Madleen: Release All Arrested for Solidarity With Palestine, Say Disability Groups, Individuals

Newsclick Report | 11 Jun 2025

A joint statement condemned the interception of Freedom Flotilla and arrest of activists, adding “There can be no disability justice without decolonisation.”

A protester in Brussels, Belgium, holds a placard reading 'Free Palestine' during a demonstration showing solidarity with Palestinians (Photo: Al Jazeera)

Disability rights organisations, and other rights organisations and individuals have issued a joint statement calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza and demanding “disability justice.”

Referring to the interception and arrest of activists, such as Greta Thunberg, Rima Hassan, Liam Cunningham among others, carrying aid for Gaza aboard the ‘Freedom Flotilla” called Madleen, the joint statement demanded the  immediate release of all political prisoners detained for solidarity with Palestine.

It called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, end to the genocidal blockade on Gaza, full international accountability for war crimes, including those violating the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD, among others.

Read the full statement below:

Joint statement by disability rights organisations/individuals and other organisations/individuals demanding an end to the Genocide in Gaza.

Stop the Genocide in Gaza: 

Solidarity with Palestinians and the Fight for Disability Justice

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, express our unequivocal solidarity with the Palestinian people enduring genocide — and with all those across the world who act in resistance and solidarity, including Greta Thunberg, Rima Hassan, Liam Cunningham, Ann Wright, and others intercepted and detained by Israeli forces while attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

On June 1, 2025, twelve international activists began their journey aboard the Madleen, a British-flagged sailboat organized by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, carrying essential aid — baby formula, flour, medical supplies, and desalination equipment — to Gaza’s besieged population. The vessel was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters on June 8, the aid seized, and the activists kidnapped. This blatant act of piracy is part of a broader strategy: to starve, isolate, and eliminate Palestinian resistance through siege and destruction.

What is happening in Gaza is not a war — it is a genocide. Backed by Western imperial powers, Israel is carrying out the calculated destruction of an entire people through relentless bombardment, blockade, deprivation and starvation.

Palestinians with disabilities are at the epicenter of this violence. Over 15% of Gaza’s population lived with disabilities before this current wave of genocide. That number is rising rapidly due to Israel’s use of high-impact explosives, chemical weapons, and systematic destruction of infrastructure — leaving behind mass trauma, injury, and the highest rate of child amputees in the world. This my no stretch of imagination can be categorised as collateral damage. 

Food systems have been destroyed. Hospitals have been bombed. Clean water and medicine are cut off. Disease is rampant. Mobility aids are destroyed, and medical care is denied. The physical and psychological toll is immeasurable — and disabled Palestinians suffer it most.

Meanwhile, those who stand up in solidarity including the likes of Greta Thunberg, an autistic and neurodivergent activist are met with arrest and repression. Their detention is meant as a threat: to silence dissent and punish resistance. We reject that threat entirely.

As a disability justice movement, we declare:

There is no disability justice without decolonization.

There is no accessibility under apartheid.

There is no liberation in systems built to destroy.

We Demand:

• The immediate release of all political prisoners detained for solidarity with Palestine.

• An immediate and unconditional ceasefire.

• An end to the genocidal blockade on Gaza.

• Full international accountability for war crimes, including those violating the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

• The dismantling of settler-colonial and imperialist systems that uphold this violence.

Disability justice demands nothing less than the complete end of apartheid, genocide, and settler-colonial violence.

For over 75 years, Palestinians have resisted with unwavering courage. Our liberation is inseparable from theirs. We reject all reformist calls to "improve" or "include" within structures of death and oppression. 

We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and all oppressed communities resisting imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism.

From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free

Prepared by: National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD)

Endorsements from Disability Rights Organisations & Individuals:

1. Paschimbanga Rajya Pratibandhi Sammilani

2. Vikalangalu Hakkulu Jatiya Vedike, Telangana

3. Differently Abled Welfare Federation, Kerala

4. Tamilnadu Association for the Rights of All Types of Differently Abled & Caregivers

5. Haryana Viklang Adhikar Manch

6. Madhya Pradesh Viklang Adhikar Manch

7. Delhi Viklang Adhikar Manch

8. Tripura Pratibandhi Adhikar Mancha

9. Karnataka State Disabled & Caregivers Federation

10. Vikalangalu Hakkulu Jatiya Vedike, Andhra Pradesh

11. Shampa Sengupta, Sruti Disability Rights Centre

12. Shashank Pandey, Politics and Disability Forum

13. Abhirupa Kar, Civilian Welfare Foundation 

14. Danish Mahajan, Udaan Empowerment Trust

15. Amita Dhanda, Professor Emerita, Head Centre for Disability Studies and 

Centre for Legal Philosophy and Justice Education NALSAR

16. Vijay Tiwari, West Bengal National University of Juridicial Studies

17. Ravi  Ganesan, Disability Rights Activist, Bengaluru

18. Nilesh Singit, Disability Rights Activist

19. Srinidhi, Educator & Researcher, India

20. Advocate Anchal Bhatheja, New Delhi

21. Rashmi, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

22. Lina Pegu,  Doctoral candidate, TISS, Maharashtra

23. Amar Pawar, Disability Studies Scholar, India 

24. Ekramul Haque

Endorsements from Other Organisations & Individuals:

25. All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA)

26. Nisha Siddhu, Gen. Secy, National Federation of Indian Women

27. All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS)

28. Meera Sanghamitra (National Alliance of People's Movements - NAPM), Hyderabad

29. Sudhanya Roy Chowdhury 

30. Mahasweta Samajdar Dipanwita

31. Hanoz Master, Head Sales Vibescapes, Thane, Maharashtra

 

The Lingering Myth of Capitalism

Prabhat Patnaik | 09 Jun 2025

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To overcome unemployment and poverty, the sooner the Global South abandons such myths, the better.

