Putting money above everything else...how to make enemies and become hated

When President Bush was in power, he encouraged trade with Libya for the benefit of U.S. companies, like that of Cheney's Halliburton.

Now, President Obama is bombing Libya, creating opportunities for American munition and defense companies, many of which arm nearly all countries in the world, including Libya and Afghanistan.

Bush administration seeks Libya waiver - USATODAY.com: The Bush administration is asking Congress to exempt Libya from a law allowing terrorism victims to seize the U.S. assets of state sponsors of the attacks.
President Bush signed the law in January.

Its passage was held up over Bush's objections to a provision letting victims of state-sponsored terrorism sue responsible foreign governments and collect judgments by seizing their assets in the United States. Bush was concerned the provision would be applied to Iraq, so Democrats gave ground by giving the president permission to waive it for that country. He did so immediately upon signing the legislation.

Now, the administration has asked lawmakers to quickly grant Bush waiver authority for Libya.

Gordon Johndroe, Bush's national security spokesman, said the law's provision could discourage nations like Libya that have renounced the export of terrorism from now helping the United States to fight terrorism. There is potential for billions in investment by U.S. firms in Libya's oil sector, as well as in other areas.

"Commercial relationships ... provide important continuing incentives for them to cooperate with us on counterterrorism," he said. "This will deprive the U.S. of investments helpful to our economy, deny U.S. companies international business opportunities, and reduce the opportunities for us to engage with these states on a wide range of issues including claims."

Small drops of hope for the Yamuna

Movement to save the Yamuna gains momentum - The Economic Times: "A movement launched by the ascetics and Sri Krishna devotees of the Braj Mandal to save the Yamuna river from pollution is now gaining momentum.

Hundreds of ascetics and activists have reached Sangam (confluence) at Allahabad from where a long march to New Delhi is to start Wednesday.

Chief organisers Radha Krishan Shastri and Jai Krishan Das told IANS the march will reach the capital around April 15.

They said they will not withdraw till their demands are met and will talk only with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Pratibha Patil or UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

For the next 45 days, river Yamuna will remain in the focus as the march moves towards New Delhi via smaller towns and villages. By the time it reaches Agra, the organisers hope it will gain sufficient momentum.

This is the first time that the alarming pollution in the Yamuna has attracted so many people who look determined to set things right, said eco-activist Ravi Singh in Agra.

The Supreme Court, meanwhile has directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to submit within three weeks reports of samples collected from the river, close to the drains, to get a clearer picture of the quality of water in the river.

"This could have serious repercussions and even put the Delhi government in the dock for failing to effectively tap the drains and discharge of industrial effluents in the river," D.K. Joshi, a member of the Supreme Court monitoring committee in Agra told IANS.

Water samples analysed by The Energy and Resources Institute ( TERI )) researcher Swabha Takshak in Agra paint an extremely dismal picture.

"All the parameters, including turbidity and hardness are wrong," she said.

The results of samples she tested over a 30-day period pointed to an alarming level of pollutants.

Swabha Takshak, who carried out the study in May 2010, said: "The river is dead for all practical purposes. It is extremely polluted with every kind of pollutant imaginable, including toxins and carcinogens."

Poor Indians will become thirsty Indians

The Hindu : Arts / Magazine : Wars over water: "As World Water Day (March 22) draws near, an analysis of how water will become the next source of global hegemony.

Senior executives of 16 North American companies are descending on Bengaluru in a “Water Trade Mission” initiated by the U.S. government's commercial service arm. Their purpose is to “tap the $50 billion Indian Water Market.” To attract American companies, the mission projects “tremendous” figures in the Indian water sector, from water treatment to taking over water supply services and waste water management.

For the $3000 that these companies pay for the trip, the potential water business in India comes as a bounty. They will stay in a five-star Bangalore hotel, where they will be visited by policy makers, key state and municipal government officials and private water companies with whom they will have “one-on-one” meetings. The U.S. government is leaving no stone unturned to ‘ initiate or expand' the companies' involvement in India's emerging global water market.

