People's Democracy

AGAINST PATENTS AMENDMENT, SEED BILL ETC

AIKS To Launch Widespread Campaign

THE All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) has decided to organise widespread campaigns and mass actions at village, mandal and district level through out the country in the month of May and June on the issues concerning the peasants in particular and people in general.

This was decided by the central kisan committee (CKC) of the AIKS, which met at New Delhi on February 26-27, 2005 under the chairmanship of its president S Ramchandran Pillai.

The campaign and mass actions would be centred on the following issues:

•  The Third Amendment to the Indian Patents Act 1970, which will increase the price of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, insecticides and medicines beyond the reach of general people. The amendment will only serve the interest of the MNCs.

• The Seed Bill 2004, which will prohibit the farmers from growing, saving storing, exchanging or selling their own seeds, and thus handing over the whole seed market to be monopolised by the MNCs and big seed companies. This will give power to the inspectors and police to break open the doors and containers of any grower in search of ‘seeds’ and imposition of fine upto Rs 50,000, imprisonment upto six months or both for saving, storing, exchanging or selling non-registered seeds.

• The new Model Marketing Law, which gives all power to bureaucrats and will authorise the MNCs and big companies to open their own private mandis (grain markets), consequently dismantling the public mandis.

• Proper amendments in Employment Guarantee Scheme and allocation of adequate money for its implementation.

Also in this campaign, issues like falling prices of crops, credit facilities, electricity supply and important local issues would be taken up along with propagation of alternative policies.

The CKC meeting also adopted resolutions on Patents, Seed Bill, Marketing Law and problems of sugarcane growers. The meeting decided that the 31st all India conference of the AIKS will be held in February 2006 in Maharashtra. The exact dates for the conference would be decided in the next meeting of the Kisan Council to be held on June 23-24 in Uttaranchal. The CKC called upon all its units to start holding unit/tehsil/mandal conferences immediately after the conclusion of the ongoing membership campaign. And all the state conferences must be completed by January 15, 2006.

At the outset, the CKC condoled the deaths of president Yasser Arafat, P K Tandon, former joint secretary of AIKS, Nripen Chakraborty, former chief minister of Tripura, A Kanaran vice president of AIAWU and president of its Kerala unit, M Venkata Narasimha Reddy, former AIKS member from Andhra Pradesh and a Telengana armed struggle veteran, Gunadhar Maity, a veteran leader of Tebhaga struggle.

The CKC also condoled the death of tens of thousands of people due to tsunami devastation, hundreds of people in J&K due to snowstorms and avalanches. A separate resolution on martyrs was also adopted.

The CKC after discussing the deep agrarian crisis in the country and some of the latest actions of the UPA government adopted the following resolutions unanimously:

ON PATENTS AMENDMENT

This meeting of the CKC held at New Delhi on February 26-27, 2005 condemns the promulgation of ordinance by the UPA government on the eve of the New Year, amending the Indian Patent Act for the third time after WTO was formed. This was done with undue haste totally bypassing the parliament and with utter disregard for the public opinion demanding nationwide debate on this issue before legislation is taken up. With precedents in our country and other countries as well of not adhering to the deadline in the recent past, this indecent haste was uncalled for. That this was done to appease the MNCs and foreign finance capital with a holier than thou attitude is evident from the fact that the government has gone beyond the requirements of TRIPS and Doha declaration to enforce a product patent regime at the cost of further worsening of the crisis in Indian agriculture and industry. This is bound to ensure prohibitive prices of fertilizer, seed, pesticides, when the price of agricultural produce is sharply falling further with renewed efforts to liberalise  imports. The pharmaceutical industry will be another worst-hit sector and price of medicines will go beyond the reach of common people. The seed bill 2004 introduced in the parliament as a complementary effort to move in the aforesaid direction has been armed with draconian provision to rob the peasantry of their right to save, reproduce and exchange seeds while at the same time private seed industry including the MNCs are allowed  to go unscathed even after disastrous failure of maize seeds in Bihar or BT Cotton seeds in Andhra Pradesh. The UPA government has not taken any lesson from the verdict given by the people in the recently held elections against these ruinous policies that led to thousands of suicides and starvation deaths in different parts of the country. The CKC asks the UPA government to take note of massive protest actions organised by Joint Action Committee Against  Amendment of the Indian Patent Act in New on February 26, where  thousands of peasants, workers, intellectuals and people from all walks of life thronged in the Jantar Mantar venue and resolved to spread the movement all over the country. The government must not be allowed to abandon the sovereign right of the supreme legislative authority in the ill conceived misleading and erroneous pleas of unfounded linkage between Agreement on Textiles and clothing (ATC) and  TRIPs  and the need of sticking to the so-called unviolable deadline.