There are many myths about capitalism spun by economists. One of these myths, spun by British economist David Ricardo, has endured for over two centuries. Ricardo had originally been an enthusiastic supporter of the introduction of machinery, dismissive of the argument by workers’ organisations of his time that it gave rise to unemployment.

In the third edition of his book,  Principles, however, he added a chapter titled “On Machinery” in which he agreed with the workers’ organisations that the introduction of machinery did indeed cause unemployment immediately, but then went on to argue that since it raised the rate of profit, and hence the rate of accumulation and growth, including the rate of growth of employment, it would over time generate even larger employment than would have occurred otherwise.

This assertion of Ricardo, which Karl Marx had trenchantly criticised in his Theories of Surplus Value, is obviously flawed for several reasons.

First, Ricardo’s whole discussion was around a one-shot introduction of machinery; but in a capitalist economy technological change is a continuous affair, the introduction of one set of machinery being followed by the introduction of another, and yet another. It follows, therefore that, even assuming that the rate of profit and hence the rate of accumulation and of employment growth keeps rising through such technological progress, the day when the unemployment generated by such mechanisation will eventually get fully absorbed, also keeps getting further and further postponed.

Second, the entire Ricardian argument assumes that Say’s Law holds; that is, there is never any problem of aggregate demand. In other words, all savings that are equal to the unconsumed profits (all wages are assumed to be consumed) are invested; investment is never supposed to be constrained by the growth of the market, which in turn presupposes that there is no other form in which wealth can be held, that is, money is not a form in which wealth can ever be held. This is both unrealistic and logically invalid.

Once we recognise that investment is governed by the growth of the market, then it follows that a shift from wages to profits caused by the introduction of machinery will reduce the rate of accumulation. Since the introduction of machinery will immediately cause a rise in unemployment, wages will not rise even as labour productivity rises through mechanisation; this will cause a shift from wages to profits.

Since wages are more or less fully consumed while only a small proportion of profits is, such a shift from wages to profits tends to reduce the ratio of consumption in total income, causing a tendency towards over-production, which actually brings down the rate of accumulation.

Hence, far from increasing the rate of employment growth, as Ricardo had argued, the introduction of machinery will tend to bring down the rate of employment growth. Of course, there may be periods when the rate of accumulation may increase for independent reasons and if such periods are marked by no further introductions of still newer machinery, then the level of unemployment may indeed come down. But such reductions in unemployment are not caused per se by the initial introduction of machinery.

We can, therefore, say with certainty that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the introduction of machinery will, even over a period of time, overcome on its own the unemployment it initially creates.

The picture painted by Ricardo, however, has come to be accepted as a general hallmark of capitalism, that no matter what hardships it may cause in the beginning, it eventually brings greater prosperity to all. This, however, is just not true: the hardships it causes initially, we have seen, will on its own never tend to get ameliorated over time. There is absolutely nothing in the internal dynamics of capitalism that would contribute to an overcoming of these initial hardships.

The question then arises: how do we explain the fact that in the region of the world where capitalism originated and which continues to be its home base, namely, Western Europe, there has been an actual improvement in the living conditions of the people compared with the initial years of capitalism? How do we reconcile this observed phenomenon with the theoretical argument that the initial hardships caused by capitalism, far from being reversed, have a tendency to get aggravated over time on their own?

There were two historical circumstances associated with the development of capitalism that explain this puzzle. The first is the massive emigration of population from Europe to the temperate regions of the world, like Canada, the United States (as it later became), Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. These became the “colonies of settlement” as distinct from the “colonies of conquest” such as India, Indonesia or Indo-China.

In the colonies of settlement, the immigrants took over the land belonging to the original inhabitants and earned a higher level of income by cultivating it which raised the “reservation wage” of workers back home in Europe, that is, the minimum wage obtainable by workers. Thus, both the level of employment and the wage-rate got raised in their home countries, well above what it otherwise would have been, and thereby negated the adverse employment effect of mechanisation.

Read Also: Capitalism: Treating Migrants Like Caged Animals

The scale of emigration from Europe was massive relative to its population. Over the “long nineteenth century” (stretching up to the First World War) it has been estimated that 50 million persons emigrated from Europe to the temperate regions of European settlement.

For Britain, the original site of the Industrial Revolution, where machines made their first appearance, the scale of migration every year was so large that about half the natural increase in population left its shores.

Emigration on such a scale sustained over such a long period introduced a tightness in the labour market by sending the unemployed abroad. It is this external expansion factor, rather than any internal dynamics of capitalism, that ensured that the initial unemployment created by the introduction of machinery, far from getting aggravated over time, actually got alleviated.

The second factor that worked in the same direction was the phenomenon of de-industrialising exports of manufactures to the colonies of conquest that already produced these manufactures. Thereby, the unemployment generated by the introduction of machinery was not confined to the domestic economy alone; a large part of it occurred outside in these colonies of conquest. Lingering on in these countries, it comprises the vast labour reserves of the Global South to this day.

It is because we do not generally see these reserves as arising from the mechanisation introduced by industrial capitalism in the metropolis, and focus only on the unemployment generated within the metropolis itself while assessing the effect of mechanisation, which actually got reduced through emigration, that we get the impression that such unemployment disappears over time through the internal dynamics of capitalism. There is, in fact, no such effect of the internal dynamics of capitalism.

All this has extremely important implications for the Global South today. It is accepted as gospel truth, and sold as such by the World Bank, the IMF and other such agencies, that the pursuit of unbridled capitalism by countries of the Global South would overcome their unemployment and poverty. The example of Western Europe is given in support of this claim. This, however, is a total misreading of both the theory and the history of capitalism.

