Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Trade between India, China expected to be $65 billion for 2016

The bilateral trade volume between India and China is expected to be more than 65 billion US dollar for 2016. Wang Shicai, Commercial Counselor, Consulate General of The People’s Republic Of China informed this and said that the bilateral trade was 52.14 billion US dollar for January to September 2016.
Mr. Shicai said the mutual corporation between the two countries has been a win-win situation for both and will help increasing profitability in coming years.
He said that the important sectors in India which are of emphasis to China are financial, infrastructure, electronics and IT.

Cleaning system from black money

 There are various theories going on the legality and illegality of demonetization of currency declared by worthy PM Mr Modi on 8 Nov 2016 at 8 PM in which the currency notes of rs 500 and Rs 1000 are to be hereby null and void from midnight of 8 Nov,2016. This randomized announcement brought many shell shocked along with opposition political parties went in to huddle to call it fiscal policy announcements a positive or negative.
  • With people at large supporting with experts,intellectuals and economist corporate welcoming the move with poorest of the poor too holding the announcements as fiscal reform was the real accolade to the PM Modi announcement. The next best step was to get best out of the calibrated incoming old currency notes of said denominations and out going new currency of Rs 2000 and Rs 500 in such way to give feeble chance to the currency hoarders to not to give room for the currency to be dynamic and not be statically wasteful.Thus series of directives were issue by the bankers bank in order to check the movement of cash flow of the treasury in question.
    The entire episode is of 50 days as envisage by the PM to see how much duplicate series are in print and how much fake currency prevailed in the fiscal system. The process is on and the PM Modi is thus unable to give holistic view of the observation of the experts thus is shying away not the utter any statement which may be contradictory to the finding by the fiscal professional which need thorough observation investigation.
    However the fiscal strength of the nation when nose dive due to various reasons then demonetisation is right steps in the field of economics to sort our various fiscal parameters and to gauge the currency flow for speedy development and its utility with each circle it flows in yearly and is matter of paramount importance in order to check and balance for the betterment of economy.
    With banks NPA nosediving ,banks with flush of funds, taxes surge, black money with criminal dons and terrorist goes damp squib thus the terrorist are put on to hold with demonetisation the black marketers and benami and hoarding of wealth for ulterior motives by corporates and politically outfits the  currency is put to rest and is now calibrated.
    Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said, cleaning the system of black money and corruption is presently high on his agenda. Mr Modi was speaking after jointly inaugurating via video conferencing the Economic Times Asian Business Leaders Conclave in Kuala Lumpur along with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
    Prime Minister said country is moving towards a digital and cashless economy. He said India is currently witnessing an economic transformation and the outcomes are visible from India’s global rankings on various indicators. He expressed happiness that the constitutional amendment for Goods and Services Tax has been passed and it is expected to be implemented from next year.
    Mr Modi said concerted efforts continued on major FDI policy reforms and conditions for investments have been simplified. He said total FDI inflows in the last two and a half years have touched 130 billion dollars. Mr Modi also said, licensing regime has been rationalised greatly and investor facilitation cells have been set up to guide prospective investors. He said, India has now become the 6th largest manufacturing country in the world.

Italian new PM wins confidence vote

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni cleared a Lower House confidence vote on Tuesday with 368 in favor and 105 against.The newly formed cabinet was officially sworn in Monday evening, and it would seek a second confidence vote in the senate on Wednesday, in order to fully entering into force.
Addressing, Gentiloni appealed for support in order to address the most pressing issues, including the financial troubles haunting Italy’s third largest lender — Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) — the migration crisis, and the reform of the electoral system.
The weak economic recovery, high unemployment, and the reconstruction in quake-hit central regions were also enlisted as priorities.
“We all are aware we will have to work on the rules that would bring the country to elections,”Gentiloni said.
The freshly nominated prime minister then focused much of his address on unemployment.
“The priority of all our priorities will be: job, job, and still job,” Gentiloni stressed.
“In a time when our economy has been showing timid signs of recovery, we certainly know we must boost such trend.”
Two different laws currently govern the election of the Senate and the Lower House of parliament, and Italian president Sergio Mattarella stressed they need to be “harmonized” before the country could possibly face early elections, as all opposition forces were asking.

Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (Land Rights Movement)

Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (Land Rights Movement)

March to Parliament –  15 December 2016 
Forest Rights Rally
 Jantar Mantar, New Delhi

Implement Forest Rights Act !   Intensify Opposition to Anti-People Land Policies !Stop illegal Land acquisition!       Land rights to landless , women and peasants

