THE PANAMA PAPERS
THE PANAMA PAPERS READING LIST
GIANT LEAK OF OFFSHORE FINANCIAL RECORDS EXPOSES GLOBAL ARRAY OF CRIME AND CORRUPTION
Millions of documents show heads of state, criminals and celebrities using secret hideaways in tax havens.
ALL PUTIN’S MEN: SECRET RECORDS REVEAL MONEY NETWORK TIED TO RUSSIAN LEADER
Complex offshore financial deals channel money and power towards a network of people and companies linked to President Vladimir Putin.
PANAMANIAN LAW FIRM IS GATEKEEPER TO VAST FLOW OF MURKY OFFSHORE SECRETS
Files show client roster that includes drug dealers, Mafia members, corrupt politicians and tax evaders — and wrongdoing galore.
LEAK TIES ETHICS GURU TO THREE MEN CHARGED IN FIFA SCANDAL
Secret documents show how deeply the world of soccer has become enmeshed in the world of offshore havens.
ICELAND’S PRIME MINISTER DUCKS QUESTION BUT THE ANSWER CATCHES UP WITH HIM
He came to power after the country’s financial collapse while hiding his offshore holdings of millions in bonds from Icelandic banks.
HOW THE ONE PERCENTERS DIVORCE: OFFSHORE INTRIGUE PLAYS HIDE AND SEEK WITH MILLIONS
Firm that practices no matrimonial law nonetheless plays big role when the superrich around the globe decide to split.
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
The Panama Papers is an unprecedented investigation that reveals the offshore links of some of the globe’s most prominent figures.
ICELAND’S PRIME MINISTER DUCKS QUESTION BUT THE ANSWER CATCHES UP WITH HIM
He came to power after country’s financial collapse while hiding his offshore holdings of millions in bonds from Icelandic banks
In this story
- Offshore company owned by Prime Minister Gunnlaugsson’s wife held significant investments in bonds of major Icelandic banks
- Unclear whether Gunnlaugsson’s political positions benefited or hurt the value of the bonds. He says his policies hurt the investments
- Finance minister, interior minister also held stakes in offshore companies
- Complex offshore trail behind the 2008 collapse of Iceland’s big banks means some wrongdoing may never be uncovered
On May 15, 2014, the prime minister of Iceland stood before parliament answering questions about how aggressively his government would sniff out tax cheats and fraudsters who use secret offshore companies. Would Iceland follow Germany’s lead by purchasing revealing data from offshore whistleblowers?
The prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, hedged.
It was “extremely important that people work together on this,” he agreed. But whether obtaining the information would be “realistic and useful” was unclear, he said, adding that he trusted the tax officials to make the right decision.
What wasn’t known was that the offshore files Iceland was considering buying included offshore companies linked to him and at least two other top members of his ruling government.
These findings emerge from millions of secret files obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and other media partners. More than 11 million documents — emails, cash transfers and company incorporation details from 1977 to December 2015 — show the inner workings of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the largest shell-company registration agents in the offshore world. The files reveal confidential information about 214,488 entities registered for individuals and companies in more than 200 countries and territories—including a company created in the British Virgin Islands in 2007 called Wintris Inc.
GUNNLAUGSSON’S OFFSHORE SAGA
Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson rose to power on a wave of anti-bank anger in the aftermath of the Icelandic financial crisis, which saw the country’s three major banks fail spectacularly over a few days in October 2008 following years of speculation and self-dealing. A journalist and radio-TV personality — he finished third in a sexiest man in Iceland contest in 2004 — an outspoken Gunnlaugsson led a group called InDefence after the crash that campaigned for Iceland to reject bailing out international creditors on billions of dollars in deposits in the banks. In two national referenda, voters sided with InDefence, and the successful campaign helped bring Gunnlaugsson and his party to power.
In January 2009 the Progressive Party elected Gunnlaugsson, a nationalist who once went on an Icelandic-only diet, its chairman to put a fresh young face on a party with roots in Iceland’s agrarian past. At age 38, he would become the youngest prime minister in the country’s history in 2013, promising to play hardball with foreign creditors, offer debt relief to struggling homeowners and end austerity programs. As prime minister, Gunnlaugsson’s government reached an agreement with creditors in 2015 that his old group InDefence criticized as too generous.
The Mossack Fonseca documents show Gunnlaugsson’s family – unbeknownst to Icelanders – had a big personal stake in the outcome for bank creditors.
Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdóttir, wife of Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson. Photo: Facebook
In December 2007, Gunnlaugsson and his wife, Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdóttir, purchased Wintris Inc. from Mossack Fonseca through the Luxembourg branch of Landsbanki, one of Iceland’s three big banks. The couple used the shell company to invest millions of dollars in inherited money, according to a document signed in 2015 by the prime minister’s wife, the daughter of a wealthy Icelandic Toyota dealer, after she was asked by Mossack Fonseca where she had gotten the money.
“The Icelandic banks formed branches, for example, in Luxembourg and the UK, and what they did there was create offshore companies for their clients to park all sorts of assets,” said Rob Jonatansson, a Reykjavik attorney who led the resolution of a smaller bank that also collapsed, not commenting on Wintris specifically. “The offshore companies afforded the opportunity for tax evasion, which probably some took.”
The Mossack Fonseca files don’t disclose where Wintris invested its money, but court records show that Wintris had significant investments in the bonds of each of the three major Icelandic banks. Those records list the company as a creditor with millions of dollars in claims in the banks’ bankruptcies.
Landsbanki’s winding-up board listed Wintris as a creditor in November 2009 with a claim of 174 million krona — apparently in Landsbanki bonds. Wintris also appeared three times on the bank Kaupthing’s claims list in January 2010, holding bonds with a face value of 221 million krona. And it held Glitnir bonds worth 114 million krona — a claim Wintris sold to an Icelandic investor after the crash, according to a person familiar with the claim (Gunnlaugsson has criticized foreign funds buying up such claims as “vultures”). In all, Wintris claimed nearly $4 million in assets in the banks at current exchange rates and $8 million at pre-crash exchange rates. And Wintris may have held other assets, such as stock, that don’t show up in bankruptcy filings of the banks.
Gunnlaugsson co-owned Wintris with his wife when he entered parliament in April 2009 and has continued to hide it from view as he ascended to the prime minister’s seat, according to the files obtained by ICIJ. Failing to disclose these assets violated Iceland’s ethics rules. The prime minister denies that, saying only companies with “commercial activity” have to be reported. But the parliament’s secretary general says all companies must be disclosed. Wintris’s bonds still have considerable worth, ranging from roughly 15 percent to 30 percent of their face value.
On the last day of 2009, Gunnlaugsson sold his half of Wintris to his wife for one dollar, according to the Mossack Fonseca documents.
On March 15, 2016, Pálsdóttir wrote a Facebook post disclosing the offshore company to the public for the first time. “The presence of the company has never been a secret,” she said. Pálsdóttir wrote that she set up Wintris in 2007 when it was still unclear whether the couple would be living overseas and that it is an investment vehicle for funds she received when her family’s business was sold.
The Facebook post came four days after ICIJ partners Reykjavik Media and SVT (Swedish public television) asked the prime minister about Wintris in a videotaped interview. In that interview, SVT asked Gunnlaugsson if he had ever owned an offshore company.
“Myself? No. Well, the Icelandic companies I have worked with had connections with offshore companies, even the — what’s it called? The worker’s unions. So it would have been through such arrangements, but I have always given all of my assets and that of my family up for taxes. So there has never been any, any of me, my assets hidden anywhere. It’s an unusual question for an Icelandic politician to get. It’s almost like being accused of something, but I can confirm I have never hidden any of my assets.”
When asked what he knew about Wintris, Gunnlaugson said, “Well, It’s a company — if I recall correctly — which is associated with one of the companies that I was on the board of and it had an account, which as I’ve mentioned, has been on the tax account since it was established. So now I’m starting to feel a bit strange about these questions because it’s like you are accusing me of something when you are asking me about a company that has been on my tax return.”
Shortly thereafter, Gunnlaugsson stood up and walked out of the interview.
On March 15 2016, Pálsdóttir wrote a Facebook post disclosing her offshore company.
In Palsdottir’s Facebook post four days later, she said that the assets in Wintris Inc. were hers alone and that a bank’s mistake had led to Gunnlaugsson’s being listed as a co-owner. When the mistake was discovered in 2009, she became sole owner of the company, she said. The Mossack Fonseca documents show Gunnlaugsson signed the document selling his share of Wintris to Palsdottir.Pálsdóttir said that the assets came from her share of the sale of her family’s business. She said she had always paid all taxes owed on Wintris. Her tax firm, KPMG, also said she declared income from Wintris.
“As has been explained publicly, in establishing this company, the Prime Minister and his wife have adhered to Icelandic law, including declaring all assets, securities and income in Icelandic tax returns since 2008,” a Gunnlaugsson spokesman said in a statement.
