, notwithstanding reconstructed wars over civilizations. In an age of free trade or economic imperialism as some would say, I wanted to know if politically conscious consumers, would base their purchasing decisions on where and how a product is made.

My experiment examined whether ethnicity could impact decision making. I spoke to 25 people, from 15 countries and various ethnic groups. Many of them were students at New York University and almost everyone was widely traveled. Although studies have shown that it has been difficult to establish a correlation between ethnicity and economics, partly because people want to sound politically correct and more because, the world has indeed become more accommodating of various ethnic groups; I wanted to explore this area.

I just had three basic questions for my respondents. The first one was if they would be willing to pick up a conversation amongst people from diverse ethnic backgrounds that they were unfamiliar with. This was just to test how open and comfortable they were in a new environment and whether they were guided by stereotypes that may be deep-rooted or sub-conscious. Nearly 40% of the respondents said that they would be hesitant and cautious while trusting and talking to people whose ethnicity they were unfamiliar with. One interesting response was from a South Asian who said he would be generally distrustful of the western world (North America and Europe) and more comfortable everywhere else!

The next question was whether they would buy products from any country without exception. While most were curious about trying out new products from various countries, some would be cautious. There were two parts to this question – whether they were neutral to buying products from anywhere in the world and second whether they cared very much about potential violations that the production entailed. Exactly half of the respondents would be driven by the rational decision of judging the product on the quality alone and not its label. The other half, said they would be cautious or had preference for goods from Italy or China. It also emerged in this experiment that the Swiss and the Italians may boycott Mozzarella cheese, if they knew it was made in India. Not surprising because, 70% of the world's buffalo population lives in India (on the roads mostly). Many would walk into a seemingly international store, looking to pick up a label from Europe when in fact they would be surprised to see the 'Made in Madagascar/Bangladesh' label. Would they drop it then? Some said they would.

The second part of the question was whether as a customer they would be bothered about the grounds on which a product was made? If the production meant brazen exploitation of labor common in some countries or regions were specific minorities were underpaid, economic processes that used child labor, would it have affected their decision? This time, 40% of the respondents were driven by the quality of the product and nothing else. The rest 50% said it would affect their decision while buying the product even if it was a trusted brand and priced attractively. Less than 10% of the respondents said they should base their decision on such factors but had not yet thought about it deeply. One respondent said that unless she worked under such exploitative conditions she would not know whether she would stop buying such products. One Japanese respondent said that she has stopped dreaming about buying diamonds after watching Blood Diamond. Another customer – a vegetarian said that while buying cosmetics she would be vary of its contents that may violate her religious affiliation.

My third question was if ethnicity had any impact on economic status. Only 12% of the respondents felt that ethnicity has no impact on economic status. The rest were of the view that belonging to a certain ethnic group could work both ways. Majority felt that in reality, although it is only hard work that determines success but glass ceilings existed in most countries.

The inferences I draw from this experiment is that, typically a ‘rational’ consumer weighs his choices based on quality and price, but he could make his decisions based on emotional factors otherwise considered irrational. He could be concerned about the mode of production or origin of production; even as his needs a consumer was being met. I think, going forward, as people begin to travel a lot more and become aware of the schisms dividing the world, this will undoubtedly have an impact on businesses. My hunch is companies can no longer view their markets across the world as silos that have nothing to do with each other. They will have to keep in mind consumer preferences for the group as a whole – their actions in one part of the world may impact businesses in another.

Ethical investing and BP

2010-07-06T10:59:00.000-04:00

FELIX SALMON: ReutersThe ethics of owning BP stock
Jul 5, 2010 23:27 EDT
ethics | stocks

Value investor Whitney Tilson is long BP, and answered my ethics question in a Q&A sent to his investors:

Q: Regardless of how cheap BP’s stock is, is it immoral to try to profit from owning it, in light of the company’s bad behavior?

A: As noted earlier, BP appears to have an atrocious safety record. In owning the stock, we are not endorsing its behavior, either before or after the Deepwater Horizon accident. But as value investors, we sometimes have to hold our noses when we invest because the cheapest stocks are often the ones of companies that have behaved badly or are otherwise tainted. Example include McDonald’s, which many believe bears responsibility for the obesity epidemic in this country (see Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me), and Goldman Sachs, which many blame for the global financial crisis (see The Great American Bubble Machine).

That said, we would have a problem owning stock in a company if we believed that its core business harmed people – most subprime lenders at the peak of the housing bubble, certain multi-level marketing firms and tobacco companies come to mind. BP certainly doesn’t fall into this category.

As for BP’s safety record, we don’t defend it, but we don’t think BP is deliberately blowing up its own rigs and refineries and killing its employees. If an email emerged that the CEO or board of BP were warned that the Deepwater Horizon rig was likely to explode and failed to act, we would certainly rethink the morality of holding the stock.

I don’t find this answer compelling at all. First is the language in which Tilson talks about his comparables, McDonald’s and Goldman Sachs. He writes about what “many believe” and what “many blame”, and cites the most shrill and stringent critics in both cases. Being a contrarian value investor is all about making your own mind up, and what’s germane here is what (and whether) the investor thinks about the ethics of the investment, rather than what someone like Morgan Spurlock or Matt Taibbi thinks.

Tilson then says there are companies he’d have a problem investing in, if they make harmful products. That seems to imply that it’s worth taking a serious look at the ethics of owning stock in BP. But his conclusion is trite, setting up a straw man of BP deliberately killing its employees, and saying that he’d only have a serious ethical problem with BP if it knew the explosion was likely.

