DANIEL BLOCK: How the Facebook-Reliance combine and the farm laws pave the way for digital colonisation

By Dilip -

In April 2020, Facebook purchased a 10-percent stake in Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, the telecommunications arm of the Reliance empire. In addition to dominating telecom, Reliance is the largest player in petrochemicals and in retail. When its latest acquisition is complete, the company will control 40 percent - a large plurality - of India’s organised groceries sector. That could make it the biggest buyer of farmers’ products and, therefore, the biggest beneficiary of the right to negotiate directly….

Facebook, one of the world’s most powerful companies, is no one’s puppet. But through its partnership with Reliance, the social-media giant could substantially gain from the agricultural laws. Facebook owns WhatsApp, which has more than fifty crore users in India. It is currently rolling out WhatsApp Pay, a feature that will allow WhatsApp users to complete digital transactions without leaving the application. And it is integrating Reliance’s JioMart - an expanding, groceries-focused online marketplace - into its messaging service. It means that if farmers begin selling more food directly to Reliance, as the laws would allow, there is a good chance they will do so via WhatsApp.

For Facebook, that presents enormous financial opportunities. For every sale or purchase made over WhatsApp, the company will receive valuable data on people’s needs, retail preferences, and finances. On 15 May, Facebook updated WhatsApp’s privacy policy in a way that makes clear the broader Facebook empire can use this data as it sells microtargeted advertisements….

https://caravanmagazine.in/business/facebook-reliance-farm-laws-banking-retail-dominance?utm_source=pocket_mylist

Surinder S. Jodhka: Changing Modes of Agriculture in Punjab

Jairus Banaji on the Indian corporate strategy of subordinating farm households and family labor

Bharat Bhushan: It suits the RSS to allow BJP to encourage defections from other parties

Swati Chaturvedi: It Was BJP Who Made It Mamata vs Modi. Too Far

Socrates: If the whole is ailing the part cannot be well / Ajit Prakash Shah: Darkness at noon, felled by the judiciary

Indian Farmers' Protest - Work in progress videos

Jatinder Kaur Tur & Mandeep Punia: Dalit activist Shiv Kumar's medical report describes illegal detention, torture and PTSD / Chitleen K Sethi: Nodeep Kaur gets bail, medical report shows bruises caused by blunt object

Gautam Bhatia - Safoora Zargar and Disha Ravi: Similar cases, (same judge), vastly different verdicts

‘Citizens can’t be jailed for disagreeing with state policies’: Top quotes from Disha Ravi’s bail order / Rajmohan Gandhi: Just Who Is Spoiling India's Image? A View From The US

“Pack of lies”: Disha Ravi family lawyers dismiss social media claims about activist’s religion

The WEF Agenda Behind Modi Farm Reform. By F. William Engdahl

WE STAND WITH INDIAN FARMERS - Full Page Advertisement in New York Times of February 16 in support of farmers movement

COLIN TODHUNTER: Farmers’ Protest in India: Price of Failure Will Be immense // Global Corporations' plans for India's agriculture

Nivedita Menon: Toolkits of democracy and a paranoid Hindu Rashtra

Express Editorial: Weaponising an advocacy document to arrest an activist signals paranoia, not democratic power.

BJP planning to form governments in Nepal, Sri Lanka? Biplab Deb discloses Amit Shah's global expansion plan

Chakshu Roy: Over the years, poets, students, and even a village have been booked under the sedition law

Bharat Bhushan - Covid-19 drugs: Eager beavers of BJP play God

Election Commission responsible for spreading Covid-19, should probably be booked for murder: Madras HC // Bharat Bhushan on the departing CJI: Good riddance

Bharat Bhushan - Himalayan chessboard: India fishes for advantage in unstable Nepal

Bharat Bhushan: No one critical of the government seems to be innocent any longer / Delhi Police arrests 22-year-old environmental activist, calls her key to foreign hand

SIMRAN JEET SINGH: The Farmers' Protests Are a Turning Point for India's Democracy

Rihanna and Greta prompt an MEA outburst — and a hashtag firestorm

Avay Shukla: Acts Of God And Follies Of Man

Kunal Kamra and the Elasticity of Justice. By Avay Shukla

Avay Shukla: THE FINE ART OF LOSING FRIENDS

Avay Shukla - ARE THE FARMERS MAKING DELHI IRRELEVANT ?

Reflections of an American living in India...

Popular resistance to undeclared Emergency// Ghazipur Border: Rakesh Tikait के लिए यूपी -हरियाणा से रातों रात आ गए किसान

Samyukta Kisan Morcha distances itself from violent elements / Farmer leaders accuse Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu of instigating protesters and leading them to the Red Fort

Manu Kaushik: Before India Breaks Its Promises / Dushyant Dave: SC Should Have Declared New Farm Laws Unconstitutional / Republic Day Tractor Rally: Tear Gas At Singhu Border

India's protesting farmers pay homage to the 143 farmers martyred in their movement and reject Centre's offer to stay farm laws / 42-year old Haryana farmer dies by suicide at Tikri border

Satarupa Chakraborty: CJI's Remarks on Women Farmers Are an Assault on Human Agency and Constitutional Rights / Pratap Bhanu Mehta: SC’s order on the farm bills is terrible constitutional precedent, bereft of judgment

Agenda for Social Democracy

Discussion on Indian Agriculture and the ongoing Kisan agitation

STATE OF RURAL AND AGRARIAN INDIA REPORT 2020. By the Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies

Navsharan Singh: A million reasons to march

Aruna Roy: All citizens should stand with the protesting farmers. At stake is India’s food self-sufficiency and sovereignty

Amit Bhaduri: Faces in mirror held up by farmers’ protest

Deb Mukharji - A Himalayan lesson, and about time

Noam Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction (Universalizing Resistance)

Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?

