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	Tens of millions of Indian workers strike in fight for higher wages by News agencies   2 Sept 2016   A nationwide strike by tens of millions of Indian public sector workers has been hailed by union officials as “the world’s largest ever” industrial action.   Union officials said about 180 million workers, including state bank employees, school teachers, postal workers, miners and construction workers, were participating, but the figure could not be independently verified.   The strike was called after talks with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley broke down, with union leaders rejecting his offer to raise the minimum wage for unskilled workers from 6,396 rupees ($96) a month to 9,100 rupees ($136).   Workers are also demanding the government dump plans to close state factories, raise foreign investment caps in some industries and sell off stakes in state-run companies - over fears that creeping privatisation will jeopardise jobs.   The unions said the government should guarantee both social security and healthcare for all, and should be hiking the minimum wage to double what it is offering in order to keep up with inflation.   Last-minute concessions by the finance and labour ministries, including a 104-rupee rise in unskilled workers’ daily minimum wage, could not ward off the strike against what unions said were the “anti-worker and anti-people” policies of Narendra Modi’s government.   State banks and power stations were shut and public transport was halted in some states on Friday.   Among the trade unions’ 12 demands were a 692-rupee daily minimum wage, universal social security and a ban on foreign investment in the country’s railway, insurance and defence industries.   Prof Jayati Ghosh, a development economist at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s changes had built on a 25-year neoliberal reform agenda that had left workers across the country worse off.   “Less than 4% of workers in India come under labour protection, and even those protections have become more and more eroded. There’s a general sense that instead of targeting poverty they are targeting the poor, and there has been a real running down of spending on essential public services,” she said.   She said health workers in some states had not been paid in months, food subsidy and distribution schemes were being neglected and “private employers who wish to discourage any kind of unionisation are being actively encouraged by the central government”.
	Keeping Seeds in Peoples Hands by Right to Food and Nutrition Watch   Despite feeding the world and providing resilience to natural disasters, peasant seed systems face severe threats due to the appropriation of nature by corporations and the accelerated destruction of agricultural biodiversity. Increasingly, seed and agrochemical businesses seek to privatize, monopolize and control seeds by patenting and commodifying this very source of life.   Meanwhile, peasant and indigenous communities, who have been the developers and guardians of seeds for millennia, are finding their rights to save, use, exchange and sell seeds overshadowed by a corporate agenda that prioritizes profit over human rights and the sustainable maintenance of nature.   It is now high time that the spotlight is turned on to how the corporate capture of seeds and other natural resources (land, water, forests) is impacting the way in which the food we eat is produced.   This compels us to look at the rights of peasants and small-scale food producers overall. The central role of women as custodians of seed and biodiversity must also be recognized; women are the unacknowledged and unseen experts on these matters and must be involved in decision-making.   But, above all, what needs to be changed is the current value system that prioritizes seed and food for profit over seed and food rights, not commodities, for those who produce it and their heirs. Without this breakthrough, we cannot move forward.   Seeds and agricultural biodiversity have been at the heart of social movements'' struggles for decades. Nonetheless, despite the manifold interlinkages, efforts towards the realization of the human right to adequate food and nutrition have thus far paid insufficient attention to them.   The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2016 - Keeping Seeds in Peoples Hands - explores ways to close this gap and promote a stronger agenda to advance these interconnected struggles. It discusses how peasant movements, indigenous peoples, and other local communities around the world are resisting the privatization and commoditization of nature and presenting alternatives.   Read the Watch and join the struggle to make the right to food and nutrition a reality for all, see link below. Visit the related web page
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