Note the definite article here: Tilson is saying that he’d only have qualms if BP knew this particular explosion was likely. But the ethical case against BP is that it acted with reckless indifference towards safety standards in general, that it cut corners knowing that doing so increased the likelihood of disaster, and that it should have known that an explosion was likely, at some point, and that the chances of this explosion happening at a BP rig were significantly higher than the equivalent probability at other big oil companies.

This has important implications for the stock, of course. BP has thousands of oil rigs; the chances of one of them exploding are not much smaller today than they were a few months ago. The clean-up and other costs associated with the Deepwater Horizon are one thing, but how much will BP be forced to spend on upgrading the safety systems at all of its other rigs, now? We’ve learned our lesson, and surely all want to ensure that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. But we’ve barely started to think about what that kind of root-and-branch revamp of BP’s physical and managerial safety systems might cost, both in terms of cash and in terms of opportunity cost. I’d be interested in what Paul O’Neill thinks — before he was Treasury secretary, he did amazing things for Alcoa’s safety record. If Tony Hayward’s successor wants to do something similar, it won’t be easy, and it won’t be cheap.

p.s. Salmon is a blogger I totally admire(I flout rules of blogging here, but make an exception of reproducing his entire post here. Forgive me.)

Anti-oil spill legislations and senators who received funding from Big Oil

2010-07-04T16:33:00.000-04:00

MAPLIGHT.ORG:
BERKELEY, CA, July 2, 2010 - As oil continues to spill into the Gulf of Mexico legislators in both parties have been quick to respond with legislation. A number of bills have been introduced, some specifically targeting the crisis, and others with an eye toward preventing future problems. The main question to be addressed is how much BP and big oil (generally) will pay for the oil spill, now and in the future.

By examining campaign contributions MAPLight.org researchers revealed that of legislators sponsoring post spill oil bills the ones who have received the most money from big oil are championing bills that go lightest on the industry.

Republicans have drawn about 70% of big oil money this election cycle and while many Democrats rely on big oil as a major source of campaign funding, the ones sponsoring recent oil bills are not among them.

Which one of these bills, if any, will show how much influence big oil has over the 111th Congress?

A Closer Look at Oil Bills in Congress

In the House of Representatives, seven bills addressing the question of who is financially liable for the spill have been presented. The Democrats brought five, all from representatives who have received relatively little money from oil companies in the last election cycle, and two came from Republicans who have taken in significant oil money in the last two years.

Bill Cassidy, Republican from Louisiana, received $61,100 from oil companies over the last two years, the 38th highest recipient of funds of the House’s 435 members. He sponsored a bill, H. Res. 1374, that would devote all revenue from the oil excise tax toward the Deepwater spill cleanup. This bill would offer significant federal funds to help offset BP’s tab. Cassidy also co-sponsored a bill that would end the moratorium on offshore drilling.

The other Republican bill, H.R. 5356: Oil Spill Response and Assistance Act, is sponsored by Roy Blunt (R-MO), who places third among the GOP and fourth overall in oil money received with $165,850 (incidentally the top Republican recipient is Joe Barton, who apologized to BP for the Obama administration giving it a “shakedown”). Blunt's bill addresses the liability limit on oil spills imposed by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which caps an oil company’s liability for a spill at $75 million. Blunt’s bill would raise the limit to the higher of $150 million or the sum of the offending company's after-tax profits on its previous four reporting quarters. BP's net income from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010 was $20 billion.

New Jersey Democrat Rush Holt sponsored a companion bill, H.R. 5214: Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act of 2010, to one in the Senate, which would raise the liability limit to $10 billion plus the cost of cleanup. Far more than Blunt’s $150 million or 1 year of profits, but perhaps the most lenient of the Democrats’ bills.

To date, Holt's bill has attracted 82 co-sponsors (one Republican and 81 Democrats), a sign that it has a good chance of moving forward. Raul Grijalva’s (D-AZ) bill, H.R. 5355: To amend the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to repeal the limitation of liability..., would remove the liability limit entirely. A resolution, H.Con.Res.280,brought forward by Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) expresses the sentiment that BP should reimburse the federal government for all costs associated with the spill. Steve Kagen’s (D-WI) bill, H.R. 5520: Oil Spill Responsibility Act of 2010, would require BP to pay reparations to people affected by the spill, and a bill, H.R. 5513: Spilled Oil Royalty Collection Act, by Chellie Pingree (D-ME) would place a 12.5% royalty on oil removed (or spilled) from the Outer Continental Shelf (which includes the Gulf of Mexico), and apply it retroactively before the spill. Of these five Democrats, Kagen received the most oil money, $6,400, 231st among House members, and less than 1% of his fundraising total for this cycle.

Of the bills introduced in the last two months none have moved to the floor for a vote. The answer to how much BP and big oil will ultimate pay for the oil spill will play out in the coming months and will be a test of big oil’s influence on Congress.

Methodology: Campaign contributions shown for the last two years of available data, May 6, 2008 - May 5, 2010, including contributions to presidential campaigns. Contributions data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org).

MAPLight.org research intern Owen Poindexter contributed to this story.

Editors note: If you are interested in receiving blog posts from MAPLight.org's research department via RSS feed click here.

About MAPLight.org:
MAPLight.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization based in Berkeley, California. Its mission is to illuminate the connection between Money and Politics (MAP) using our groundbreaking database of campaign contributions and legislative votes. MAPLight.org combines data from the Federal Election Commission, the Center for Responsive Politics, GovTrack.us, the National Institute on Money in State Politics (NIMSP), the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission and other sources to better inform Americans and local and national media about the role of special-interest money in our political system. Hundreds of newspapers, TV stations, radio shows and online news sites have cited MAPLight.org's research, including CNN, the public radio show Marketplace, Harper's, The Washington Post, and Reuters.

