Chikangunya Named Chemical Hub and Warning on global Warming
Salim Group is ready to review new WB site for chem hub
Work at the upcoming small car unit of Tata Motors here was normal despite the nationwide strike in the unorganised sector called by CITU
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Stepping up the attack on the Centre over the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat on Thursday said the United Progressive Alliance government would have to pay a heavy political price if it went ahead with the agreement.
"We will oppose the deal in Parliament. The UPA is a minority in Parliament. If the government pursues the deal we will also go to the people and it will have to pay a heavy political price," Karat said addressing an "anti-imperialism convention" organised by the Kerala University Students Union.
Hitting out at the 'pro-American' tilt in the UPA's foreign policy, he said the Centre appeared to be taking forward the alliance with the US begun by the previous NDA government.
Chikangunya is said to be not fatal, though it has posed serious problems for the Dalits and minorities in Bengal. The Ruling Brahminical classes are also suffering from chikangunya and it is renamed as Chemical Hub. Despite the experiencs of bhopal Gas Tragedy and chornobyl disaster , the Marxists of Bengali version opt for Chemical Hub and nuclear power options for Capital;ist development, urbanisation and industrialisation of Buddh Brand suiting most to the interests of Post Modern Sensex India ruled by comradors committed to Zionist Hindu Manusmriti galaxy order!
Global warming is forecast to set in with a vengeance after 2009, with at least half of the five following years expected to be hotter than 1998, the warmest year on record, scientists reported on Thursday.Climate experts have long predicted a general warming trend over the 21st century spurred by the greenhouse effect, but this new study gets more specific about what is likely to happen in the decade that started in 2005.
Altogether 850 persons were afflicted by chikangunya disease at Habra in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal while no fresh case was reported from the metropolis today. The mosquito-borne disease, has spread from wards 13 and 16 to other areas of Habra municipality and Sonakenia and Mahish and Maslandpur villages, taking the number of affected to 850, the district's Chief Medical Officer (Health) K Adhikari said.He said further blood tests were not required and the symptoms of patients, which have been confirmed as that of chikangunya, would suffice.
Salim Group is ready to review new WB site for chem hub.At a time when the state government’s industrialisation overdrive is in the doldrums following the backlash at Nandigram, Mr Beni Santosa of the Salim Group met the chief minister in the Writers Building and reviewed the various projects, including building the infrastructure for the mega petro-chemical hub. In his first meeting since the Nandigram fiasco on March 14, 2007 that claimed 14 lives, Indonesia-based Salim Group chief executive Benny Santoso met West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today, and formally announced that the group has agreed to relocate the chemical hub project to an alternative location, but warned that the group will conduct a feasibility study of the new location proposed by the state government.More importantly, the group has said the government would have to identify the new location.
Many districts in Gujarat have been flooded and The Naramda dam adventure prves to be the Death Knell for the submerged valley. they are going to repeat the experience in Dandakarany. CPIM is not worried at all. They are already up against the Dalit Bengali refugees, the partion victims who have been ousted of Bengali geopolitics and resettled in dandakaranya!
Heavy monsoon rains have caused fresh floods in new areas of India with dozens of villages affected in the western state of Gujarat.
In north India, where water is receding after two weeks of floods, health workers are starting a clear up. The UN has blamed the flooding on climate change and says such disasters are becoming increasingly common. About 28m people have been affected by the floods in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. More than 400 people have died.
Downplaying the issue of financial developments in America affecting Indian bourses, market regulator SEBI on Thursday said it will not be proper to link volatility in domestic stock markets to US subprime crisis.
"I think to relate movement of indices to one factor, especially when that is an external factor would be over- simplification," SEBI Chairman M Damodaran told reporters to a query if subprime crisis in US was affecting Indian markets.
There are several other explanations why share markets were up or down, he added.
Meanwhile,Work at the upcoming small car unit of Tata Motors here was normal despite the nationwide strike in the unorganised sector called by CITU.
Sources in the Tata Motors said 1,100 day labourers were recruited as in other days in the morning hours and work went on normally in the paint, welding and engine shops and the vendor park. On the other hand, accusing the Left governments in West Bengal and Kerala of promoting online lottery, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee today demanded a CBI probe into the matter.
