Opinion Same difference

“The BJP government’s involvement in multiple corruption scams in Karnataka is also testimony to the fact that on the issue of corruption — that these economic policies facilitate — there is yet again little difference between the BJP and the Congress,” it says.

FTA Folly

An article in People’s Democracy criticises the concept of free trade agreement,calling it “a dangerous new frontier”. The article talks about the curious coexistence of FTA and WTO. It says the cornerstone of the WTO is the most-favoured-nation clause,which means that member countries cannot discriminate in their treatment of other member countries,whereas FTAs discriminate between countries who are part of it and those who are not.

It says there are inherent contradictions in these systems and goes on to list several drawbacks of FTAs,including provisions related to government procurement and liberalisation of health services.the Aadhaar worry

An article in the CPI’s New Age criticises the Unique Identification project,Aadhaar. It says the scheme must be reviewed from scratch. It says if Aadhaar is being “imposed upon the public,there is need for genuine transparency to dispel public doubts regarding compromise of fundamental rights and freedoms. This is especially so because obtaining the Aadhaar number is stated to be not mandatory whereas various government entities are insisting upon it.” It also worries about the security implications of Aadhar,which it says “will inevitably be at the core of a system which will enable profiling and tracking of any citizen useful to any of India’s 11 security or intelligence agencies”. “It is an unconscionably expensive,unaccountable and virtually secret programme that can hold the key to a total-surveillance state,making the Constitution of India a dead document,” it concludes.