MAPLight.org has received numerous awards including a Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism; a James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter and a Webby nomination for best Politics website. To learn more, please visit: MAPLight.org.

Fighting for a wage hike

2010-06-13T19:38:00.000-04:00

Was it a 20 year-old who negotiated a wage hike in China?
Read a good FT story here: China: Strike force - By Tom Mitchell

Howl!

2010-04-06T19:04:00.000-04:00

Chevron PR

2010-01-25T15:27:00.000-05:00

Forgot to post an interesting FT story on Chevron's PR. in Ecuador's rainforest.

New rules for companies for mining in Tribal areas in India?

2010-01-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

Private companies face mining ban in tribal areas - story by former colleague Subhash Narayan from The Economic Times, Delhi.

Also read: The real solution for Naxalism

Google and human rights: with a quote from Hillary Clinton

2010-01-13T10:35:00.000-05:00

Google Threat to Exit Jolts China's Internet

This is a good step. But am sceptical till Google actually pulls out.

Also: ET's Vikram Doctor on Google's threat to China is an opportunity for India

High time....

2009-12-17T09:47:00.000-05:00

Getting business to care about civil rights

This is Sudeep Chakravarti's column in Mint.
He lists pointers for businesses as listed out by London's Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB)

Here they are: (excerpts from his column)

• Clarifying responsibilities “beyond borders”. IHRB says “pressure is mounting to lift the corporate veil”.

• Establishing universal criteria for operating in conflict zones. This will prove useful to control both violations of human rights by governments, and the contribution of business to wilfully, or inadvertently, add to, or perpetuate, violations.

• Developing standards for human rights due diligence.

• Protecting migrant workers—in global and local situations.

• Using corporate law to strengthen respect for human rights.

• “Addressing challenges relating to land acquisition and use.” This goes beyond the concept of Eminent Domain to “clearer understandings and good practices around principles such as free, prior and informed consent/consultation”.

China's south-north water diversion project

2009-12-17T09:22:00.000-05:00

A blast from the past
By Jamil Anderlini
December 15 2009, Financial Times.

Here is a great story about the biggest construction project in China executed by The Party's top brass most of whom are engineers. It also talks about the rising discontent among the rural poor and the potential for rebellion. It beats me how thousands of people can be displaced to make way for an artificial snow park for the elite.

India had a similar bizarre project for diversion of rivers. Somehow sense prevailed on whoever it was in the water resources ministry. The plan has hopefully been shelved forever.

Power of a journo

2009-12-16T12:22:00.001-05:00

I had the opportunity to speak with award-winning Philipino journalist Sheila S. Coronel about investigative reporting.

Read her interview here. This was a part of NYU's new media website.
Also: The Power of One

Investigative journalism in the future

2009-12-15T09:28:00.000-05:00

These are a bunch of stories I have been working on for NYU's new website: NewzBeta.

The Color of Money: Non-profit journalism

Investigative journalists turn media entrepreneurs

The future of investigative reporting

What's brewing in Iran?

2009-12-12T23:12:00.000-05:00

Iran: The enemy within
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr and Roula Khalaf
Financial Times, December 11 2009

This article examines how the tide of protest has gone beyond Ahmadi-Nejad and is turning against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – the Islamic Republic’s highest authority.

For the cause of judicial accountability

2009-12-11T09:19:00.000-05:00

The following is a copy of the affidavit filed by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan in the contempt of court matter against him in the Supreme Court of India. He spoke out about judicial corruption and was slapped charges of contempt of court.

For The Record: Published in Outlook India
'My Honest And Bonafide Perception'

Poverty fuelling insurgency in India

2009-12-11T09:11:00.000-05:00

Low rural poor count key to Maoist wave?

This Mint story links poverty is six states in India to Maoist insurgency in the region. The govt. of India knows that without addressing poverty and social sector spending in these areas, it cannot control Maoists and tribals.

Dangers of an ad-hoc foreign investment policy.

2009-12-11T08:36:00.000-05:00

Foreign investment & Bhopal tragedy

Editorial by Manoj Pant, The Economic Times.

Here's an excerpt:

From the point of view of foreign investment, the first thing to remember is that in 1985 we were just opening up to foreign investment. At that time the foreign investment policy was largely ad hoc and guided by considerations of encouraging technology rather than equity flows. A well-defined policy only came in the industrial policy of 1993. The rather hasty attempts by the government in the ’80s to decide a compensation package and keep out the ‘ambulance chasers’ was probably guided by concerns of the impact on foreign investment. So keep the regulatory system weak. But is that wise?

The fact is that a weak regulatory system does not encourage foreign investment. Foreign investment is guided more by the transparency, clarity and certainty of a policy. This is why the US is still the primary destination of foreign investment. A weak regulatory environment only encourages what we now call ‘footlose’ investment: one that is guided by short-run considerations. The government response to the Bhopal tragedy may well have been the typical response of a developing nation to a big TNC. But it did nothing to encourage foreign investment.

Pulling a fast one.

