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Monday, 12 January 2009 10:38 |
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IT is an irony, indeed a tragedy, that on World Water Day (March 23, 2004), one should be writing this article about efforts being made at the level of both the centre and many states in India to privatise water, a basic human necessity rightly considered as a public good but now being sought to be expropriated by corporate interests using the instruments of imperialist globalisation.
A variety of moves have been quietly underway for some time now, under the active prompting of the Word Bank, IMF, Asian Development Bank and other multilateral agencies, for privatisation of water supply utilities in India, starting with the major metropolitan cities and using these as le ...
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Last Updated on Thursday, 24 January 2013 06:39 |
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Monday, 12 January 2009 10:35 |
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SINCE antiquity it has been assumed that water is a common resource that canand should be shared according to the needs of people. This assumption isbeing challenged across the world, as water becomes a scarce resource.Already 160 km3 of water is pumped out each year from groundwater sourcesthat are not replenished. In Africa and parts of Asia women spend an averageof 3 hours every day to collect water. The global demand for water hasincreased more than six fold over the past century -- more than double therate of population growth, and 1.1 billion people in the world do not haveaccess to safe water
The answer to the huge challenge of managing water resources could have beensought ...
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Last Updated on Thursday, 24 January 2013 06:37 |
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Monday, 12 January 2009 10:32 |
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VIRTUALLY since the dawn of human civilization, the total amount of fresh water available for human consumption and use has practically remained constant. It is just half a per cent of the total water on the planet—the rest being seawater or water locked up in ice caps or deep below the earth’s surface. In the last 200 years the earth’s population has risen over 33 times. On the other hand, the only renewable source of freshwater on earth is rainfall—which generates a more or less constant global supply of 40,000 to 45,000 cubic km per year. Moreover, overuse, pollution, diversion and depletion of this finite source of freshwater is taking place rapidly across the globe. It is bei ...
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Last Updated on Thursday, 24 January 2013 06:33 |
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Monday, 12 January 2009 10:28 |
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THE BALCO disinvestment fiasco – handing over a highly profitable strategic industry to Sterlite, deeply implicated in Harshad Mehta’s stock market scam – has taught nothing to the Vajpayee government. The current disinvestment plans on the anvil for profitable Public Sector Units (PSUs) continue with equally scam tainted partners. The Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) disinvestment scheme is another one in this long line of scams that the Vajpayee government is pursuing.
The Government of India owns today about 53 per cent (52.97 per cent to be exact) of VSNL shares, the rest has already been disinvested to small investors through the stock market. VSNL has a monopol ...
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Last Updated on Thursday, 24 January 2013 06:28 |
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Saturday, 29 March 2008 00:00 |
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The current disinvestment proposal of the Union Government is a change from the earlier Nehruvian vision of self-reliance to the more limited one of Reliance. Only this explains the Government’s decision to sell off 25% of the equity of IPCL -- declared as a navaratna in 1997 -- to a “strategic” partner. In the last round of bidding, it was clear that Reliance was the most likely candidate as the strategic partner, a scenario unlikely to change by hiking off the Baroda plant of IPCL and selling it to Indian Oil.
IPCL was set up in 1969 to provide vital raw materials for the Indian industry. Till Reliance entered this area, it was virtually the sole supplier.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 24 January 2013 06:24 |
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