Secret mission

The mission is cloaked in secrecy. The U.S. Commercial Services office in Bangalore has told us that Indian citizens are not allowed to have any information pertaining to the mission. Those details are reserved by the U.S. government solely for U.S. citizens and U.S. companies. But it is India's water that is up for sale. Though the objectives of the visit were put on the U.S. commercial services website more than three months ago, the chief Engineer of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board learnt about them only when the Americans walked into his office last week.

If the privatisation of water is good for India, why is it being done so secretively? In Mysore, bureaucrats waited for seven months for the elected council to be dissolved before giving away the Mysore Water Board to a private company. Elected representatives have become subservient to senior bureaucrats and business contracts more sacrosanct than public opinion, deliberation, and democracy.

Control over water has always been a source of power and discrimination but the economic implications of this are only now becoming obvious. A recent Bloomberg Water Index showed annual returns over the last three years of 35 per cent, eclipsing the 29 per cent for oil and gas stocks and 27 per cent for the World Basic Materials Index. At a time when we are about to reach the stage of ‘peak oil' - a time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached after which the rate of production enters terminal decline - water is the next natural resource for private companies to rule the world. From overt colonisation to organising coups, from waging war to planting tyrannical rulers and militarised globalisation, colonisers have terrorised the world for centuries with the primary intention of capturing and controlling natural resources. Land, gold, minerals, coal, petrol and every other natural resource have been pillaged at will. Water, because of its cultural, political and religious connotations, is still largely outside corporate control on a global scale, but it may not be for much longer.

The U.S. has targeted Karnataka particularly because the state is internationally recognised as a leader in dismantling public systems for water distribution. In 2002 the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC), a parastatal body unaccountable to elected representatives, worked closely with the World Bank to draft the State Urban Drinking Water and Sanitation Policy; this set the future path for urban water reform in the state. With a policy that commodified water, removed subsidies and institutionalised full cost recovery, the World Bank loan is paying for the transfer of public water to corporates.

The legal framework for water services would have prevented such arbitrary shifts, so the laws were changed almost overnight. In 2005 the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act was amended to allow for privatisation of water services. Aside from the people involved, very few know about this. There was no public consultation, and no documented debate in the legislature. What was the rationale for such an opaque process and what was the justification for such a fundamental shift in water governance?

Different experience

The standard arguments for privatising water services usually follow the assumptions that the private sector will bring in investment, competition, efficiency and equity. The experience in Karnataka tells quite a different story.

In four North Karnataka cities — Hubli, Dharwad, Belguam, and Gulbarga — about 30,000 households have had their water handed over to a French water corporation on World Bank orders; in Mysore, under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission the entire water supply has been contracted to JUSCO, a TATA company. These private firms have made no investment; the state is paying the companies many times more than it ever spent when it managed these services. That apart, the state is contractually obliged to provide brand new infrastructure, purified bulk water, fill up overhead tanks, and depute its staff to work under the private company and pay them too. The actual contracts are as absurd as the doctrine of lapse, which the East Indian Company used as a deadly weapon to conquer India.

Questions of equity and universal access to water also disappear under the new regime; public taps that service the poor and vulnerable are removed because they do not generate a profit. Water tariffs are increased; irrespective of capacity to pay.

The American mission is also culturally significant. The deliberate use of terms like ‘water market' and ‘water trade' underlines the intention of transforming our traditional idea of water as a natural resource to that of a commodity to which your access depends on your ability to pay. The judgments of communities about water are swept away by the brash arrogance of the business model. The idea that the state is an institution people elect for their own well being is disappearing.

Record of failure

Private water companies have a long record of failure. In U.S. cities in the mid-19th century, they failed to maintain quality water services, and also neglected poorer citizens. These market failures have not changed since then, and are directly linked to the profiteering character of private enterprise. This was proven again the world over during the enforced neoliberal water privatisation experiments of the 1990s.

The visit of the Water Trade Mission changes the Indian situation completely. U.S. corporations clearly want to establish control over our water and to override those in India who want to uphold the character of water as a common good. Successful resistance to this will need the widest possible public knowledge so that water is prevented from being exploited for private profits at the cost of equity, ecological justice, and the rights of all peoples - present and future.