The early Indian planners, like P C Mahalanobis, were well aware of this fact. Not only did they want a dirigiste regime rather than an unbridled capitalist one for the development of the nation, but even within the dirigiste regime, they wanted protection for cottage and small-scale industries.

Mahalanobis, apart from his well-known emphasis on heavy industry, had an additional element to his proposal for India’s second five-year plan. This was to bolster the availability of consumer goods, even while creating employment in the economy, through an expansion of cottage and small-scale industries.

Very similar ideas of “walking on two legs” were being developed around the same time in China, the other major populous country of the global south, for overcoming its problem of unemployment and poverty inherited from colonial and semi-colonial times.

It is a pity that economic discussion in the country has reached such a jejune level today that 200- year-old myths about capitalism are being recycled, and sustained through all sorts of false claims about the disappearance of poverty within the Global South. The sooner we abandon such myths the better.

The writer is Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The views are personal.

 

Trump & Rubio Tighten Noose on Cuba

Manolo De Los Santos | 06 Jun 2025

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A tightened US blockade, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the return of Trump with a vindictive Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, have deepened the crisis in Cuba, making international solidarity with the island more important than ever.

Cuba is once again facing a severe, multi-faceted crisis, not due to the hurricanes that pummel through the Caribbean every year, but from the relentless and suffocating pressure exerted by its powerful neighbor to the north. This is a recurring story of a people striving for independence under an unyielding siege and blockade. Through deliberate actions, the US government has been meticulously constructing and enforcing even greater barriers that threaten the very survival of the Cuban people.

The latest expression of this crisis came on May 30 with an announcement from ETECSA, Cuba’s state-owned telecommunications company, regarding a significant rate hike for mobile data. While seemingly minor to outsiders, for Cubans, it ignited a major criticism born of simmering frustrations. The new rates, particularly for additional data, are high in comparison to the average salary. An extra 3 GB now costs 3,360 Cuban pesos, nearly ten times the price of the monthly 6 GB plan. This is not merely a price adjustment; it came as a shock to the vast majority of Cuba’s 8 million mobile phone users, many of whom rely on internet access for education, work, and to connect with family abroad. This ETECSA announcement, though, is not an isolated incident; it underscores the immense strain under which Cuba attempts to meet the basic needs of its people under the US blockade.

Tightening the blockade

For those less familiar with Cuba’s recent history, the island’s economy, already reeling from the pandemic’s devastating blow to tourism and the six-decade blockade, has been further squeezed since Trump first took office. The 243 sanctions imposed by Trump during 2017-2021 remain in place, a suffocating blanket woven into the fabric of daily life. Even under President Biden, who campaigned on promises of change, the pressure was maintained.

Back in 2017, the US accused Cuba of “sonic attacks” on its embassy officials. A claim later proven false, yet it served its purpose: a pretext for Trump to freeze relations, collapsing tourism, and closing the door to the over 600,000 annual US visitors. Then came the shutdown of Western Union in 2020, disrupting vital remittances. The suspension of visa services at the US Embassy in Havana in 2017 sparked the largest wave of irregular migration since 1980, a desperate exodus of Cubans seeking any way out.

The economic devastation since then has been profound. Cuba’s GDP shrank by a staggering 15% in 2019 and an additional 11% in 2020. Imagine a country unable to purchase basic necessities due to banking restrictions, its public services and industries crippled. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Cuba’s robust public healthcare system, a point of national pride, found itself under immense pressure. Its only oxygen plant, critical for treating patients, became non-operational because it couldn’t import spare parts due to the blockade. Thousands of Cubans struggled to breathe, yet Washington refused to make exceptions.

Cuba’s response to deepening crisis

Trump’s final act in office, listing Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism in January 2021, was a devastating blow. This designation makes it nearly impossible for Cuba to engage in normal financial transactions, cutting off vital trade. Then in the first 14 months of the Biden administration, the Cuban economy lost an estimated USD 6.35 billion due to the continued Trump sanctions, preventing crucial investments in its aging energy grid and the purchase of food and medicine. The Cuban peso plummeted, devaluing already low public sector wages. While the rationing system provides a subsistence diet, this level of deprivation hasn’t been felt since the “Special Period” of the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Faced with these severe constraints, the Cuban government has had to adapt. In 2020, it began to rely more heavily on the private sector as both a new source of employment and an importer of basic goods – a pragmatic step born of necessity. Over 8,000 small and medium-sized businesses have registered since 2021, and in 2023, the private sector was on track to import USD 1 billion in goods. While this rise of the private sector has boosted the import of some supplies, it has also introduced new challenges for Cuba’s socialist project by creating income disparities, a stark contrast to Cuba’s historic emphasis on equitable wealth distribution.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel has consistently emphasized the government’s commitment to providing essential services while acknowledging the need for change due to the current scenario of an ever-tightened blockade. He defines Cuba’s socialist project of social justice not merely as welfare, but as a fair distribution of income where those who earn more contribute more, and those who cannot are supported. This is the tightrope the Revolution walks: balancing economic realities with its foundational principles. The leadership insists on safeguarding the socialist project and guaranteeing essential services while resisting calls for major privatization efforts.

The pandemic, which decimated tourism, Cuba’s leading industry, further exacerbated the crisis. Despite dwindling access to hard foreign currency, the government spent hundreds of millions of dollars on medical supplies and continued to guarantee salaries, food, electricity, and water, adding USD 2.4 billion to its debt to cover basic needs.

