Hotel Vijay Residency
Bangalore, Karnataka, December 24, 2005
Consumer Rights, Education and Awareness Trust (CREAT) organised a Media Workshop under the GRANITE project on December 24, 2005 at Bangalore. The workshop was attended by more than 40 participants, including the media persons and the State Reference Group (SRG) members of GRANITE, Karnataka.
Objective
- to sensitise the media persons about the impacts of globalisation and World Trade Organisation (WTO) issues on India;
- to highlight GRANITE project;
- to provide opportunity for the SRG members to interact with each other and with media persons; and
- to provided a forum for the participants to share their experiences and steps to be taken in the future to attain the objectives of GRANITE.
Highlights of the Session
Y G Muralidharan, Programme Coordinator, GRANITE Karnataka
The workshop started with a brief introduction about GRANITE project by Y G Muralidharan of CREAT. Then he explained the objectives of the workshop and said that GRANITE is a two-year project taken up by Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS), Jaipur, which is being implemented in eight identified Indian states. CREAT is implementing the project in Karnataka. Highlighting the main objective of GRANITE project, he said it aims to bring about changes in the trade policy that is pro-poor and also to empower civil society organisations (CSOs) that can articulate on WTO issues effectively.
Sathyanaranaya Sangita, Professor, Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore
Sathyanaranaya Sangita made a presentation on the ‘Implications of Globalisation on Economic Governance’. He said that governance is the process through which desired goals are achieved. Both media and civil society play powerful and significant roles in India. They in turn improve the economic growth and quality of life. Civil societies can collaborate, advocate, and even protest against the government on various policies. Voice of the people influences the policies and programmes and laws governing various aspects related to the quality of life, children, environment, child labour, and productivity.
He cited the example of China, which has adopted state led governance – growth, literacy, health, poverty reduction and it has reaped maximum benefits of globalisation. China has free flow of goods – ideas and information – maximum profits gained investment in developing countries. It integrates labour, capital, technology and markets. China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) is 80 percent higher than that of India. Further, he said that globalisation has its merits as well as demerits. The tremendous growth of Information Technology (IT) and Biotechnology Industry is due to globalisation. Globalisation leads to liberalisation of economy and thus economic barriers are reduced.
Rupa Chanda, Professor, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore
Rupa Chanda spoke on ‘General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) – Opportunities and Challenges for India’ explaining the basic structure of GATS and the four modes of supply. She said countries make commitments in specific sectors where it has advantage. Then she discussed that India’s interest under GATS is in Mode 1, 3 and 4 identifying the special sectors of interest, which include IT, IT enabled services, health, engineering and tourism. As far as imports are concerned, the major sectors include telecom, insurance, banking, energy etc., she added.
Dr T Ramakrishna, Professor, National Law School of Indian University, Bangalore
Dr Ramakrishna spoke on ‘Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and Access to Public Health’ explaining the concepts of Product Patent and Process Patent. Focusing on the pharmaceutical sector, he said that India is among the top 10 countries in pharmaceutical sector. He said that TRIPs prescribes a minimum standard for products.
Each of the session was followed with a brief discussion and questions from the participants.