"Many blacklisted concerns have been allowed in these states to start lotto which is ruining the lives of many. We want a CBI enquiry into the role of the left governments in West Bengal and Kerala in promoting it," she said.She alleged on-line lottery was mushrooming in these states, few among those allowed it.
Ranjit Mondol, Chairman of Singur Panchayat Samity, said it was first decided that the daily workers would not join work at the project site in keeping with the strike call but later the decision was changed.
A procession of farm labourers was taken out by the anti- acquisition Krishi Jomi Rakha Committee protesting against the alleged shrinking in the scope of their work following the erection of the boundary walls of the small car project. The procession at Dobandhi was led by Becharam Manna, convenor of the Krishi Jomi Rakha Committee.
Faced with large scale political and farmers' opposition, about 50 SEZ developers, including Reliance Industries and DLF, have formed their own panel under the aegis of Export Promotion Council for EoUs and SEZs.
Vice-President of Reliance Haryana SEZ Ltd, Ajay Nijhawan has been named as Convenor of the panel, which will mainly champion the demand of the developers to remove the 5,000 hectare land cap on a Special Economic Zone.
"Putting a freeze of any kind halts the process of SEZ and economic development," Nijhawan said.
Nijhawan said his panel would also take up with the government the issue of land, which according to the April decision of the Group of Ministers, cannot be acquired compulsorily by any state government.
"Policy must change since we will require state government support for land acquisition," he said.
For the second successive year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will skip the UN general assembly session to be held in New York next month but will undertake a bilateral visit to the US, the dates for which are being worked out.
The CPI on Thursday warned,it will take a stand consistent with its political position in case of voting on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal in Parliament and rejected Prime Minister Manmohan Singh`s assertion that the agreement was non-negotiable.
The Indian Left's opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal is getting curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said in Wonderland. Not only has it allied itself in opposition to the deal but has done so in alignment with a party that avowedly is its arch foe, the BJP. The Left's condemnation of the preliminary 123 agreement is based on the supposition that through the operation of the Hyde Act (whereby the US president has to annually review and confirm that India's foreign policy parallels that of the US, particularly vis-a-vis Iran), India's 'national sovereignty' will be compromised.
Our comrades' concern for our national sovereignty is touching, considering that the Communist Party of India originally dismissed India's struggle for freedom from British rule as a 'bourgeoisie movement' which it wouldn't touch with an ideological bargepole borrowed from the Soviet Union. Subsequently, when the communists first assumed office through the electoral route in Kerala, they did so with the stated intention of wrecking the Constitution from within. For the CPM now to aver that it will seek an amendment to safeguard from anti-national treaties the same Constitution its earlier avatar once wanted to trash is a remarkable feat of what might aptly be called 're-visionism'.
Even as rehabilitation for farmers affected by SEZ projects hangs fire, the government is all set to clear a new look for tribal rehabilitation policy.
The new policy will give, displaced tribals a share in the companies, which displace them.Indications are clear, tribal tracts bearing much of the mineral wealth, which have been protected by the forest laws, are all set to be opened up.
Protests in Orissa over the POSCO project may soon wind down if the government's new tribal rehabilitation policy finds takers.
For two crore adivasis around the country, who have been displaced by various projects, the policy on paper at least promises the moon.It will give displaced tribals shares in the company. Compensation will be calculated not on existing market rates but the land's long term potential. The compensation will be invested to provide dividends. Tribal land will be given only on lease.
But some say the recent tribal bill has in fact done just the opposite allowing tribal land to be transferred to large corporations.Even as rehabilitation for farmers affected by SEZ projects hangs fire, the government is all set to clear a new look for tribal rehabilitation policy.The new policy will give, displaced tribals a share in the companies, which displace them.
It was the West Bengal government’s original plan to set up the mega chemical-hub through acquiring a total of 25,000 acres, including 10,000 acres at Nandigram, that triggered a bloody resistance from the farmers of Nandigram. Though the chief minister later announced that the Nanidgram plan had been scrapped, acquisition of farm land for any project has become an uphill task.
According to sources in the industries department the state government may ask the Salim group to purchase land directly from the farmers for the mega chemical hub project now planned to be built at Haldia.