Six decades of US regime change attempts

The ultimate contradiction consuming Cuba’s every effort to meet the basic needs of its people is the open and unrelenting antagonism of the United States. The US government’s objective from day one of the Cuban Revolution has been regime change, achieved by manufacturing worsening conditions and sponsoring internal subversion. While the blockade has always hindered Cuba’s development, for the first three decades, Soviet support and a favorable environment in the Third World offset much of its impact. The 1990s, which became known as the “Special Period”, was a crisis of immense proportions, as Cuba had to face the might of the US blockade on its own, yet it forced innovative responses that allowed Cuba to survive.

However, the current moment is different. The cumulative effect of Trump’s sanctions, the pandemic, the global economic downturn, Biden’s inaction, and the return of Trump with a vindictive Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, have created a perfect storm for the US to attempt its long-held objectives of regime change. Lester Mallory’s infamous memorandum from 1960, which explicitly stated that the blockade’s aim was to cause internal rebellion through hunger and desperation, has found a new, more sophisticated application. This strategy is forcing the Cuban state to adopt measures that might be contrary to its project but are critical for its survival in a period of great hostility.

State-owned enterprises, the bedrock of Cuba’s socialist economy, are crumbling under the inability to fund much-needed maintenance or generate enough foreign currency reserves, due to the blockade.

ETECSA, heavily sanctioned by the US, has been left with little to no options to renovate its entire internal infrastructure besides raising its rates for the first time in years. From its servers to radio base stations, all require imported technology. The state, historically capable of subsidizing everything from education and health to transportation and food, is being forced to reduce, adapt, and in some cases, relinquish its ability to meet all needs at once. Garbage collection, water services, and most critically, electricity, face such severe challenges that their dysfunction breeds not only frustration but a growing disbelief in the state’s capacity to solve these problems.

While the US government, in 60 years of economic warfare, has failed to overthrow the Cuban state outright, its measures have now begun to have their most severe impact, to the point where the Trump administration and its henchmen, like Marco Rubio, are further tightening the noose on the Cuban state’s ability to meet the people’s needs. Whatever measures Cuba takes at this moment are not signs of weakness or surrender, but a direct consequence of the crisis forced upon it by the blockade.

The people’s responses to this crisis have been varied. Since July 2021, protests, often small and isolated, have become a normal occurrence across the island, and Cubans overall have become more vocal in their criticisms and demands of the Cuban state. In response to the ETECSA price increase, Cubans across diverse sectors of society have voiced criticism. Among them are students and chapters of the Federation of University Students (FEU) across campuses which, since the announcement, have not only criticized but also led direct negotiations with the Cuban state and ETECSA to find solutions. Nonetheless, like clockwork, anti-Cuban voices in the US have tried to exploit this moment of crisis to manipulate the students’ criticisms into attempts to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.

In response to this, Roberto Morales, a high-ranking leader of the Communist Party, condemned the “media manipulations and opportunistic distortions” that “enemies of the Revolution have attempted to impose.” While legitimate critiques by the people are understandable and an important aspect of life in Cuba, he argues that they must be viewed within the larger context of a nation under siege. The objective of Trump and Rubio, as it always has been for the anti-Cuban elements in Miami, Morales declares, has been “to sow chaos, promote violence, and shatter the peace of our homeland.”

Human toll of the blockade

An even bigger response to this crisis, however, has been the largest wave of migration in Cuban history, surpassing the Mariel boatlift and the 1994 rafter crisis combined. Nearly 425,000 Cubans migrated to the US in 2022 and 2023, representing over 4% of the population. Thousands more have gone to Spain, Mexico, Brazil, and other countries. Cuba’s population has fallen below 10 million for the first time since the early 1980s, losing 13% of its inhabitants since its peak in 2012. Yet the US, which for decades has created the conditions for and promoted this mass migration of Cubans, has taken a sharp turn. Cuban asylum seekers are being deported and Cuba was just added to Trump’s travel ban list, outright banning Cubans from traveling safely and legally to the US.

This is the stark reality for Cuba: a country besieged, its people enduring great hardship, and its government adapting in ways that are both necessary and challenging for survival. The challenges are immense, and the sacrifices of its people are profound to sustain the gains of its revolution.

It is in this context that the solidarity of people in the world and in the US must be forged anew. We cannot simply be aware; we must be active. We must go beyond raising awareness and take actionable steps to support the Cuban people. This means demanding an end to the brutal and genocidal US blockade, a cruel and inhumane policy that punishes an entire nation for its commitment to self-determination. It means supporting humanitarian aid efforts, advocating for diplomatic engagement, and mobilizing for a world without sanctions and blockades. The Cuban people need more than our sympathy; they need our active, unwavering solidarity.

Manolo De Los Santos is Executive Director of The People’s Forum and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. His writing appears regularly in Monthly Review, Peoples Dispatch, CounterPunch, La Jornada, and other progressive media. He coedited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord, 2020), Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord, 2021), and Our Own Path to Socialism: Selected Speeches of Hugo Chávez (LeftWord, 2023).

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

 

World Environment Day: How Rural Indian Communities Are Conserving Seeds to Counter Corporates

Bharat Dogra | 05 Jun 2025

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On World Environment Day, June 5, this article highlights how local communities, especially women, are taking charge of seed, defeating attempts by corporates to monopolise and monetise this traditional wisdom.

Image credit: Sabrang India

In traditional farming one of the most important tasks and responsibilities was that of selecting, saving and conserving seeds. In several rural communities women farmers had an important role to play in this as well as had, the unique and special skills –and understanding — related to crucial conservation driven task. Several Adivasi communities were particularly known for their seed conservation efforts.

While this has been well recognised for a long time, what is often not appreciated adequately is the extent to which the skills and wisdom of several traditional communities was advanced in matters relating to seeds conservation.

