In its latest attempts to dilute the divestment conditions, Coke has sought permission from the Indian authorities to deny voting rights to the Indian shareholders. The proposal of offering voting rights to Indian shareholders is “substantive and onerous,” says the company. In a letter (dated January 23, 2003) addressed to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), Coke has sought deletion of the condition under which its bottling subsidiary, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited (HCCBPL), is bound to provide 49…

The sinister move by the US to curb the use of capital controls under the guise of just concluded bilateral trade agreements with Chile and Singapore has not received adequate attention. America’s economic predominance – and the resulting shape of the global economy – has long rested on a combination of bullying, threats and inducements, but recent US bilateral trade deals signed with Chile and Singapore hint at something entirely more sinister. This is because both agreements include strict financial conditions alongside aggressive safeguards for intellectual property which go beyond multilateral benchmarks…

Historically, women’s groups and NGOs initiated microcredit programmes at local levels as one component of the development strategy to empower poor women. But nowadays microcredit is no longer a localised activity. For banks and financial institutions, microcredit offers new avenues of profit-making since interest rates range from 20 to 40 per cent and repayment rates are over  90 per cent, far above commercial lending. This economic logic makes the poor more attractive to banks and financial institutions, but not vice-versa. Even agricultural and consumer goods companies have jumped onto the microcredit…