Prasoon Mukherjee, accompanying Santoso and acting as his local representative, said the government had recommended and the group had accepted the decision to shift the chemical hub project from Nandigram. "The state government will propose an alternative location after which we will do a feasibility study of the location. We have to be sure that the alternative location is suitable for the project,? he said.
No timeline was discussed for the project.
Commerce and Industry Minister Nirupam Sen said a fresh agreement could also be signed with the consortium for the project. Consultancy firm Mott McDonald has been asked by the government to select an alternative location. Sen said the government was expecting the firm to come up with a suitable alternative within a month.
The government was contemplating the location of the chemical hub at Haldia and include the existing petrochemical companies to get the petroleum, chemical, petrochemical investment region (PCPIR) status.
Mukherjee said the alternative location had not been decided as yet.
Mukherjee is one of the promoters of New Kolkata International Development (NKID), which would develop the 10,000 acre chemical hub and the 12,500 acre multi-product special economic zone (SEZ). The Salim Group has 40% stake in NKID.
The original plan was to have the chemical hub at Nandigram in East Medinipur, 160km from Kolkata and the multi-product SEZ at Haldia. The BoA in-principle grant for the chemical and multi-product SEZ was received in October, 2006.
Sources pointed out that the government might have to make fresh application for the new locations.
The chemical SEZ would be part of PCPIR. At a recent review meeting of PCPIRs, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ram Vilas Paswan said the West Bengal government, among some other state governments, had indicated that it was preparing its proposal for the PCPIR and would submit it to the department of chemicals and fertilizers in the next three months.
Sources pointed out that unless the state government decided on the alternative location, it would not be able to submit the proposal.
Mukherjee said the other projects in the state were also discussed. These include the Kolkata West International City, the two-wheeler manufacturing unit under the banner of Mahabharat Motors, a world-class convention centre and an IT park.
Alternative site for Bengal chemical hub in a month
The West Bengal Government has appointed a consultant to identify by the next month an alternative site for the proposed mega chemical hub, which has ignited unrest in Nandigram and whipped up a political controversy in the state.
''We have appointed Mott and McDonald to identify land for the chemical hub in a month time. After the site is finalised the Government will get it approved in an all-party meeting before going ahead with the project,'' Industry Minister Nirupam Sen told reporters today.
Mr Sen's statement came few days after Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee sent letters to political parties seeking their views on setting up of the chemical hub, a central project of which Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and the Indonesian Salim Group would be the anchor investor and developer respectively.
The proposed project has driven wedges even among the partners of the ruling Left Front with parties like the Forward Bloc and RSP openly questioning its various aspects.
With the Opposition and the Left Front partners expressing concern over the proposed petrochemical hub in Haldia, a port town around 100 km away from here, West Bengal's ruling Left Front chairman Biman Bose on Saturday said that it would come up there.
"The project will come up at Haldia," Bose, who is also the state secretary of the CPI-M, told reporters here.
His comment came days after the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee claimed that the West Bengal government, which was forced to shift the proposed chemical hub from Nandigram following resistance from farmers, was issuing notification for acquisition of land in Haldia.
Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee who had written to different political parties in a bid to arrive at a consensus had said that the hub should come up in and around the Haldia port.
The project is to be built by the Indian Oil Corporation as well as the Salim Group of Indonesia.
Bose told a brief press conference here that land had been acquired for the Panskura-Digha railway line when Trinamool Congress chief was the railway minister.
"Banerjee is now resisting acquisition of land, the people will give her an appropriate reply," he said.
He also said that circumstances were different in case of the police firing at Khammam in Andhra Pradesh and the one in Nandigram on March 14. He did not elaborate.
Efforts were being made for the restoration of peace in Nandigram and peace would return there shortly, he added.
Reiterating the stand taken by the central leadership of the Left parties, West Bengal Left Front chairman Biman Bose on Thursday demanded that the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement should not be "operationalised." He called for a detailed discussion on the subject in Parliament, and also said that the Constitution should be amended to make parliamentary ratification mandatory for major treaties and international agreements.
"Since there is no provision in the Constitution (under which Parliament can reject) the 123 agreement, an amendment should be made in the Constitution for this purpose," Mr Bose said. He was addressing a press conference after a Left Front meeting at the state CPI(M) office here. This tough line against the nuclear deal adopted by the Bengal Left on Thursday indicates that the Left leaders have not been placated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s telephone calls to CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat and CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan on Tuesday night.