Dr. R.H.Richharia, former Director of the Central Rice Research Institute of India, was among those few senior scientists who understood this, lived closely and inter-acted with communities in very remote villages, Adivasi communities and it was this intimate engagement that enabled him to develop an understanding of seed conservation strengths of rural and tribal communities. It was this people-based and community-based work of this senior scientist and his colleagues which led him to prepare a great compilation of over 17,000 cultivars of rice grown in India.

As he once told me, he was particularly impressed by the ability of Adivasi (tribal, indigenous) communities to remember and pass from generation to generation knowledge concerning the characteristics of hundreds of rice varieties and cultivars, the suitability of different varieties for various kinds of land, their water requirements or drought resistance, their different cooking qualities, their different aromas and even medicinal properties etc. Most of this rich knowledge was gathered in the context of farmers of Chhattisgarh region including Bastar where the tendency of most other experts has been to dismiss tribal communities as being very backward. However Dr. Richharia on the basis of his own deeper understanding was able to better appreciate the richness of the knowledge of tribal communities and he also encouraged his co-workers to do so, as I could also understand when I met some members of his team later.

Dr. Richharia, who was one of the earliest and youngest scientists from India to get a doctorate in Botany from Cambridge while studying in the middle of great resource constraints in Britain, told me that some farmers including women farmers were particularly well-skilled in this and took a very keen interest too. However as not all farmers could be expected to have equal skills and ability regarding this, some of the learnings were sought to be captured in the form of some rituals which could be more easily observed as a part of daily life by most community members and farmers.

While traditional skills of farming communities for seed conservation needed to be valued greatly and constantly strengthened and encouraged, unfortunately exactly the reverse has happened due to a number of adverse factors.

From the mid-1960s onwards the strategy of farm development based on new exotic green revolution varieties and seeds was based largely on uprooting the greater diversity of existing crop-varieties grown in time honoured systems of mixed farming and rotations on the basis of the accumulated wisdom and experience of many generations of farmers relating to local agro-ecological conditions.

While this sudden change was inherently wrong and harmful, the situation worsened further as powerful corporate interests, including multinational companies and the research institutes allied to them,   made seeds the main source of trying to forever increase their profits as well as their control over farming and food. Towards this end, it was these corporate interests that exerted pressure to realize the monster objective of patents and IPRs over life forms and plant varieties, as well as to promote highly harmful technologies that could facilitate this.

Hence what then started happening was that as crop and seed diversity began vanishing (or was made to vanish) from the fields of farmers, this traditional knowledge was being concentrated in the labs and gene banks controlled or accessed more readily by the big corporates who then used and stole the accumulated work of generations of farmers to release ‘their’ patented varieties, sometimes after manipulating them genetically to increase their control and monopoly over them. All this was sought to be promoted under the name of ‘science’ and ‘development’, with accolades and awards being distributed for this.

It took some time for communities to recover from this deception and shock. Once, Adivasi’s and indigenous peoples realized the extent of the harm being caused, they started assuming the responsibility of again strengthening their seed conservation efforts.

As the displacement of farm and seed diversity was far from complete particularly in the more remote villages, several communities could still take up the task of conserving seeds. These communities noted that some disruption and harm had been caused, and legal changes had also created problems, but if the farmers and their communities acted with increasing unity and wisdom to protect their seeds diversity and sovereignty, the diversity of seeds could be saved and protected on the fields of farmers.

Traditional knowledge re-applied, re-born

Hence, in recent years, we have seen several communities taking up the task of protecting seeds diversity and sovereignty with a renewed and increasing sense of urgency, in India and in many other countries. I was myself present at a recent such effort in the form of a seed festival organized by a voluntary organization Vaagdhara in parts of three states in Central India. The mostly young men and women members of this organisation mobilized themselves very enthusiastically to organise nearly 90 gatherings of tribal communities, in turn reaching out to people of about a thousand villages and hamlets. At these gatherings people of various villages assembled with their collections of various seeds which have become more difficult to find in recent times, so that these and/or the knowledge relating to these cold be shared with farmers of other villages. Visiting such gatherings, I could see that the villagers assembled here were so happy and enthused by this entire effort that they wanted such seed festivals to be organized very regularly. Women in particular were very enthusiastic participants.

This could not have been such a big success if earlier efforts had not been made to prepare a strong base for seed conservation as an integral and important part of the many-sided development efforts initiated in this region by Vaagdhara in recent years. This has helped to strengthen the earlier inclinations of these tribal communities for seed conservation, although some disruption had appeared earlier to disturb the continuity of this effort.

Earlier in the course of my work in the Himalayan region, particularly in villages of Garhwal, I could learn much from the efforts of Beej Bachao Aandolan (Save the Seeds Movement). The efforts of this movement led to much better appreciation of seed diversity saved on the farms on the basis of traditional mixed farming systems like ‘barahanaja’ ( growing 12 or more crops together on a small plot of land to ensure balanced nutrition and self-reliance in food).

 

Before this effort too root, some locally posted officials and even ‘scientists’ were speaking in terms of uprooting such excellent traditional systems declared to be backward by them, much in tune with the terrible trends of the ‘green revolution’. The Save the Seeds Movement helped to confront and change this highly distorted thinking. The movement organised several foot marches in which marchers went from one village to another, carrying with them those seeds which had been getting rare to find. They provided some of these seeds to those farmers in the visited villages who wanted them. At the same time they collected information on the seeds which had been preserved and saved in this village. In very joyful ways, a lot of information on diversity of traditional seeds was collected and in addition farmers could also exchange seeds. The valuable contributions made by women farmers were also highlighted in the course of these important initiatives.

Clearly there is need for many more such efforts as well as for protecting the seeds sovereignty of farmers, their rights to conserve, protect, grow and exchange their seeds without any obstructions being placed in this.

The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food, Saving Earth for Children, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071. The views are personal.