Kshithij Urs is the Regional Manager of Action Aid in Karnataka, a member of the peoples' campaign for right to water and the author of Resisting Reform: Water Profits and Democracy, published by Sage International.

What Yogurt Lovers can expect....

Innovative yogurt products, from the country where yogurt is a mainstay of the menu.

Coffee, tea, or yogurt?:

Big players are repositioning packaged yogurt as stand-alone breakfast option or health dessert Just a week ago, the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), owners of Amul, launched what it called an “all-natural probiotic vitamins fortified flavoured yogurt” under the brand name ‘Flaavyo’. The product, Amul says, has all natural ingredients such as fruit pulp, natural flavour, live probiotic bacteria and essential vitamins. Initially, Amul Flaavyo yogurt is being introduced in five flavours – Mango, Strawberry, Pineapple, Vanilla and Misti Doi. Amul is only the latest in a series of such launches by yogurt makers who are all trying to reposition their products from just a “meal accompaniment” to a stand-alone breakfast option or a health dessert. The results of all these efforts are showing. The packaged yogurt market in India is around 60, 000 tonnes and growing at a healthy rate of 15-20 per cent annually. Amul’s MD RS Sodhi says, “Our yogurt drinks in one litre packs (family packs) have become very popular in modern retail formats and are witnessing huge demand. In India, packed fruit yogurt market is still in a nascent stage, but is growing very fast.” If Amul represents one end of the spectrum, relatively smaller players in the yogurt market are also moving in fast. For example, Cocoberry, a frozen yogurt chain, recently introduced an innovative product called ‘Parfait’, which is frozen and clubbed with cereals and has been positioned as a healthy breakfast option. This came close on the heels of ‘Blackberry’ yogurt. Encouraged by the response, Cocoberry, which started its operations two years ago, now plans to launch another exotic flavour – Tiramissu – very soon. Cocoberry CEO GS Bhalla says the market is witnessing a huge shift from conventional products to yogurt drinks and functional foods, specifically targeted at children. Innovative and premium products such as bio yogurts, or yogurt enriched with juice and fruits are finding favour among consumers. The company is expecting 400 per cent growth this year. Others such as Nestle, Danon, Parag Milk Foods and Mother Dairy are also not far behind in grabbing the latest opportunity in the health and wellness space. Sanjay Sinha, Head-Milk and Dairy Products business, Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable, says the company will strengthen its yogurt-based drinks portfolio this season with differentiated products and format offerings. Mother Dairy is present in the Delhi and Mumbai markets with plain and probiotic curd –’b-Activ’, yogurt drinks like lassi, chach in the Delhi NCR market and a probiotic drink under the ‘Nutrifit’ brand. Sinha says the organized part of the yogurt industry is less than 10 per cent of the potential and is growing at about 20 per cent. Last year, the world’s no 1 dairy company Danon also arrived in India with its wide range of plain and flavored yogurts – ‘Danon Dahi’ across super marts and grocery stores in Mumbai and Pune, affordably priced at Rs 27 for 400 gm and Rs 14 for 150 gm. Apart from its latest fruit-flavoured yogurts, Amul recently launched 200 ml pouch of Amul probiotic lassi priced at Rs 6 in the Gujarat markets. Sodhi adds, “We now plan to launch it all across India in foil covered plastic glasses at Rs 10.” Amul’s portfolio also contains misti dahi, probiotic dahi and light low-fat dahi. Competing in the same space, Nestle’s basket offers ‘Milkmaid fruit yogurts’ range in strawberry and mango variants along with its ‘fresh ‘n’ natural dahi’ as well as ‘slim dahi’, ‘jeera raita’ and ‘Nesvita dahi’. Nestlé claims its fruit yogurts are 98 per cent fat free. Some of the players are already looking at the international markets. Cocoberry, for example, is in advanced stages of discussions to finalise locations in some south east Asian countries as well as in West Asia. Parag Milk Foods is doing the same. Rahul Akkara, VP-Marketing, Parag Milk Foods, says, “yogurt contains natural bacteria and is a healthy eating option. As we scale up our business, we will look at spreading our operations to more diversified markets in India as well internationally. We need to cater to a larger section of the Indian diaspora who are deeply rooted to their traditional Indian cuisine.”