2009-12-10T20:21:00.001-05:00

A Politician Goes Hungry To Redraw India's Map New York Times

Green Politics

2009-12-10T20:11:00.000-05:00

Journal stories:

Business Fumes Over EPA Rule

An Inconvenient Democracy

I'd be wary of this:

2009-12-06T08:34:00.000-05:00

China and World Bank in talks to establish industrial zones in Africa

India's internal intolerance

2009-12-05T09:39:00.000-05:00

Migrant workers’ protest turns violent, curfew in Ludhiana, Punjab. Indian Express. (This time, not in Thackeray's Bombay)

Indians are increasingly becoming intolerant of poor migrants. The country is no where close to become accommodating towards immigrants. So much for a 21st century emerging economy.

Land rights in Africa

2009-12-04T12:07:00.000-05:00

Land Grab and Africa.
This short video was made for New York University. Special thanks to Dr Hamid Rashid, United Nations.

The Invisible Population

2009-12-04T12:02:00.000-05:00

My slide show on the working class in New York City.

Music courtesy: Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring
From the album 6- And 12-String Guitar
By: Leo Kottke
Amazon Digital Services, Inc

Globalized crackdown

2009-12-03T20:04:00.000-05:00

Courtesy Pic: International Freedom of Expression eXchange

Journal article on how technology is helping the Iranian government to crackdown of Iranians outside Iran.

Iranian Crackdown Goes Global

This is precisely what the people who had featured in my video on Iran protests in NYC in September feared.

Excerpts from the story:
The post-election violence has turned Iran's relationship with overseas Iranians on its head. Previously, Iran generally enjoyed good relations with its diaspora. Most opposition movements were on the fringe -- for instance, royalists calling for the shah's return. But the violent suppression of street protests "showed people the true nature of Iran's regime," says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

There are approximately four million Iranians abroad. The U.S. is home to the largest number, totaling at least several hundred thousand. They rank among the nation's best educated and most affluent immigrant groups.

To cut communication between Iranians inside and outside the country, Iran slowed Internet speeds so that accessing an online email account could take close to a half-hour. It blocked access to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. For a while, an automated message warned people making international phone calls not to give information to outsiders.

Tracking Internet crimes -- from political dissent to pornography -- has long been a priority of the regime. Iran's local media openly report on Internet-monitoring centers inside the country's judiciary and armed forces that are staffed with English-speaking, tech-savvy young people.

Bhopal Gas Tragedy

2009-12-03T19:57:00.000-05:00

Also read: Suketu Mehta in NYT
A Cloud Still Hangs Over Bhopal

Here's a brilliant piece but slightly dated now:
Warren Anderson’s silence: tracking down the man who presided over Bhopal
Kirk Nielsen, The Progressive Magazine, May 2006 Issue

Update: The great Bhopal whitewash
Business Standard, Dec 7

Bhopal 25 years on: Trapped in a wasteland
3 Dec 2009, The Economic Times, New Delhi
By Praveen S Thampi

BHOPAL: Shahnawaz Khan hasn’t heard of Dennis Kucinich. And it’s highly unlikely that the US Congressman — a candidate for the Democratic
nomination for President in the 2004 and 2008 elections — would have come across the name of the Bhopal lawyer. But together, they represent the story of this city, 25 years after the biggest industrial disaster in history.

In 1983, almost a year before Tank Number 610 at the Union Carbide factory leaked, spitting out 42 tonnes of the lethal methyl isocyanate into the air, Khan sent a legal notice to the management asking them to install fool-proof safety measures at the unit. “It had become impossible to sit in my office, which was just across the plant. My eyes would start burning, and the skin would constantly itch,” says Khan, now 58, and still practising in Bhopal.

On April 29, 1983, Union Carbide works manager J Mukund sent a reply to Khan, threatening legal action “to be defended at your risk and cost”.

On December 3, 1984, the disaster struck, killing thousands instantly, and compromising the health of a generation. The legal war that started afterwards to punish the culprits, compensate the victims, and remediate the environment has now taken a life of its own. Cases are still pending — from the courtroom of the Bhopal’s chief judicial magistrate to the Supreme Court to the US District Court in Manhattan.

In the latest, 24 US Congressmen, including Mr Kucinich, have written to Dow Chemicals — which later acquired the Union Carbide Corporation — asking the firm to heed the “polluter pays” principle and meet the demands of the survivors for medical and economic rehabilitation, besides cleaning up the ground water near the factory premises.

“Although Dow Chemicals set aside $2.2 billion in 2002 towards Union Carbide’s pending liabilities in the US, it has continued to evade the liabilities it inherited from Bhopal,” says the letter urging Dow to represent itself in the numerous court cases still pending in India.

Back in Bhopal, Abdul Jabbar Khan of the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sansthan (BGPMUS) says it’s all about the social value of the victim. “If you are poor, then you better learn to live with it,” says Mr Jabbar, whose organisation imparts vocational training to gas-affected women, besides fighting their legal battles.

To this day, Dow maintains that Bhopal is a closed matter for the company post the controversial out-of-court settlement it struck with the government of India for $470 million in 1989. Babulal Gaur, Madhya Pradesh’s minister for the department of Bhopal gas tragedy relief and rehabilitation, told ET that he has grand plans to build a Hiroshima-like monument at the 80-odd acre factory compound for Rs 116 crore.

That’s around a third of the Rs 600 crore or so that the central government has distributed thus far among Bhopal’s 5,74,367 victims. The first cheque arrived in 1992 in the form of an interim relief of Rs 200 per month, three years after Dow deposited $470 million in its account.

Each cheque, regardless of when it was distributed, was pegged to the dollar-rupee exchange rate of 1989, when a dollar was quoting at Rs 15. By
2004, when the last cheque was issued, the exchange rate had gone up to Rs 45, but the cheques were locked to the Rs 15/$ rate.