Sam Kriss: 'Neoliberalism' isn't a left-wing insult but a monstrous system of inequality

Defying capitalism and socialism, Kumarappa and Gandhi had imagined a decentralised Indian economy - Venu Madhav Govindu & Deepak Malghan

Amandeep Sandhu on Arthiyas - extract from PANJAB: Journeys Through Fault Lines

Ravinder Kaur: Has Modi finally met his match in India's farmers?

Indian Farmers' Protest - Work in progress videos

STATE OF RURAL AND AGRARIAN INDIA REPORT 2020. By the Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies

P. Sainath: Did You Think the New Laws Were Only About the Farmers? // SCBA president says farm laws 'unconstitutional', offers free services as lawyer to agitating farmers


Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

By Dilip -
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Tuesday alleged that third degree torture methods were used by the Gurgaon Criminal Investigation Agency while interrogating workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s Manesar plant who are accused of involvement in the killing of an HR manager and the violent attack at the plant on July 18. The PUDR alleged that the Gurgaon CIA investigation “did not seem” to be directed at solving the crime or probing the involvement of the arrested workers in the incidents and crimes recorded in the FIR but instead was based on their involvement in trade union activities. Grave doubts  “The use of third degree torture in police custody, and the securing of arrestees’ signatures on blank papers by the police, gives rise to grave doubts regarding the ability of such an investigation in effectively identifying or arresting those guilty. The police and the State seem keener to reassure Maruti Suzuki Ltd. and ensure that production continues,” the ...
Read more

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

By Dilip -
According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories,   which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.” One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert..." read the story: http://www.youmightfindyourself.com/post/22131227...
Read more

Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

By Dilip -
The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves.  Albert Camus     La crise de l'homme : THE HUMAN CRISIS   (Text read by Viggo Mortensen on March 28 2016)   Ladies and Gentlemen: when I was invited to give a series of lectures in the United States of America, I felt some doubt and hesitation. I am really not old enough to give lectures, and I am more at ease with the process of thinking than I am making categorical statements... since I don't feel I have any claim on what is generally called the truth. I shared this reservation and was very politely told that my personal opinion didn't matter. What mattered was that I'd be able to offer some facts about France so that my listeners could form their own opinions. It was then suggested...
Read more

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

By Dilip -
Image
'Do you know', Napoleon once said to Fontanes, 'what astounds me most about the world?  The impotence of force to establish anything.  There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind.  In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind' Conquerors, you see, are sometimes melancholy.  They have to pay some price for so much vainglory. But what a hundred years ago was true of the sword is no longer true today of the tank. Conquerors have made progress, and the dismal silence of places without intelligence has been established for years at a time in a lacerated Europe. At the time of the hideous wars of Flanders, Dutch painters could still perhaps paint the cockerels in their farmyards. The Hundred Years War has likewise been forgotten, and yet the prayers of Silesian mystics still linger in some hearts. But today, things have changed; the painter and the monk have been drafted - we are one with the world.  The mind has lost that regal certai...
Read more

Etel Adnan - To Be In A Time Of War

By Dilip -
NB: Etel Adnan, writer, poet, artist and musician was born in 1925 and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her mother was a Greek from Smyrna, her father, a high ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus. This prose poem is the final chapter of her book  In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country .  Read more about her here  - DS To Be In A Time Of War To say nothing, do nothing, mark time, to bend, to straighten up, to blame oneself, to stand, to go toward the window, to change one’s mind in the process, to return to one’s chair, to stand again, to go to the bathroom, to close the door, to then open the door, to go to the kitchen, to not eat nor drink, to return to the table, to be bored, to take a few steps on the rug, to come close to the chimney, to look at it, to find it dull, to turn left until the main door, to come back to the room, to hesitate, to go on, just a bit, a trifle, to stop, to pull the right side of the curtain, then the other side, ...
Read more

After the Truth Shower

By Dilip -
Dear Readers Thank you for reading my blog for the past eleven years. (This is a link to the new one) During this time it has had nearly 1.7 million hits; and I have posted over 9500 posts covering a variety of themes. From July 11 to 19, 2022, my blog was withdrawn by the Blogger administration on account of what its machinery suspected to be 'Impersonation'. It took over a week and the efforts of several well-wishers to get it back online I thank them all for their kindness and goodwill  My blog has always been - and remains - non-commercial. I have used it for academic purposes; and to foster a culture of debate and informed commentary in civil society. Because it contains a large amount of material gathered and collated for over a decade, I cannot afford to lose its contents. I hope it will remain undisturbed now and function as an archive. However, I have decided to use a new blog on WordPress as a platform for my newest comments and posts The new blog is titled After the...
Read more

James Gilligan on Shame, Guilt and Violence

By Dilip -
Shame, Guilt, and Violence / James Gilligan During the past 35 years I have used prisons and prison mental hospitals as "laboratories" in which to investigate the causes and prevention of the various forms of violence and the relationships between these forms and to what I will call (with a nod to William James) "the varieties of moral experience." In the course of that work, I have been struck by the frequency with which I received the same answer when I asked prisoners, or mental patients, why they assaulted or even killed someone. Time after time, they would reply "because he disrespected me" or "he disrespected my visitor [or wife, mother, sister, girl-friend, daughter, etc.]." In fact, they used that phrase so often that they abbreviated it into the slang phrase, "He dis'ed me." Whenever people use a word so often that they abbreviate it, it is clearly central to their moral and emotional vocabulary. But even when they did n...
Read more