China's reforms
Land use in China is in for irretrievable change. At the Third Plenum of the 16th Party Congress, held October 11-14, 2003, the world's biggest …
On the defensive at Cancun?
Recently Arun Jaitley identified agriculture and investment as the two main issues for next month's World Trade Organization ministerial …
Software freedom
On Richard Stallman's personal homepage it says, "America means civil liberties. Patriotism is protecting them." Words that sum up the …
How to make the Commission for Sustainable Development work
It was only half a year ago, but events since the Johannesburg earth summit already make it seem like a distant event. The world has just seen an …
'Poor nations need Codex education'
Sanjay Dave, director of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), was recently elected chairperson of …
TRIPPED
On December 26, 2004, the Union government of India issued the Patents (Amendments) Ordinance, which will change the way the country does …
Lethal link
An expert on toxicology and a campaigner deeply concerned with the health impact of chemical pesticides, Romeo F Quijano was at the forefront …
Bt-by-Bt assessment
On November 10, 2002, people wearing 'Bollgard' caps visited cotton farmer R Narsimha Reddy at his home in Aleru, a village in Nalgonda, Andhra …
Everybody's a Loser
The World Trade Organization's recent ministerial meet in Seattle, USA, will be remembered more for the protestors who turned the venue into a …
Investment terror
Since the 1990s developing nations have been on a treaty spree, signing a vast number of bilateral and regional investment treaties to attract …
Don't need subsidies, give us the right price
For most Indians, Mahendra Singh Tikait is the man who brought Delhi to its knees in 1988 with a rally that brought the national capital face to …
The small big polluter
Small-scale industries: Where regulations are meaningless and pollution control an unaffordable luxury. Can they leapfrog to cost-effective …
Long yarn
The cotton story is a tangled tale. In many parts of India, farmers are committing suicide. It's been a while Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and now …
Sunshine sector loses sheen
About 40 kilometres from Delhi, in the bustling real estate market of Noida-Greater Noida, lies the biggest irony that the renewable energy …
Secretive tribunals, hidden damages
Canadian academic Gus Van Harten is well known for his efforts to reform the global investment treaty regime through his research papers, …
India’s many investment treaties make it vulnerable
Senior international lawyer Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder, who heads the investment programme of the International Institute on Sustainable …
"We need a revolution in global trade"
Walden Bello is professor of Sociology and Public Administration at the University of the Philippines, and executive director of the Bangkok-…
'Supercede capital'
JOEL KOVEL , Alger Hiss Professor of Social Studies at Bard College in Annandale, New York, is best known as the Green Party's candidate in the …
Row over investments
Down to Earth begins a series of previews of the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference 2003 in Cancun, Mexico
In a bizarre move, Argentina bars NGOs, civil society from attending WTO conference
Argentine government has revoked WTO accreditation of 31 civil society experts without offering any jusitfication
Heavy levy
US adopts a tough stand on softwood imports from Canada, imposing a 27 per cent duty on the imports
Road to Cancun - Waivers on paper
The only semblance of fairness that exists in the various agreements of the World Trade Organization is contained in their 155 "special and …
"No case for a multilateral framework"
Nagesh Kumar , director general of Research and Information Systems on Non-Aligned and Developing Countries, a development research organisation, …
Shifting weight
In the weeks leading up to the Seattle meet of the WTO, both the US government and the trade organisation have been trying to appease Western greens
Up in smoke
US state governments misuse funds meant for curbing smoking; A US anti-tobacco negotiator quits
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