India: States of Resistance
Washington and its echo chambers in the media like Thomas Friedman never cease to extol the virtues of so-called free trade. So-called because it is heavily dependent on taxpayer subsidies. While well-paying jobs disappear in the United States and wages are stagnant, citizens fork over billions of dollars to top corporations to export their products. For example, giant American agri-businesses dump their cheap grain in the Indian marketplace. This is the famous level playing field that free trade advocates loudly champion. But how can Indian farmers compete? They can’t. The impact has been devastating. As journalist P. Sainath and others have documented, there is an epidemic of suicides among farmers as well as an internal refugee crisis. Unequal trade deals are producing a backlash. All over India groups are fighting back.
Speaker
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva is an internationally renowned voice for sustainable development and social justice. She’s a physicist, scholar and social activist. She is a founder of Navdanya and Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi. She said, “I started Navdanya, nine seeds, as a political act so that farmers would have free seeds in their hands. Using that free seed, they would be able to resist the kind of control system that corporations were trying to establish in India. Through those seeds, they can establish sustainable organic agriculture again.” She is the recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize and the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. She is the author of many books, including Water Wars, Earth Democracy, Soil Not Oil, Oneness vs the 1%, and Terra Viva.
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