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Swadeshi Jagaran Manch warns agitation
Gains at Doha squandered away
By Pramod Kumar
Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) convenor, Murlidhar Rao, has said that the hurried approval to the draft prepared on Doha Work Programme on July 31 by the Minister of Commerce, Kamal Nath, has reversed the advantage, which the country had earned by successfully blocking the trade negotiations at the Ministerial Conference in Cancun. He said that the approved draft was likely to increase the problems manifold for the entire developing world in general and India in particular. ?Demonstration of firmness by India at Doha and later on the unity of the developing world at Cancun have actually been diluted,? Shri Rao maintained.
Talking to mediapersons in New Delhi, he said the Uruguay-like situation had been created at Geneva, when India let down the developing world by suddenly accepting the new issues in multilateral negotiations. ?By not taking alliance partners into confidence in multilateral negotiations, the Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath, appears to have ignored the strategy authored by the late Murasoli Maran, the then Commerce Minister, that had resulted in regaining confidence of the developing world at Doha, which was later manifested in the shape of solidarity of these nations at Cancun. An opportunity to lead the developing world has once again slipped from India'shands,? he said.
Shri Rao reiterated the SJM'sfirm belief that India could be built only by Indians. ?Government will have to change its mindset regarding the inevitability of foreign investment. Recent proposal to hike FDI cap in telecom, civil aviation and insurance sectors is the manifestation of that mindset. SJM strongly condemns these proposals and demands that FDI cap should not be allowed to increase any further,? he said and warned the government that they would come to streets if it moved further with FDI. Demanding an open discussion on WTO, Shri Rao said a suspicion had developed on the assurance that the UPA government had given while assuming the office in May. He said the government should show activeness on controlling the inflation.
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