Sovereign Rights over natural resources in the forest region have always remained a core demand of forest dwelling communities since the colonial days when British colonial power imposed its forcible authority over all natural resources, thus denying the traditional symbiotic relationship between communities and forest resources. Once colonial power established its eminent domain to plunder all natural resources for its needs to expand the Empire, a conflict situation was created between the colonial state and the indigenous communities and unfortunately this plunder has continued in the post colonial era too. Innumerable heroic struggles were fought against the colonial state by the communities – led by exemplary courage and conviction by the subaltern leadership from amongst the Adivasi people with their indominatable  spirit, creating a glorious heritage of struggle. The struggle continued even in the post colonial era demanding justice from the independent and post independent Indian state, which however carried on with the system of eminent domain in the forest regions and the conflict continued. After about 60 years of Independence, under UPA1government , a progressive legislation, Schedule Tribe and other Forest Dwellers, Recognition of Forest Rights Act was enacted by the Indian Parliament on 15th December, 2006 which came to be  popularly known as Forest Right Act (FRA) to mitigate the conflict situation in the forest region, and ,  as the preamble of the historic act says, to end the ‘historic injustice’ on the forest dwelling communities. The act ensures individual tenure right over cultivable land and more importantly collective ownership right over all NTFP and on forest based resources to the Gram Sabhas, duly elected by the community members. But even after almost a decade the promised end to the historic injustice is yet to come. The government never showed the necessary political will for effective implementation of such a progressive act which is meant to bring about a structural change in forest governance. Rather, things are now moving in the opposite direction. The present NDA government is very much intent to change the basic feature of the act. In fact, the government has introduced dangerous moves by declaring a cut off date for claiming of rights, passing the CAMPA bill and again to involve corporates in plantation activities in degraded forest areas. All these steps are against the rules of FRA and would endanger the rights of communities. The state has also been mischievously trying to create divisions among the Adivasis and other forest dwellers pursuing the policy of divide and rule. Inevitably, this would create a situation where conflicts between people and the state will increase as organized communities with their emerging consciousness will resist any effort to dilute their rights. This may create a situation where we can see more state oppression and more open commoditization of resources. In this context forest right movement now has to be seen as a struggle against corporate driven state, necessitating a new alignment of social forces and especially of natural resource based primary producers.

Forest Right and specifically the implementation of forest right act is fundamentally a political challenge. Because ensuring implementation of  Forest Right Act is now actually  passed on to the people – the forest dependent people , something which will potentially alter the very balance of political economy in post colonial India cannot but be a political fight. It needs to be remembered that such rights have been restricted and obstructed by the existing political economic and social structures where dominant capitalist force rule over the resources.  And this process of restricting and then taking away rights of the forest dependent people started in colonial India has been continued in independent India. So by just asking for, pleading to the government to implement Forest rights  Act  to eradicate “ historic injustice” as envisaged  by this special act of the Parliament of India is not enough. The Indian political establishment has to be challenged through a democratic political movement by the forest dwelling communities with active support from other natural resource based  working peoples’ movements – whether it is the movements for land, water or minerals or fisheries .

It needs to be clearly understood that capital , though in deep structural crisis, is still dominant and governments, in this era of capitalism euphemistically called the era of neo liberalism, are subservient to capital and its allies in the region – landlord , land mafia, vested interest, which  also constitute the class basis of capital. And it is this class representing capital which has to be politically challenged.  It should be very clear to us that governments at the Center or in the States will not take up this challenge, even if constitutionally mandated, to destabilize these forces because they are politically dependent  on these class forces for their own political existence.Very recently, Indian state by imposing demonetization of higher level currencies is bent upon to extract whatever limited resources people have for benefiting corporate interest and thus uprooting common people from their livelihood and making them economic refugees . In such a situation the demand for Forest Rights has to be seen in the larger context, more holistically, along with the movements for Land rights, fisheries rights, mining rights and a co-ordinated and complimentary struggle has to be launched for achieving success; it is not possible for any such struggle to be successful separately. This is a political lesson which we should all imbibe and take as the basis of moving ahead in our struggles.

It is a decade since 2006 when the Forest Rights Act was passed. When we look at our successes and failures the biggest lacunae which comes across is the failure of the Forest Rights movement to attain political maturity barring a few exceptions, to challenge the political status quo. But the coming together of different political streams and mass movements to oppose the proposed changes in the Land Acquisition Act by ordinance and the success which it has achieved through this joint action by forming a platform of landless , poor peasants, agricultural workers, forest dependent working people ‘ Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (Land Right Movement), supported by all national trade unions and also by opposition political parties proves the necessity of moving on to a new era of political alliance at the mass movement level which  has the potential to alter the balance of political forces.

Collectively taking up this challenge should also inspire the progressive forces to join or at least support the peoples’ struggle. The determination and resolve shown by the Trade Unions in their united action  in making  general strike of 2nd September,2015 a successful struggle  and the  recent unrest of academicians, intelligentsia and professionals against intolerance  has again recreated  a space which had closed out  over the last two decades because the intelligentsia had distanced themselves from peoples’ movements. If such forces can provide active support then a great opportunity will be created for strengthening  Forest Rights / Land rights movements to take up the political challenge.
In this context , Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (BAA) a joint platform of landless , poor peasants, agricultural workers, forest dependent working peoples’ organizations – representing major mass organizations across twenty states have decided to observe 15 December  – Forest Rights Day, day of challenge and warning. This will indeed be a unique occasion when diverse  peoples’ movements, mass organizations  would come together  to declare a decisive struggle which would logically lead much beyond just Forest Rights. We appeal to all progressive, mass based, people centric organisations to join forces on 15 December 2016 in Delhi to give a clarion call to decide on comprehensive agenda to achieve sovereign rights over forest,land,water and other natural resources and to fight against forced land acquisition, agrarian crisis and fascist politics.
Venue: Jantar Mantar / Sansad Marg
Time: 11am to 4pm 

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