end-of Tags: east india company, shashi tharoor, wto, free trade. Another major consequence has been the mutation in politics, with representative democracy moving rapidly from “of the people, by the people, for the people” to “of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations”.In this period of decolonisation, we need a new movement of freedom. Even Gandhi’s ghani (the indigenous cold press oil mill) in Wardha was served notice under the FSSAI.Deregulation has impacts on our lives, livelihoods and freedoms. Our Prevention of Food Adulteration Act whe freedom of corporations and their masked owners is misused to destroy the Earth’s ecological fabric — the fabric of people’s economies and societies. This free trade agreement allowed the East India Company to take over India’s economy and colonise our beautiful land. They are trying to take away farmers’ freedom to save their seeds and exercise seed sovereignty.”In 1716, the first global corporation, the East India Company, signed a Free Trade agreement with Farukhshir, called the Farukhshir Firman. That is why Columbus was trying to come to India. The WTO and free trade agreements go way beyond international trade, which takes place outside national borders.Freedom” has become such a contested term. Fragmentation and disintegration of societies is intimately linked to the extractive economic model of wealth accumulation by the few. This is why I work for seed freedom, food freedom and earth democracy. This is systemic corruption of our democracy and a recipe for destruction of people’s economies. In spite of all the knowledge we have of the link between industrially processed food or junk food and disease, it is the junk food industry that gets government subsidies, while our artisanal, healthy food systems are banned through laws, or shut down through the Washington inspired “war on cash” also called demonetisation (and the digital economy).
American biotechnology corporation Monsanto wrote the TRIPS agreement of WTO, which is an attempt to claim seeds as Monsanto’s “invention”, and own seeds as “intellectual property” through patents. At a deeper level, one of the most significant shifts was the emergence of financial power over the real economy, and the destruction of the real economies of nature and society.Large corporations define freedom as “free trade”, which is corporate globalisation.The junk food industry, including Coke and Pepsi wrote the SPS agreement of WTO. It is about an end to truly free trade between independent producers exchanging and selling goods at fair and just prices. Approximately 300,000 dead farmers is evidence of the institutionalised genocide.Niti Aayog has become a China wafer roll machine one-stop-shop for global corporate lobby groups to transform India’s economy into their private (backyard) market. Consolidation and spread of corporate power, undermining real economies that nourish and sustain people, is one impact. They attempt to take away our food freedom by dumping toxic food, junk food, GMOs and destroying our local ecological agriculture and food systems, which get priced out of the myond international trade to rule