Andhra Pradesh - Anantapur   

Government urged to pull out of WTO

Staff Reporter

`Little evidence to believe that participation will help Indian ryots, poor'

ANANTAPUR: The Indian Government should pull out of the WTO negotiations which would be held in December at Hong Kong, several speakers said on Tuesday at a meeting held here.

The Hong Kong Ministerial would further sustain the corporate domination over the agriculture sector, they felt. Representatives of Global Week of Action-India Campaign (GWA) and its partner NGOs -- Confederation of Voluntary Associations (COVA) and Mission for Minorities and Marginalized (MMM) participated in the meeting.

The speakers expressed concern over the Government dealing with the issues that pertained to the agriculture sector. They explained that various agreements of WTO and their consequences had led to an agrarian crisis in the third world.

Impact

The impact was being experienced by the farmers in States like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Punjab, where the agrarian crisis resulted in farmers' suicide. Thus, there was little evidence to believe that the negotiations in WTO would fetch any benefit to the Indian agriculture and its poor, they opined.

Later, they submitted a memorandum to Anantapur MP, A. Venkatarami Reddy, requesting him to raise their demands in the winter session of Parliament.

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Government urged to pull out of WTO

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