RCEP not in National Interest

Madurai: “Today, it is need of the hour that Yoga and Udyog should go hand in hand. There has been not so much progress in infrastructure creation and connectivity building in villages. We have to use it for expansion of our agriculture, trade and industry,” said Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of Art of Living while inaugurating the 13th national convention of Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) on January 18. He stressed the need that we all should be proud of our heritage and culture. He stressed that some NGOs are working in the interest of the multinational corporations by questioning/raising issues at different constitutional and policy making platforms relating to our trade, industry and agriculture policies. About 1200 delegates from all over the country participated in the three day meeting.

National convener of SJM Shri Arun Ojha said DATA colonisation is a new threat to India. Developed nations collect DATA from developing nations, analyse it and sell it back to them. We should be careful about this in policy making process. He said education and health sectors are becoming commercial and profit-oriented. In the US, a recent report tabled in the Senate, said about 24 lakh unnecessary medical operation were done in one year. In this process, $4 billions were spent and 12,000 persons died.

In a resolution on RCEP, the SJM convention said RCEP is a major threat to India and not a major opportunity, as reported by a section of the media. Despite the fact that starting from 2012, 24 rounds of negotiations have already been completed, however these negotiations did not make any headway thanks to the approach of Indian negotiators, not yielding to the pressures of other member countries of RCEP. Member countries including India have been wary of fall-outs of the proposed agreement. “SJM believes that the RCEP is not in the interest of the people of India. There is no sector, no constituency or no region in India that will benefit from RCEP. Given the impending elections in 2019, it will be a disaster for the government to sign or even make commitments giving concessions on specific chapters,” the resolution said.

In another resolution, the Convention urged the central government to immediately halt the illegal activities of discounts, foreign currency transactions, illegal activities of Chinese apps and use of dominant position by E-commerce companies, to exploit the vendors and other stakeholders. “SJM firmly believes that India should have a robustE-Commerce policy, to protect the interests of 13 crore people engaged in retail trade and crores of people in Small and Medium Industries and lakhs of youth aspiring to grow in e-commerce business. India has been experiencing significant growth in e-commerce, with many small companies mushrooming and a few giants striving to take over the huge Indian e-commerce market namely Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, Uber, Ola, Alibaba, etc.,” the resolution said.