The Indo-US nuclear deal figured prominently at the meeting, which also discussed a number of local issues such as the proposed chemical hub in West Bengal. The Left Front has decided to launch a month-long statewide campaign against the nuclear deal. The Left has also voiced its disapproval of the scheduled Indo-US naval exercises, and plans to hold rallies from Kolkata to Visakhapatnam and Kolkata to Chennai to protest against these exercises on September 4 and September 8. The Left parties believe that these exercises are part of the developing Indo-US strategic partnership, something they are totally opposed to.
Mr Bose, who is also a CPI(M) politburo member, said every MP must get an opportunity to air his views on the nuclear deal in Parliament. "Every member should be given a chance to seek changes in the detestable provisions of the agreement and include new provisions," he added.
Criticising the (US) Hyde Act, the Left Front chairman claimed that it would be dangerous for the country’s foreign policy and would be an attack on the Constitution. "We have been demanding that India pursue an independent foreign policy in accordance with the assurances given in the common minimum programme," he added. Mr Bose also attacked America’s efforts to put pressure on New Delhi over its relations with Iran. "Who are they to dictate our relations with Tehran?" he asked.
Concerned by two attacks within four days by Maoists on police camps in West Midnapore district, the West Bengal government on Wednesday urged the Centre to despatch additional Central forces for deployment in Naxalite strongholds in the state.
"Six companies of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) are already deployed in south Bengal and north Bengal. We have urged the Union government for another six companies of CRPF to contain the Maoist threat in certain areas of West Midnapore," IGP (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia said.
The state police's intelligence wing had been strengthened, he said.
Conceding that there had been a spurt in Maoist activities in Lalgarh belt, Kanojia said the rebels struck for the second time in four days when they mounted an attack on a State Armed Police camp at Niguria on Tuesday night. More forces were sent to Niguria, he said.
The label of special economic zone will not be affixed to the entire chemical hub proposed in or around Haldia, the government has said in a tacit admission that SEZ has become a three-letter hot potato after the land wars.
The clarification has been made in letters by chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to allies and the Congress that had raised concerns about the status of the hub and its environmental impact.
Keeping in mind the objection to SEZs by the Opposition as well as the allies, the letter explained the central policy on Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Regions (PCPIRs) of which the hub would be a part.
“The PCPIRs are not envisaged as SEZs. The conversion of the hub into a SEZ will depend on the manufacturing companies that will set up units there. The hub may be divided into SEZ and non-SEZ areas, depending upon the companies’ interest in export or domestic markets, respectively,’’ an official involved in drawing up the chief minister’s reply said.
Officials said that unlike SEZ players, PCPIR developers do not get substantial fiscal benefits. But the Centre would build roads and other infrastructure for the region, which will be spread over 62,500 acres.
On the demand for a committee to assess the environmental impact, the chief minister said the PCPIR policy itself stipulated that states should engage experts to make an assessment and submit a report to a panel headed by the Union cabinet secretary. The panel will include the Union environment secretary.
The hub would come up only if the committee accepts the state’s report and makes a recommendation to the Union cabinet. So, the need to set up a separate expert committee is redundant, a letter said.
The separate letters were sent in response to specific clarifications sought by parties after the chief minister requested them to do so. No letter was sent to the Trinamul Congress as it did not respond to Bhattacharjee’s suggestion.
The core manufacturing area for chemical industries, which may cover 25,000 acres, will be built by a joint venture company floated by a Salim Group-led consortium and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation. As the “anchor developer”, it is up to the Salim Group to seek SEZ status for incentives.
The chief minister said the fear of large-scale land acquisition was misplaced as the fresh requirement for the hub would be around 10,000 acres, not 62,500 acres.
Bhattacharjee expressed the hope that his reply would dispel misgivings and make room for an all-party meeting.
Nandigram Violence A
'State Sponsored Massacre'
By People's Tribunal On Nandigram
09 August, 2007
Countercurrents.org
In its final report the People's Tribunal on Nandigram has called the violence of 14 March 2007 a 'pre-planned, state-sponsored massacre' carried out 'to teach a lesson' to people opposing the SEZ project on their land.
