India to drag Monsanto to court?

In an unprecedented move, India is expected to be the very first country (and hopefully, not the last one) to take legal action against a multinational company for bio-piracy!

India is expected to drag Monsanto to court for taking indigenous plants bred by generations of people in rural India; tinkering with their genes; and then re-introducing them as genetically modified varieties owned by Monsanto!

Besides it being an arrogant 'flipping the bird' in the face of the nation and its farming community, we also need to remember that the modified gene will eventually contaminate the indigenous genepool - and, technically, Monsanto could end up owning all the fields that are contaminated with the GMO.

Read how transgenes contaminated indigenous corn, the staple food of Mexico. As well as wild varieties of Canola in Canada.

And one thing I cannot quite reconcile with though, is the involvement of India's own Department of Biotechnology in tranferring indigenous know-how to Monsanto through its subsidiary, Mahyco, on terms that can be described as both ridiculous and disgusting.

C'est liquid locomotion...

A.k.a Dubstep Robot Dance



I just love it.

Anonymous comes to Bollywood...

According to PC World, Anonymous' failed 'Operation India' had all the makings of a Bollywood thriller...

Let's begin with a flashback...

It is June 2011, and a well-meaning group - Anonymous or someone claiming to be them - hack one of the websites of the National Informatics Centre, an Indian government IT organisation.

They were, they said, protesting the police action on Baba Ramdev's protest venue in Delhi. (Now, I have nothing against Anonymous (or any other group) throwing their collective hat into the Lokpal circus ring - but I do question their motives.)

Here comes the obligatory comedy sequence...

The following is their list of demands...


The demand for "The complete removal of corruption in all its forms..." seems like extreme naiveté at best; and "clearance of pending court cases in all courts of India swiftly, and fairly" makes me stop and question their intellect.

But the one that, both made my jaw drop and raised my hackles, was this: "Unique ID number (like citizenship) for everything. All data must get store (sic) under single ID."

First, the UID has nothing to do with citizenship - it is for all residents of India. Second, once the UID is made a necessary pre-condition (something the Indian governement is trying hard to do) for services that are actually a citizen's right, it does not bode well for anyone who those with access to the 'delete' button disapprove of!

But finally, and this one's a real knee-slapper... To have all of one's data stored and collated under a single ID is ipso facto the abolition of privacy. It strikes me as either a little odd for such a demand to come from a group calling itself "Anonymous"!

Anonymous also claim they took down the Indian Army's website - and end up being blitzkrieged by outraged Indians on facebook. They quickly hit 'Control Z' on their keyboards, but it was too late! (Apparently, the Indian Army manages to keep a decent public image notwithstanding the efforts of Arundhati Roy.)

Finally, we cut to the climax in the villian's lair (minus the plaid jackets, flashing coloured zero-watt bulbs, and tank full of hungry crocs)...

In true Bollywood ishtyle, the heroes (calling themselves 'Real Anonymous') burst-in in the nick of time. They 'unmask' the villianous first group for what they really are - and save Mother India's izzat!

The End.

Anonymous: Hackers turn Economists?

Anonymous - the erstwhile hackers group - has morphed into a economic research organisation! Honest.

According to the Financial Times, "The group has accused Chaoda Modern Agriculture, one of China’s biggest vegetable producers, of fraud in what the faction says will be the first of many such investigations. It plans both to comb corporate balance sheets itself and solicit WikiLeaks-style submissions from whistleblowers."

Last heard, the company in question was getting a fair bit of pounding on the markets.

Here's more about what Anonymous Analytics - the new avatar - are up to.

I truly don't know what to make of this... except to wait and see who the next target is, which would possibly give a better idea of what their real agenda is.

Occupy Wall Street. Live!

Wow!

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

"Goldman Sachs rules the world."

There you have it - on the BBC, at that!



I think he used "Goldman Sachs" as a sort of metaphor. But the rather unsurprising part is that Goldman Sachs and their ilk do have a plan on how to profit from the misery of millions.

Let's not be naive about this - if someone makes a profit, someone else has to make a loss. What could be more simple than millions of stupid working-class people losing their savings to a handful of financiers?

And if you know history, you would know this is definitely not the first time the mammon-worshippers did it. (Hint: Find some time to research who financed - oops, giveaway! - wars and colonial exploitation over the centuries.)

One more thing, the well-meaning Mr. Alessio Rastani might say that anybody can make money from a market crash; "it isn't just for some people in the elite" - but it doesn't work that way! Financial trading isn't about a risky venture paying off or a complex computer algorithm estimating the exact timing of a market crash. It is straight-out collution and manipulation involving those at the very, very top.

In other words, most "market cycles" inevitably culminate - without exception - with the profits passed on to the owners of capital and their facilitators, and the losses passed on to the working-class.

All 9/11 myths busted in under 5 minutes

This would be hilarious - if it wasn't a sobering slap-in-the-face as well.



For goodness' sake, turn off the damn TV!