A third of Mr Gaur’s planned Rs 116-crore kitty would have been enough to close another chapter of the tragedy: the remediation of the plant, and supply of safe drinking water to the 20,000 people living in the slums around the factory. The minister claims that the polluted ground water in the area is the result of a petroleum depot nearby, but a host of studies point to the presence of mercury, lead, chromium, chloroform, hexachlorocyclohexane, chlorobenzene and Sevin, most of them not known to originate from oil.

The studies differ only in their estimates of the percentage of the toxins present, and the state is finding succour in two reports — by the National Environmental Engineering Institute, Nagpur, and the Defence Research Labs in Gwalior. “Well, that’s progress in a perverse way,” says Mr Jabbar. “Till 2000, they were not even willing to accept that the site is a toxic dump.”

The 25th year of Bhopal will be marked in 16 countries on Thursday, including the US, where the former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson, who has been declared a fugitive by Indian courts, lives in retirement.

A fresh arrest warrant was issued against him in July 2009 by the Bhopal chief judicial magistrate, the latest in a series of such efforts. At Bhopal, no one’s waiting in anticipation. Not a single person has been convicted so far, 25 years after the tragedy, though there is no dearth of trials and charges.

Shahnawaz Khan says he went himself to depose to a special team from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which was camping in Bhopal, a month after the tragedy. “They seemed the least interested,” he says. The CBI finally made him a witness in the case in 2002, 18 years after the first chargesheet was filed.

Meanwhile, life goes on in Bhopal, in and around the six “dedicated” hospitals that the state government has built for the gas victims out of an express fund
provided by the Union Carbide, prior to its acquisition. Civil society activists like Rechna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group of Information & Action say some 6,000 people visit these hospitals every day while Dr N Banerjee, who runs the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies in Bhopal, pegs that figure at around 3,500.

“We are all like foxes howling at the government and the bureaucracy, night after night. But they go on,” says BGPMUS’ Jabbar, lifting up his hand in desperation.

Ends.

p.s. The author is a former colleague.

Mine free? No hope yet.

2009-11-26T10:16:00.000-05:00

FT: Bush landmines policy stays

Excerpts:

“This administration undertook a policy review and we decided that our landmine policy remains in effect,” a state department spokesman said. “We determined that we would not be able to meet our national defence needs, nor our security commitments to our friends and allies, if we signed this convention.”

The Obama administration has also announced that it is attending a review conference in Colombia, known as the Cartagena summit on a mine-free world, as an observer – the first time the US has taken part in such a gathering.....

But campaigners respond that no “self-deactivating” mine is 100 per cent reliable and that such munitions do not discriminate between children and combatants. By refusing to accede to the convention, they say, Washington is encouraging more than 30 other hold-outs to persist in their stance.

Left and Right

2009-11-26T10:04:00.000-05:00

FT:
Leaders of Iran and Brazil call for UN reform
The Guardian: Brazil and Iran must talk human rights
NYT: In Welcoming Iranian President, Chavez Blasts Israel

Agro-imperialism

2009-11-22T10:40:00.000-05:00

Hello People!
Working on a short video on land grab. More on that later.
Just stumbled on to this: http://farmlandgrab.org/

Chinese dissidents barred from meeting Obama

2009-11-16T10:57:00.000-05:00

FT: China moves to quell dissidents

Also check out the press release issued by Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD)

As Obama Arrives in China, Police “Tuck away” Activists for Fear of Contact

Excerpts of the letter that CHRD sent to President Obama prior to his departure for Asia. Read the full letter here. It said Obama must urge the Chinese leaders to:

1. Immediately release those environmentalists and activists, some gravely ill, who have been incarcerated or made to “disappear” for exercising their freedoms of expression and political participation;

2.Stop punishing individuals for exercising their freedom of expression using Article 105 of the Criminal Code;

3.Provide a specific timetable for the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it signed in 1998;

4. Amend the Criminal Procedure Law so that it protects the rights of the lawyers as stipulated in the newly-revised Lawyers Law;

5. And take concrete steps towards the abolition of the Re-education through Labor (RTL) system, which has been used to incarcerate activists, dissidents and religious adherents. The government has repeatedly promised to do so at the UN Human Rights Council and during human rights dialogues with the US and the EU.

Obama presses for Suu Kyi's release

2009-11-16T10:53:00.000-05:00

Al Jazeera: Obama tells Myanmar to free Suu Kyi
I have blogged before about Suu Kyi's condition here.

The War Within

2009-11-15T10:31:00.000-05:00

Dispossessed tribes ready to wage war with the state

Business Standard, New Delhi Pg 1 headline on a Sunday morning.

Cuban dissident blogger beaten up

2009-11-11T09:38:00.000-05:00

Image courtesy: cubajournal.blogspot.com

WSJ: Beating Rattles Cuban Bloggers
Excerpts from the story:

Yoani Sánchez, Cuba's most prominent dissident blogger, is a 34 year-old whose poignant vignettes of daily life in Cuba -- and the resulting aggravations, humiliations and suffering -- have proved to be far more effective criticisms of the Castro regime than the bluster and bravado from Cuba's exile community in Miami.

Earlier this year, she won a top journalism prize from Columbia University but was barred by the government from traveling to New York to accept the award.

A decline in tourism revenues from the global recession and damage from several hurricanes last year have prompted the island's government to clamp down even harder on dissent and freedom of speech, according to a recent report by the Inter American Press Association, a watchdog group.