It has strongly recommended continuation of the CBI investigation, initiated by the Calcutta High Court on 15th March but wound up in just a week. Among other aspects it wants the CBI to inquire into the specific roles played by members of the local and state administration in the killings of innocent people and atrocities on women.
The Tribunal report, handed over to Mr Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Governor, West Bengal on 8 August, also called for the re-arrest of the ten CPI (M) cadres taken into custody earlier by CBI but let off on bail due to the deliberate laxity of the West Bengal state police in filing charges against them within the statutory period.
In its findings the Tribunal said on 14 March "there were a disturbingly large number of incidents of sexual violence by both police and armed ruling party cadre against women, many of them carried out in the most cruel, degrading and inhuman manner". In order to provide speedy justice to the victims the Tribunal report has asked the judiciary to consider setting up a special bench, headed by a woman judge, to hear all cases of rape, molestation and violence against women of Nandigram by both police personnel and armed cadre of the CPI (M).
The Tribunal report has further called upon the Calcutta High Court to appoint a "monitoring committee" to ensure that there is no repetition of the violence of 14 March. It pointed out since that day there have been at least 25 incidents of armed "intrusion" by CPI (M) cadre into the Nandigram area for which no one has been arrested.
The report also called upon the West Bengal government to make a public declaration that force would not be used against the local people for the so called restoration of law and order in the Nandigram area.
The nearly 100 page report, based on prima facie evidence as well as over 194 depositions from people and organisations in Nandigram and Kolkata, has also asked the National Human Rights Commission to look into the issue of immediate distribution of ex-gratia payment to all those killed or injured in the violence of 14 March. Further it said the people of Nandigram should also be legally assisted in obtaining compensation and damages for death, injuries or damaged properties from the government.
http://www.countercurrents.org/tribunal090807.htm
West Bengal to unveil tourism policy
KOLKATA: The West Bengal government today said it is working on a new tourism policy which could be unveiled by next month.
"I hope the tourism policy will be unveiled by September. We are working on it," Tourism minister Manab Mukherjee said here on the sidelines of a programme organised by Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BNCCI).
"We have received the draft policy from Ernst & Young (E&Y) and it is in the process of finalisation," he said.
E&Y was entrusted for preparing a long-term comprehensive tourism development road map for the state identifying sectors which would attract investment from the private sector.
Tourism policies were framed in 1996 and 2001, but the sector did not grow.
The West Bengal government today said it is working on a new tourism policy which could be unveiled by next month.
"I hope the tourism policy will be unveiled by September. We are working on it," Tourism minister Manab Mukherjee said here on the sidelines of a programme organised by Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BNCCI).
"We have received the draft policy from Ernst & Young (E&Y) and it is in the process of finalisation," he said.
E&Y was entrusted for preparing a long-term comprehensive tourism development road map for the state identifying sectors which would attract investment from the private sector.
Tourism policies were framed in 1996 and 2001, but the sector did not grow.
Mukherjee inaugurated three courses on entrepreneurship development and travel and tourism conducted by Enterprise Development Institute under the aegis of BNCCI.
New Democracy leader?s posers to CPM team from Bengal
Tuesday August 7 2007 12:13 IST
KHAMMAM: While all political parties have condemned the Mudigonda incident in unequivocal terms and demanded the resignation of Chief Minister YS Rajeasekhara Reddy, CPIML (New Democracy) district secretary P Ranga Rao has demanded answers to his six posers to a CPM team from West Bengal.
Speaking to mediapersons here on Monday, he wondered how CPM could justify the action of the West Bengal Government which had acquired land from the poor only to give it to MNCs and the subsequent violence which claimed the lives of six innocent persons at Singur and Nandigram.
He alleged that CPM activists and the police had killed 14 innocent villagers and injured more than 100 people. Over 90 persons had since gone missing, he said and wondered how CPM could justify its party workers colluding with the police in killing innocent villagers.
He said the West Bengal Government did not concede the demand of the entire country for constitution of a sitting judge to probe the incident. Even bourgeois parties were bowing to the sentiments of the people sometimes, but the Left Front Government in West Bengal was adamant and had thrown democratic values to the wind. Ranga Rao alleged that the Left Front Government had bluntly refused to give any compensation to the firing victims and added that CPM had no moral right to demand compensation.