Courtesy: Sabrang India  

 

Future Global Warming Will Likely be Worse Than Thought, Says New Study

Mohd. Imran Khan | 14 Jun 2025

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Need to cut greenhouse gas emissions even further to have a chance of keeping global warming below 2 degrees, says new study led by Oslo-based CICERO.

Patna/Oslo: Amid the ongoing heat wave-like conditions in Northern India that is affecting millions of lives, a new scientific study has revealed that future warming will likely be worse than thought.

After the Earth experienced its second-warmest May on record this year, a latest international scientific study published in the journal, Science, has made it clear that climate models that give a low warming from increases in greenhouse gases (GHG) do not match satellite measurements. "Future warming will likely be worse than thought unless society acts”, according to a new study led by Oslo-based Center for International Climate Research (CICERO).

CICERO, with co-authors from NASA Langley Research Center and Priestley Centre for Climate Futures (University of Leeds), shows that climate models that give a low warming from increases in greenhouse gases do not match satellite measurements. This means that models with a stronger warming response to greenhouse gas increases are more realistic.

The authors of the study highlighted that this in turn would increase estimates of global warming this century if the world continues along its current emission trajectory.

“We, therefore, need to cut greenhouse gas emissions even further to have a chance of keeping global warming below 2 degrees”, said Gunnar Myhre, research director at CICERO and lead author of the study.

According to the study, increases in greenhouse gases, especially CO₂, causes the Earth to warm. Although the physics of global warming is well understood, scientists have been uncertain about exactly how much warming to expect from increases in CO₂ and other greenhouse gases. The largest source of this uncertainty is how clouds will respond as the climate warms -- clouds are complex and can respond to a warming in complex ways which likely amplify the warming caused by greenhouse gases, but by an uncertain amount.

In a stable climate, the Earth emits as much energy into space as it receives from the sun. However, as greenhouse gas concentration increases, this balance is changing.

Satellite measurements since 2001 clearly show significant changes in both solar radiation absorbed by the Earth and the outgoing thermal radiation from Earth.

Climate models are an important tool for understanding how the atmosphere including clouds, respond to the warming from greenhouse gases. The latest generation of climate models still have a relatively large range in the amount of global warming we can expect from the same increase in greenhouse gas concentration, the study noted.

The most common way to assess how much warming we can expect from a given increase in greenhouse gases is to estimate the temperature increase from a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ concentration.

The Earth warms in direct response to the CO₂ increase but this warming in turn drives other changes such as increases in atmospheric water vapour, snow and ice melting and cloud changes. These changes are termed climate feedbacks and they all add to the initial warming.

Cloud changes, in particular, contribute significantly to the uncertainty in how sensitive the climate system is to greenhouse gases.

The latest UN climate report (IPCC, 2021) estimates a most likely climate sensitivity of 3°C. It is very likely between 2 and 5°C, and likely between 2.5 and 4°C. These estimates are based on theoretical understanding, reconstructions of past climate conditions (such as ice ages and warm periods), and observations since 1850, the study further said.

The CERES satellite measures the Earth's energy imbalance—specifically, how much solar radiation is absorbed compared with how much heat (longwave) radiation is emitted back into space. The data show a significant increase in absorbed solar radiation, partly due to reduced snow and ice cover, but also because of changes to clouds. At the same time, the Earth is emitting more heat, driven by rising surface temperatures.

The satellite measurements have been compared with results from 37 climate models. The study shows a clear connection between climate sensitivity in the models and the ratio between increased absorbed solar radiation and increased heat radiation from the Earth.

Climate models with low climate sensitivity show small changes in the energy imbalance in the individual contributions from absorbed solar radiation and increased terrestrial radiation from the Earth, and are less able to reproduce what is measured from satellite data. This indicates that a climate sensitivity in the lower half of the IPCC range is less likely and a higher climate sensitivity is more likely. This would suggest that weaker degrees of global warming response to greenhouse gases can be ruled out, and that estimates of stronger future warming, for a given change in greenhouse gases, become more likely.

Models with climate sensitivity lower than 2.9°C show significantly smaller increases in absorbed solar radiation than what is measured by CERES.

For models with climate sensitivity lower than 2.5°C, it is not possible to replicate the satellite observations – even when taking into account the possibility that the models underestimate the effect of reduced emissions of polluting particles. This demonstrates how important satellite data, particularly CERES data.

SMOKERS’ CORNER: BRANDING IN THE AGE OF POLARISATION

Nadeem F. Paracha 

Published June 15, 2025

DAWN

Illustration by Abro


In 1977, when an alliance of anti-government parties kicked off a protest movement against alleged fraud in the elections, the then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto made a television address in which he thumped the chair he was sitting on and declared, “Ye kursi bohat mazboot hai [This chair is very strong].”

A few days later, a furniture brand known for its chairs, Chairman, released a press ad with the caption, “Humari kursi sab se mazboot hai [Our chair is the strongest].”

That one press ad put the brand smack dab in the middle of a political discourse that was raging at the time. Some understood the ad as mocking Bhutto, while others believed it was supporting him. The brand was doing neither. It was simply trying to gain some relevance during a time when a majority of Pakistanis were split into two camps and politics was all they were talking about. Uncannily, Chairman did something that was ahead of its time.

There is now enough evidence that in today’s polarised societies, consumer brands and their advertising agencies are struggling to understand their consumers and to stay relevant.

Numerous articles and books have appeared trying to figure out the ‘enigma’ that is Generation Z (1997-2012). It is as if the problems brands are facing to stay relevant can be resolved if this generation is ‘correctly’ profiled. But it has been profiled. In fact, unlike past generations, this one has been over-profiled.