The group said Cuba currently has 26 journalists in jail, and it cited 102 incidents against Cuban journalists in the past year, including beatings, arbitrary arrests and death threats.

This is how close Dalai Lama is to the Tibet border

2009-11-09T09:52:00.000-05:00

TAWANG, Arunachal Pradesh

News from Xinhua:
China voices firm opposition to Dalai Lama's visit to China-India border region

Times of India:
It's a big day for us: Dalai Lama

FT:
Dalai Lama defends his border visit

China Clean up ACT?

2009-11-09T09:42:00.000-05:00

China denies resource raids as it pledges $10bn in loans to Africa

Barney Jopson of the FT reports from Sharm el-Sheikh
November 9 2009

Wen Jiabao, China's premier, has pledged $10bn in new low-cost loans to Africa over the next three years and defended China's engagement against accusations it is "plundering" the continent's oil and minerals....

Dissent By Hunger

2009-11-06T14:44:00.000-05:00

A poet from Manipur (India) celebrates nine years of trying to kill herself
The Economist.

IROM CHANU SHARMILA, 37, a poet and aspirant suicide, was this week unable to attend a cultural festival held in her honour in Imphal, capital of India’s north-eastern state of Manipur. She was in hospital, being force-fed lentil soup through a tube inserted into her nose.

.....

On November 2nd 2000 the poet, known as the “Iron Lady”, embarked on a “fast unto death”—a threat respected as an act of protest in India, often used to great effect by Mohandas Gandhi. Yet Ms Sharmila’s case, like the wretched condition of Manipur, the most violent of seven troubled north-eastern states, is a national embarrassment.

Ms Sharmila began her protest in response to the killing of ten Manipuris by paramilitary troops. To end it, she demands the repeal of a draconian emergency law, the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), which has allowed the army to detain, and sometimes kill, north-easterners with impunity. In one possible indication of this, 286 of the 361 people killed in Manipur’s conflict this year were officially reckoned to be militants—a remarkably high number. Only 13 belonged to the security forces. Overall, this death toll makes little Manipur, home to 2.5m people and around 30 ethnically based insurgent groups, India’s most war-ravaged state, deadlier even than better-known Kashmir...

Public works never got so exciting

2009-11-06T14:27:00.000-05:00

The rural employment wave across India:
Right to work: Seek and thou shall receive!

India’s grand experiment with public works enjoys a moment in the sun

An article in The Economist.

Letter to the Prime Minister of India: Ministry for development?

2009-11-05T08:03:00.001-05:00

Image at Treehugger

To the PM, on Maoists
TK Arun

5 Nov 2009, The Economic Times

Dear Dr Manmohan Singh, You have identified the Maoists as India’s single most vital internal security challenge. And you have called for a nuanced approach for tackling the Maoists, given the potential for multidimensional collateral damage of a strategy that relies solely on the force of arms. Senior colleagues within the Congress party, including general secretaries Digvijay Singh and Rahul Gandhi, have articulated similar sentiments. Yet, the government’s operative policy on Maoists would appear to be combat, led by the ministry of home.

I suggest, Sir, that this failure to reflect the nuanced understanding of the problem in the operative strategy stems, to a large part, from the limitations of the government’s administrative arrangement. The security apparatus is one silo within the government, the developmental machinery, another. So even when a problem requires both verticals to work together, the normal rules of business and entrenched administrative inertia make sure that they do not.

You have used the mechanism of groups of ministers, empowered or otherwise, to get ministries to coordinate. Actually, only the ministers coordinate, while in committee. Their respective ministries go on as before, even if with a slightly altered mandate, thanks to an input from the group of ministers.

May I suggest a different strategy when it comes to tackling the Maoists? Create a new ministry of development and put Mr P Chidambaram, who heads the ministry of home, in charge of this ministry as well.

This new ministry is to be conceived quite differently from the present ministries of rural development, tribal development, etc. These latter ministries implement assorted schemes, each in its own narrow vertical. The ministry of development’s job should not be to implement yet another series of schemes, but to ensure that every single scheme and policy of the government has the desired development impact. Thus, it should have the mandate to ensure any policy proposed by the mining, commerce, agriculture, urban development, coal, steel, home, industry, roads, power or whatever ministry aids, rather than hinders, development.

But doesn’t this already happen, when the collective Cabinet clears notes prepared by individual ministries? Well, it clearly does not. The policy on Special Economic Zones did not have a clear-cut attendant policy to convert those who lose land to the new project into stakeholders in what comes up on their alienated land. Similarly, the current practice of allotting mining leases only helps create the likes of Madhu Koda and the Bellary brothers, not development of the people at large. It is entirely conceivable that a minister with perspicacity and perseverance would be able to vet all policy proposals and developmental schemes cleared by the Centre for its contribution to development, and insist on appropriate changes, if required.

A road ministry’s focus is on delivering roads, the power ministry’s on delivering power. For them, development is an ancillary goal, at best. If there is a separate ministry charged with development, its goal would be to pursue development, by modulating all policies of the government to this end. It could relate with state governments as well, on schemes that require central approval or assistance. Such a ministry could also take charge of projects like skill development, which cut across multiple ministries and the federal divide. This is the case for a new ministry of development.

Why choose Mr Chidambaram to head it? He already heads home, and leads the charge against the Maoists from a security point of view. If he also

has the mandate to tackle the development dimension of this challenge, he would modulate his combat strategy appropriately. This is the immediate rationale. But there is a more substantial reason.