Even Chandrababu Naidu alleged that anti-social elements had intruded into the mobs and justified the firing and now the Congress Government was also following suit taking a cue from the Buddha Dev Government in West Bengal, he alleged. He clarified that CPIML (New Democracy) had expelled Bandi Ramesh as he was indulging in anti-social and anti-party activities.
The New Environmentalists
By Van Jones
In response to mounting ecological crises, the United States is going through its most important economic transformation since the New Deal. Unfortunately, the vital process of change along more eco-friendly lines is moving ahead with practically zero participation from people of color.
Hundreds of mayors and several governors are bucking the Bush administration and committing themselves to the carbon-cutting principles of the Kyoto treaty on climate change. The U.S. Congress is debating an energy bill this year that could be a watershed for alternative energy sources. What’s more, regular people are way ahead of these leaders. U.S polls show super-majorities want strong action on the climate crisis and other environmental perils. And consumers are reshaping markets by demanding hybrid cars, bio-fuels, solar panels, organic food and more. As a result, the “lifestyles of health and sustainability” sector of the U.S. economy has ballooned into a $240 billion gold mine. And total sales are growing on a near-vertical axis.
The Economist magazine calls it “The Greening of America.” Indeed, we are witnessing the slow death of the Earth-devouring, suicidal version of capitalism. We’re even seeing the birth of some form of “eco-capitalism.” To be sure, a more “ecologically sound” market system will not be a utopia. But at least it will buy our species a few extra decades or centuries on this planet.
That’s the good news. Here is the bad news.
The celebrated "lifestyles" sector is probably the most racially segregated part of the U.S. economy; at present, it is almost exclusively the province of affluent white people. Few entrepreneurs of color are positioned to reap the benefits of the government’s push to green the economy. We are seeing a major debate about the direction of the U.S. economy—in which communities of color apparently have nothing to say. Our near-silence on such key issues has no precedent, at least not since before the Civil War.
How can this be? Black, Latino, Asian and Native American communities suffer the most from the environmental ills of our industrial society. Our folks desperately need the new economic activity, investments and opportunities that this major transition is beginning to generate. To put it bluntly, people of color have much more directly at stake in the greening of America than white college students do. Why are they marching for carbon caps, while most of us just yawn and change the channel?
When these new formations and networks emerge, all racial justice activists will become, in some sense, environmental justice activists.
More people of color have not yet grabbed the microphone for three reasons: our long-standing pattern of viewing environmental issues as luxury concerns; the mainstream media’s “whites only” coverage of the green phenomenon; and serious structural impediments to action within the racial justice movement itself.
First of all, too often we have said: “We are overwhelmed with violence, bad housing, failing schools, excessive incarceration, poor healthcare and joblessness. We can’t afford to worry about spotted owls, redwood trees and polar bears.” But Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath taught us that the coming ecological disasters will hit the poor first and worst. More of us are beginning to see that there can be no separation between our concern for vulnerable people and our concern for a vulnerable planet.
Secondly, any U.S. magazine’s “Special Green Issue” typically will not show many people of color, despite the incredible achievements of numerous environmentalists of color across the country. Many racial justice activists see this kind of coverage, shrug our shoulders and understandably assume that green equals white.
But this is a mistake. When did we start trusting the corporate media to fairly calculate our interests in any major topic or development in U.S. society? When have our activists and advocates ever accepted their frame and parameters in determining what is important or what we should do? It should not surprise anyone that the mainstream media does not reflect our deep and profound interests in the greening of the economy. And it is high time for us to make our own assessment and create our own strategy for shaping the process in accordance with our interests.
Finally, at least among committed activists, there is a deeper reason that we have not mobilized at the appropriate scale. And that reason can be found within the structure of our racial justice movement itself. Our present deployment of resources simply does not let us meet the challenges and opportunities that the green revolution is generating, simply because it is nobody’s job to take them on.
http://colorlines. com/article. php?ID=230
Surinder Sud: A stitch in time
FARM VIEW
Surinder Sud / New Delhi July 31, 2007
India's agriculture will be badly affected by global warming, but timely action could help mitigate the impact considerabl
