Opinion EU and us

An article in CPM journal People’s Democracy claims the government is facilitating profit maximisation for foreign and Indian big capital while abdicating its constitutional responsibility to provide the basics to all citizens.

“That the EU is in the grips of a severe crisis that is threatening the very existence of the Euro is there for all to see. This FTA with EU is designed to open up the Indian markets for profit-starved European capital and particularly,its highly subsidised agricultural and dairy products to flood Indian markets.

“At a time when government agencies themselves are not paying the farmers the declared minimum support price,forcing them to enter into distress sales,such opening up of our economy will only result in heaping greater agony on our farmers… The result of the FTA with the ASEAN countries has shown how disastrous its impact has been on the producers of cash crops,particularly in Kerala,” it argues.

It says the UPA was seeking foreign capital to ease the burgeoning fiscal deficit. “If the tax concessions given to the corporates and the rich are withdrawn,then the fiscal deficit would simply cease to exist,” it says. The article predicts the government is likely to further slash the already meagre social sector expenditures in the coming budget,in the name of curtailing this growing fiscal deficit.

Water wars

The recently released draft National Water Policy has beeen criticised by the Left. An article in People’s Democracy quotes the farmers’ wing of the CPM,saying it aims to privatise water delivery services and abolish subsidies to the agricultural as well as the domestic sector.

The proposal “would allow the profit-seeking corporate sector to rake in huge profits while millions of Indians will be forced to pay hefty amounts for getting water for cultivation as well as daily domestic use. The peasantry who are already reeling under an acute agrarian crisis and facing a situation of stagnant productivity would be the worst hit,” it quotes the All India Kisan Sabha as saying.

The draft is only pushing forward the ideas dictated by the World Bank,as the concept of collecting user charges to fully recover the costs of operation and administration of water-resource projects,it says. “A World Bank paper in 2005 had suggested privatisation of water supply and minimal role for the government as a service provider of irrigation,water and sanitation services for ‘stimulating competition’ in the water market. The claim that it is a move towards sustainable water management to address climate change concerns is baseless,given the fact that the government has not done enough to replenish groundwater aquifers through water harvesting and other methods,and that there are no controls over corporate exploitation of groundwater resources,” the AIKS says.

The draft policy,it says,calls for the abolition of all forms of water subsidies to the agricultural and domestic sectors on the one hand and on the other argues for subsidies and incentives for the private industry in the name of recycling and reusing treated effluents. “The government is clearly trying to shirk its responsibility as a provider of water to the people including the peasantry,” it argues.

Get real

With not much at stake in the ongoing round of assembly elections,the Left claims that the major political parties are highlighting sundry issues rather than real socio-economic problems faced by the people. All the parties — whether Congress,BJP,SP or BSP — have sidetracked the issue of corruption for obvious reasons,it says. These parties are also silent on price rise,unemployment,growing economic disparities and lack of development,claims the editorial in CPI journal New Age. “Most of these parties are committed to implementation of policies of economic neo-liberalism,the real cause of all economic miseries heaped on the common people,” says the editorial. “Each of them harped on emotional issues that can ensure share in different vote banks based on caste and religious affiliations,” it adds. “The moot point is that,even the poll campaign is not the time for bourgeois politicians to focus on real socio-economic issues,” it says.