The CKC reiterates its demands to (1) tighten the definition of invention (2) limit the maximum admissible royalty to 5 per cent (3) reintroduce provision of compulsory licensing (4) retain the right of pre-grant opposition and (5) ensuring continued availability, at affordable price, of medicines brought into the market with due approval of the government during the transitional period between 1995 and 2005.

The CKC calls upon all patriotic and democratic forces in the country to forge a broadest possible platform to defeat this heinous move of complete undoing of the Indian Patent Acts, 1970 in the most non-transparent manner. It appeals to all members of parliament to defeat the proposed amendments of the Patent Act, when the ordinance comes before the Parliament for approval.

ON AGRICULTURE MARKETING LAW

Recently the centre has come out with a model law on agriculture market. Though agriculture is a state subject, the centre is using release of funds as a conditionality to force the states to change market laws. Already under pressure from central government, some state governments have started the process of changing the market laws.

The model law of central government is an  attempt to allow private sector including the MNC’s to open their own “mandis’ (grain markets) and purchase from farmers directly without going to approved mandis. This model act also encourages “ contract farming”, which is a part of new liberal policy. The model law  is also attempting to replace the elected committees which is governing the mandis with a chief executive officer appointed by the government.

Though there is lot of corruption and mismanagement in the present mandi system which is to be corrected, the new proposal by central government is not a remedy. Instead the medicine the centre proposes is worse than the disease itself. The CKC calls upon its units to intervene and see that the rights of farmers are protected and proper purchasing system strengthened in the states, with a say by farmers in the marketing arrangement.

SEED BILL 2004

The Seed Bill 2004, which was introduced in parliament recently, is a complimentary measure to the patents amendment ordinance. The seed Bill is aimed at making our peasantry and country’s agriculture totally dependent on MNC’s even in respect of seeds. The MNC’s who have already control over 40 per cent of our seed industry will  take full control, if the seed bill is implemented in the present farm.

The seed bill 2004 is an attempt to stop farmers, from seed saving, seed exchange and seed reproduction. Further the compulsory registration of seed combined with the power of seed inspectors to break open any container and any door is tantamount to creating a “seed police” to terrorise farmers.

When the seed bill curtails the rights of the farmers, it fails to regulate and hold liable private seed industries and MNC’s for seed failure, which is the immediate need to protect Indian Agriculture. The loss of more than 1000 crores for Bihar peasants last year due to failure of maize seeds and constant failure of B.T. cotton resulting in several thousand suicides of Indian farmers, are the best example of the misuse of the multinationals, by their so-called advanced seeds.

The CKC demands that the new “seed bill” should be withdrawn. The C.K.C. calls upon its units to organize protest actions against anti-peasant seed Bill 2004, introduced in the parliament by the UPA government.

RESOLUTION ON SUGARCANE

The CKC meeting strongly condemns the changes in the price fixing policy of sugarcane. Increasing the basic recovery from 8.5 per cent to 9 per cent and instead of peak period recovery taking average recovery will loot annually about 2,000 crores from the Indian Peasantry. The change in policy should be reversed by the UPA Government.

Statutory minimum Price for Sugarcane has been fixed on the basis of 8.5% basic recovery for the last four decades. If this is enhanced to 9% as was demanded by the mill owners,the farmers will lose about   Rs.30 to 40 per ton. The basis of Peak Period recovery was also observed for the last four decades and this has a scientific basis taking into consideration of seasonal condition etc. But the UPA government succumbed to the pressure of sugar mill owners and changed this peak period recovery to average recovery of the entire season. This causes a loss of Rs.50 to 60/-per ton to the farmers at the present rate.

By this the Sugar mill owners will be looting about Rs.2000/- crores from farmers annually. The price of sugar has risen already. The byproduct business is also on the increase. The industry has been given huge concessions in loans from sugarcane development fund and providing repayment holiday etc. Huge profits were registered in the last quarter of 2004 by the sugar mills according to the financial performance reports. Despite this the sugar mills have not paid crores of rupees of arrears to the sugarcane growers.

The CKC calls upon the peasantry to resist the anti-farmer sugarcane pricing policy by the UPA government.