Mr Chidambaram routinely dons, after putting on his white shirt and mundu in the morning, an air of patronising superiority. Yet he wins the grudging respect of even those who dislike this dress sense, with his competence, hard work, attention to detail and perseverance. We need precisely such a minister to deliver on development, liaising and negotiating with other ministries and state governments.

All this, of course, begs the question: what is development, what is it that the new ministry should seek to achieve?

Development should be understood as realising the creative potential of all individuals. Admittedly, this simple definition rests on much conceptual complexity. No one has any predetermined creative potential — it constantly expands, depending on the growth of the individual’s cognitive skills and the scale and manner of his interaction with nature and society. Conventionally, this is understood to mean that there should be more investment in education, healthcare, etc. In one of your recent speeches, you said as much. May I suggest, Sir, that such a formulation sees development as something that can and should be distributed by the government, perhaps with the aid of earnest voluntary organisations.

Development, however, cannot be dispensed, any more than democracy can be exported. It is a function and product of politics. People, particularly the deprived, must be mobilised to collectively demand their rights, secure them and thus be empowered as citizens. If mainstream political parties fail to empower them, but only seek to secure their silence, at best, by throwing them some crumbs, they will end up with the Maoists, who seek their empowerment in the overthrow of the present social order.

So the key task is political mobilisation of the deprived to realise their right to life, liberty and dignity. This can be done only by a political party — neither ministry nor an NGO can do this.

So, do I contradict myself, and negate the suggestion for a ministry of development? Not in the least. That ministry would ensure the wherewithal of political mobilisation in every sphere, such as the Forest Dwellers Act of 2008, of which you are justifiably proud. And political parties that appreciate that substantial emancipation can be achieved within the framework of a liberal democracy would use this wherewithal to mobilise the people to demand and secure their rights. An awakened, empowered people would become creative and transform the world.

Statist Media in Iran?

2009-11-04T08:58:00.001-05:00

Courtesy: Americans for Limited Government.

WSJ: Revolutionary Guards Extend Reach to Iran's Media
Planned News Agency Fits With Move to Dominate Accounts of Events; 'They Want to Control Public Opinion'

Also, Journal Opinion:
The President Snubs Iran's Democrats
Nuclear negotiations aren't worth this price.

Negligence of India's biggest oil refiner: Fire in Jaipur, India

2009-11-03T11:18:00.000-05:00

CALLOUSNESS OF STATE OWNED IOC

HINDUSTAN TIMES:
Fire, fate and future: Uncertainty looms after IOC fire

TIMES OF INDIA:
Court to hear PIL on IOC tragedy

BUSINESS STANDARD: Panel to assess toxic damage from IOC fire

THE ECONOMIC TIMES: Indian Oil faces claims from third parties as fire continues

After fire, it’s labour pain for Sitapura

'What was govt doing for the last 60 years?'

2009-11-01T09:56:00.000-05:00

Q&A: Aruna Roy, Magsaysay award winner and activist

Development is the only way to tackle Naxalism, Magsaysay award winner and activist Aruna Roy tells Business Standard.

Excerpts:

What do you think about the use of Air Force against Naxalites in Chhattisgarh?
I am totally against it. I feel extremism is a result of failure of development. If the government does not address the issue in terms of development, it won’t be able to solve it. I have a suspicion that the government wants to clear the place for mining. What they do in the name of acting against Naxalism is to remove all opposition. People who are Gandhians are being prosecuted. Why did they put Binayak Sen in jail? He was not an extremist.

What are your views on Naxalites? Are they not opportunists who are depriving people of development for their survival?
I am not against Naxalites. I need to learn more about them. But in tribal areas, the choice for the people is between RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh) and Naxalites. If pushed to the wall, you do drastic things. In Chhattisgarh, how many tribals are making policy? In Jharkhand, the tribal chief minister has been cooped. When the state uses violent methods, it is unjustified. Besides, tell me, what was the government doing for the last 60 years and why did it all of a sudden wake up to Naxalites?

What is your view on terrorism?
The only solution is to make the system work, for which transparency is needed. There is failure of governance. Second, terror should not be pre-defined as a community. Judiciary should play a key role here. Violations of equality should be treated as violations of the Constitution or else there will be balkanisation of the country.

Ukraine Defies IMF Warnings

2009-11-01T00:56:00.000-04:00

The IMF's Ukraine mission chief Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, left, chats with Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko
Image: Reuters

Wall Street Journal:
Kiev's deficit widens on social spending, IMF loan in jeopardy?
Ukraine Defies IMF Warnings

By JAMES MARSON in Kiev, Ukraine, and ALEXANDER KOLYANDR in London

Ukraine's president defied warnings of the International Monetary Fund and approved an increase in social spending that will balloon the government deficit. The move will likely lead to a suspension of IMF lending to one of Europe's most fragile economies.

In response, ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded its outlook for Ukraine, while the IMF president said he is "very worried" by Ukraine's decision, according to Reuters.

Ukraine's collision with the IMF comes amid jockeying among Ukraine politicians before presidential elections in January.

BP faces record $87.4m US fine over Texas refinery

2009-10-31T19:17:00.000-04:00

The image can be found at Dawn.com

FT story:
The US government said as it issued a record $87.4m in proposed fines on the UK oil group BP since it still has "systemic safety" issues four years after an explosion at its Texas refinery killed 15 people and injured 170.

Podcast: Labor Politics in the Obama Administration

2009-10-29T21:09:00.000-04:00

Joshua B Freeman talks about labor politics in the Obama administration and the role of immigrant workers in the future of New York City. Dr. Freeman is a professor of history at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

This is a podcast for New York University.