Yet, numerous brands are continuing to struggle to get a foothold in the psyche and zeitgeist of the times they are operating in. Nevertheless, consequently, an increasing number of brands are realising that the field of marketing requires some major alterations in a polarised milieu. How can a brand find relevance in fragmented societies split into opposing cultural and political camps?

As societies grow increasingly divided along political and cultural lines, and as consumer identities rapidly change, brands must evolve or risk irrelevance

This is the question brands are asking — even though most have decided to go about their business the way they always have. But this means they are suffering from a ‘cultural lag.’ These brands are not keeping pace with the rapid cultural and political transformations taking place in societies and, consequently, within the markets that these brands operate in.

Consumer brands are not just products or services. They carry an ethos in a bid to strike a much ‘deeper connection’ with consumers. Sneakers are products. Nike, a company that makes this product, is a brand. It posits a belief: “Just Do It.” This is not just a slogan but an ethos: ‘Don’t hold back. Believe in yourself. Take the plunge. This act in itself is a win.’

To survive, brands need to remain relevant. One way of doing this is to jump on a bandwagon of trends driven by a particular generation. But this is not working anymore. For example, in Pakistan, some brands, in a bid, to become relevant for the youth, plug rap/hip-hop music in their communication. On most occasions, the youth finds this to be inauthentic and downright silly.

Disney learned this the hard way when it began to shape characters and plots of their films and TV series according to Gen Z’s ‘woke’ beliefs. But the company suffered one flop after another. It lost a huge amount of money by ‘going woke.’ And the irony is, the ‘woke crowd’ wasn’t interested. In fact, it saw Disney’s ploy as a corporate entity turning a cluster of beliefs into silly caricatures.

This shows just how tough it has become for brands to stay relevant in this day and age. Those who are playing safe may still be selling their products, but the emotional hold of the brands that make these products is rapidly loosening.

Politics has become a vital part of the transformations taking place in today’s polarised societies. But most brands are petrified to take sides or, for that matter, even to think about politics — even though it is possible that most of their consumers today would want them to. Brand teams and their advertising agencies are not designed to think any deeper than the standard ways they comprehend their consumers. The focus groups and researches that they bank on are engineered to only skim the surface of segments they are targeting.

It’s like those doltish TV shows in which a host asks the most inane questions from guests. One can get to know what a person’s favourite colour, soft-drink or ice cream flavour is, but that’s about it. Most focus groups turn consumers into caricatures.

A 2021 report by the American Marketing Association concluded that, as the political landscape continues to shift and polarise, the influence of politics on consumption behaviours is poised to grow. The report suggested that “analysing and utilising consumers’ political ideologies may prove not only useful to brands, but also necessary…”



Indeed, but such suggestions horrify most brands. Those who handle them are not designed to think about marketing in this manner. Secondly, most of them have only a superficial understanding of politics. So, even if they do venture out to determine the politics of their consumers, what will they ask? Some brands have started to hire help in this regard by asking sociologists and political scientists to design questioners.

After doing this, they have plunged in to pick a side. The American ice cream brand Ben&Jerry’s openly advocates progressive/liberal causes, whereas Black Rifle Coffee quietly supports conservative causes.

In fact, in the US, there are now numerous ‘Red Brands’ and ‘Blue Brands.’ Red ones identify with conservative views, and the blue ones uphold ‘liberal’ ideals. This is how these brands are finding relevance in a polarised society and, thus, market.

However, not all brands want to go this far — especially in Pakistan. But they are likely to continue losing relevance if they fail to understand the politics of their consumers. They don’t really have to pick a side. They only have to reshape the way they understand today’s consumers. This can provide them a deeper understanding of their consumers and more relevant communication can be the outcome, without even mentioning any politics.

I once worked with a Thai sociologist who was associated with a major advertising agency. This was during a research stint I was a part of in Washington DC, in 2018.

He demonstrated that even when a person enters a store just to buy a soft-drink can, on the surface, his choice in this regard is being influenced by taste and aesthetics. But, more importantly, what’s on the surface is being unconsciously influenced by his political and social views. In politically charged times, a brand needs to dig and mine these.

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 15th, 2025

PAKISTAN

Dashed hopes

Rashid Amjad 

 June 15, 2025 

DAWN

WITH the real economy in a deep slump and macroeconomic indicators stable, how should we describe the current state of the economy and the direction in which we are heading?

According to the just released Pakistan Economic Survey 2024-25, whatever spin you may want to give it, the economy is in a deep downturn given the collapse of the crop sector and the drastic decline in incomes in rural areas, where almost 60 per cent of the population lives and where extreme poverty is concentrated.

Severe decline in rural incomes and little success in increasing exports have led to poor growth in manufacturing. A combination of the two has slowed down the services sector, which now makes up nearly 60pc of our GDP.

The resulting overall economic growth is dismal at around 2.5pc, while we need a minimum growth of at least 6.5pc to absorb the increase in the labour force and reduce the prevalent high levels of poverty, which, according to a recent World Bank report, has risen dramatically, post-Covid, to near 50pc.

At the same time, there is no denying the fact that the economy has stabilised. There is no threat of default given our current reserves, a stable exchange rate (though it has come under pressure), a current account surplus (thanks to a surge in remittances), and inflation at an all-time low (it is expected hover around 5-6pc). For this, the government can take full credit — a fact recognised by the IMF and rating agencies.


Relief was hardly given to those who deserve it most.

So, is the price that we have had to pay for macroeconomic stability a drastic contraction of the real economy? While the stabilisation measures have indeed helped, I would strongly argue that the poor sequencing of these measures and economic reforms by our policymakers are chiefly to blame.

A prime example is the agricultural sector. The cold-blooded way in which the government removed the wheat support price shows the anti-rural, pro-urban bias of the current regime. Without first ensuring the development of an alternative market, it left the farmers — both small and large — to suffer huge losses at the hands of the middlemen.