Mines and the Military in Congo

2009-10-29T11:42:00.001-04:00

You can find the picture here: Developing world stories

Wanted to flag a journal article this morning:
For Congo's Military, a Mine of Difficulties
Sarah Childress reports:
"Human-rights advocates and mineral-industry groups say the military may now be trying to consolidate its own power over Congo's rich mineral mines, with little ability to improve conditions for the thousands of miners scraping a living from the trade. Some groups accusing the military of complicity in mining and trading so-called blood minerals -- those mined amid violence, sold to fund conflict, or both."

UN to defend human rights in conflict zones

2009-10-28T15:53:00.000-04:00

Nations join forces with UN to stamp out rights abuses in conflict zones

Leftists and left-outs: Jug Suraiya, Times of India

2009-10-28T09:03:00.000-04:00

Everyday, the Indian State is losing headline space to Maoists. Will it adversely affect risks of investing in the country?

You can read the whole editorial by Jug Suraiya here in the Times of India here:

Excerpts:

"Prakash Karat (a left-wing leader) got it right when he said that the Indian Maoists, who are in virtual control of some 160 of the country's 600-odd districts, were not leftists. They're not. The so-called Maoists -- and the forgotten, marginalised and dispossessed people they claim to represent -- are left-outs: left out, deliberately or through sheer forgetfulness, of the purview of the Indian state. In that sense, they are stateless anarchists.".....

....."There is a fundamental mismatch not just of vocabulary but of perception. The government sees the police force as legitimate protectors of the state's legitimate rights to mineral deposits and other resources in Chhattisgarh (a state in India), or anywhere else; the killing of the four policemen is uncondonable, cold-blooded murder. In the Naxal (described as rebels) view, the government's exploitation of resources -- often after the forcible dispossession of small landowners who have no other source of livelihood and who do not believe they will in any way benefit from the activities of a government that over decades has neglected them -- is an act of violence which provokes counterviolence. Such a complete breakdown of communication, a total lack of common ground, can result only in murderous confrontation."

Old Style Unionism is not dead: FT Columnist

2009-10-27T16:11:00.000-04:00

Pic Courtesy: An Army Green American Apparel T with the Give Up logo

Unions need to focus on jobs of the future
By Michael Skapinker, FT, October 26, 09

Climate Change Activism

2009-10-25T11:56:00.001-04:00

Pic: Courtesy New York Times
Click here for a slideshow in NYT on climate change activists all over the world

Thousands gather for worldwide climate protests
(AFP) –

NEW YORK — From Asia to the Americas via Europe and the Middle East, activists around the planet have protested in an effort to mobilize public opinion against global warming 50 days ahead of a crucial UN climate summit.

Many of the thousands that gathered on the steps of Sydney's iconic Opera House to kick off the event waved placards bearing the logo 350, a figure scientists believe is the maximum parts per million of CO2 that the atmosphere can bear to avoid runaway global warming.

In New York's Times Square, a crowd of demonstrators gathered as giant screens beamed in images from around the world. Organizers told the activists that events had taken place in "more than 180 countries" at 5,200 events.

In France, politicians received a "wake up" call from several hundred Parisians who chose clocks as their symbol.

Protesters who met in a central square in Paris had set their alarm clocks and mobile phones set to ring at 12:18 pm (1018 GMT) in reference to the closing date of the UN summit in Copenhagen, which lasts from December 7-18.

The summit is considered crucial as world leaders will try to thrash out a new treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions in place of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

But senior officials from the United States and China, the world's two largest polluters, have warned the talks may fail.

There is growing concern that a treaty deal in Copenhagen could be hampered by issues that include US domestic politics and the problems of securing agreement between developed and developing countries.

In Berlin, some 350 protesters wearing masks with the face of German Chancellor Angela Merkel came together in front of the Brandenburg Gate in the city center.

In London, more than 600 people gathered beneath the London Eye Ferris wheel by the River Thames to arrange themselves into the shape of the number five, according to organisers Campaign against Climate Change.

An aerial photograph of the event will be added to pictures of a giant "three" and "zero" from around the world.

"Hundreds of thousands of people are taking part (globally) and for us that's so important, to have people out on the streets," campaign activist Abi Edgar told AFP. "We want serious action on climate change and we want it now."

Across the Thames, some 100 musicians playing trumpets, trombones, saxophones and clarinets gathered outside parliament to play the same note -- an F, made by the frequency of 350 Hz -- for 350 seconds, organizers said.

In the Lebanese capital Beirut hundreds of activists, many wearing snorkels, held demonstrations in key archaeological sites.

They gathered around the Roman ruins in central Beirut, in the ancient eastern city of Baalbek and along the coast, carrying placards bearing the 350 logo.

"It's not the first time Beirut will have gone under water," Wael Hmaidan of the IndyACT group organizing Beirut's protests told AFP, explaining the goggle-wearing, "but this time it's going down because of climate change, and not earthquakes."

Environmental activists in the Turkish metropolis of Istanbul staged their protest in a boat, unfurling a banner reading "Sun, wind, right now!" under the main bridge linking Asia and Europe over the Bosphorus Strait, Anatolia news agency reported.

They then sailed to the ancient Maiden's Tower, which sits on a tiny islet in the Bosphorus, and unfurled another banner reading "Jobs, climate, justice," the report said.

Events in Asia included demonstrators in Dhaka riding bicycles to highlight one way of cutting emissions.

In Jakarta, around 100 students from the London School of Public Relations gathered to form the symbolic number 350, coordinator Candy Tolosa said on Detik.com news website.