Now let’s turn to what the future holds for the economy under IMF tutelage.

In his budget speech, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb emphatically stated that we have launched on a mission ‘to change the DNA of the economy from its currents inefficient uncompetitive path to one of high productivity and sustained economic growth’ — or words to that effect.

To put it more simply, he promised to implement economic reforms that will root out the current incentive structure, which breeds inefficiencies and inequalities and results in recurring stop-go cycles. We waited with bated breath to hear of the far-reaching reforms that are intended to usher in this process of creative destruction and the birth of a new economic order, but have been extremely disappointed.

Yes, some worn-out, positive steps were announced, which have been repeatedly tried before, with little success. This includes a tariff reform package — in the works since 1988 — with a maximum upper limit on import duties of 15pc in five years and four slabs. Significantly, there was no mention of a reduction in import duties on products of our most inefficient industries (for example, autos) to improve their competitiveness. This demonstrates a lack of reluctance to take on entrenched business interests.

The privatisation of the same old state-owned enterprises, such as PIA, the power distribution companies, etc, was promised. Hopefully, this time, the process will be successfully completed. A lot of faith was placed in the digital economy and increasing its export earnings (with ambitious targets), though concrete measures in this direction were difficult to discern.

Relief was given under strong pressure to the real estate sector and traders, despite high hopes to the contrary, and hardly any to those who deserve it most — the working poor. And technology and data were waved around to bring more tax evaders into the tax net as if these have never been available before. Agriculture income tax was left to the provinces.

Key issues related to investment in people (health, education, social protection) were rattled off, highlighting initiatives and projects by the prime minister, but the fact that we are cutting down on their already meagre share in the federal development programme, which itself has fallen to its lowest level in living memory to around 1pc of GDP, was not mentioned. Ultimately, this left us with roads and highways and infrastructure which would transform the economy.

And we had envisaged this budget in the shape of a reform package to change our DNA!

The writer is professor at the Lahore School of Economics and former VC of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2025

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A woman’s worth

Muna Khan 

Published June 15, 2025 

 DAWN

The writer is an instructor of journalism.


I WAS editing The Review in the early 2000s when Tahir Mirza moved to Dawn, Karachi, to take up the position of news editor and our magazine’s supervisor. I learned a lot from him, mainly how to think about issues — what’s new here and/or why should I care? He helped me submit my first editorial on how fashion weeks could boost the economy. We had not had a fashion week in the country yet. On the face of it, it was about fashion, a topic usually relegated to the magazine — ie, ‘not serious’ — but because I wrote about it from an economics angle, it worked.

A year later, I was transferred to the leader writing team (a lesson on perseverance, kids) where my supervisors taught me more about how to write, especially when it’s about the same issue. What more can you say about (insert act of injustice) without sounding like a broken record?

Sometimes you have no choice but to bang that drum.

It is with this in mind that I thought about the murder of the TikToker Sana Yousaf, shot dead on her 17th birthday by a man slighted by her indifference. I have nothing to add to the voices condemning this gruesome act, but I’m taking a cue from Mirza sahib when I ask, ‘what’s new here?’


No country has reached gender equality.

Nothing. But a new approach is needed.

Nothing can change unless people and corporations stop profiting from misogyny. Influencers like Andrew Tate speak against women, corrupting young boys and normalising incel culture, while leaders like Imran Khan say men are not robots and our TV dramas glamorise gender-based violence. These views must be shunned and challenged, not promoted. There should be no money in misogyny.

Women just haven’t been seen as valuable members of society who can contribute to the country’s growth. Spare me the stories about the valiant female heroes who fought for this country’s independence. I am not denying their contribution, but retelling their stories amounts to nought when Pakistan is not a safe country for women.

We need to count the cost of women dropping out of the workforce, or not even making it to the workforce because they do not feel safe. Only 25 per cent of Pakistan’s women are in the formal labour force, according to the Asian Development Bank. When a woman steps out of her home to earn an income, like Sana Yousaf may have been attempting to do as a content creator — a fine career option — she may be killed and her death feted by men on social media.

No country can progress if its women lag behind. No country has reached gender equality, and no country seems to make that its priority. In 2015, McKinsey estimated that advancing gender equality could add $12 trillion to global GDP by 2025. While that has not happened, some countries have made strides in the last few decades.

After the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, policymakers made gender equality a priority in their quest to rebuild their country. A 30pc quota for women in all state decision-making bodies was included in their constitution. It became the first country in the world to have a female majority in parliament. Six of the country’s 11 banks are run by women, according to a story in Le Monde last year. Women-owned businesses significantly contribute to the country’s economy. Earlier, governments invited highly skilled diaspora to return to rebuild their country. (The less said about our diaspora, the better.)

This has happened in 30 years.

I have written extensively about Vietnam’s progress following the American War, where they too created quotas and made great efforts to improve women’s access to education and work opportunities. Last year, 69.1pc of women were in the labour force.

We can also learn from Bangladesh, which invested in women from the get go. They recognised their future was tied to women’s independence and participation in the labour force, which grew steadily to 44pc last year.

To increase women’s participation in the labour force, Chile’s education reforms included childcare subsidies, which enabled mothers to work. Their participation rate has grown since 1990 to 52pc. Chile introduced entrepreneurship as a central economic development strategy and saw women’s entrepreneurship grow. This contributed to SME growth and innovation, making Chile one of the fastest-growing and most stable economies in South America.

As I was writing this on Thursday, news came that Pakistan ranked last among 148 nations in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025.

In 2023, the IMF said “narrowing the gap between the share of men and women who work is one of the very important reforms policymakers can make to revive economies”. Maybe that will prompt leaders to safeguard our lives, and their future.


Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2025