It is unclear whether Gunnlaugsson’s political positions benefited or hurt the value of the bonds. The question “is really a tricky one,” said Þórólfur Matthíasson, an economist at the University of Iceland. “Nobody but the PM himself can answer that question.”
Gunnlaugsson’s spokesman said, “In recent years, Prime Minister Gunnlaugsson’s work in politics has been characterized primarily by his determination to ensure, to the extent possible, that the interests of the people of Iceland took priority over the interests of the failed banks’ claimants. Both his words and all of his conduct confirm this.”
POLITICAL ELITES PLAY OFFSHORE
The documents also raise questions about the financial activities of other Icelandic political elites and whether they benefitted from some of the same practices of business executives that so outraged their constituents.
“I have not had any assets in tax havens or anything like that,” Iceland’s Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Bjarni Benediktsson, who is also a top political ally of Prime Minister Gunnlaugsson, said in an interview televised in February 2015.
But Benediktsson — along with two Icelandic businessmen — owned and shared what is known as “power of attorney” over a shell company called Falson & Co. created in 2005 by Mossack Fonseca in the Seychelles, an island chain and notorious secrecy haven in the Indian Ocean, according to the offshore documents. Power of attorney means the three men had the power to approve transactions by the company.
Falson & Co. issued bearer shares, stock instruments that give ownership of an asset to whoever has the physical share certificate. Because bearer shares aren’t registered in anyone’s name, they provide an extra layer of secrecy and have been outlawed in many countries because they’re widely used for fraud and tax evasion. Falson was used as a shell company until it was removed from the company registry in the Seychelles in 2012, according to Mossack Fonseca documents. Benediktsson did not disclose his ownership of the company to parliament or to the public.
Asked about Falson by ICIJ and its media partner Süddeutsche Zeitung, Benediktsson confirmed that he had owned one-third of Falson, which he said was created to hold four apartments in a building under construction in Dubai. “A holding company is a matter of convenience so that all matters are handled by one legal entity. The asset was sold before delivery of the apartment as the owners of Falson & Co decided to back out in 2008 and the asset was eventually sold with a loss. My part in owning this asset has been public information for years.”
Iceland’s Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Bjarni Benediktsson. Photo: Johann (CC BY 2.5DK)
The Dubai real estate was reported in 2010 by Icelandic newspaper DV after it obtained emails about the investment.“I had no intention or need to hide ownership,” Benediktsson said. “I declared my ownership of the company to the tax authorities in Iceland.” Asked why he didn’t declare his stake in Falson to parliament, Benediktsson said, “The (disclosure) rules were implemented in May 2009. At the time I neither owned an active business or a declarable real estate.”
Benediktsson later provided a letter to ICIJ, however, from one of his partners in Falson, that said the company’s business was not wound up until September 2009. Benediktsson said the company was not active after it canceled the purchase agreement in November 2008. “From that time Falson & Co. was not in control of the property,” he said. “Until a new owner was found Falson & Co.’s only purpose was to wait for refunding.”
As for the interview last year where he denied having assets in tax havens, Benediktsson said, “I have to admit that I was not aware of the fact that the company was listed in the Seychelles which would qualify as a tax haven, contrary to Luxembourg. My understanding was that it was a Luxembourg company.”
Another member of the current government, Ólöf Nordal, the interior minister, also controlled a secret company created in the British Virgin Islands in November 2006, according to the documents. Like Wintris and Falson, Dooley Securities SA was purchased from Mossack Fonseca through a Luxembourg subsidiary of Landsbanki, then the second biggest Icelandic bank. Nordal had power of attorney over Dooley Securities with her husband, Tomas Mar Sigurdsson, now chief operating officer of American aluminum giant Alcoa’s Global Primary Products unit, according to the documents, and shares in the company were held in the name of Landsbanki Luxembourg. In August 2007, Sigurdsson pledged Dooley Securities’ shares in an agreement with Landsbanki, apparently as collateral for a loan from the bank, which would collapse a little more than a year later.
Asked by ICIJ about Dooley Securities, Sigurdsson said Landsbanki advised him to create the company to hold the proceeds from a potential sale of his Alcoa stock options. “This never happened, I never exercised the option and I never transferred any funds to the company,” he said, adding that he was not aware of the pledge agreement.
“To be clear, neither I nor my wife, were at this time, nor at any time later, owners of the shares in Dooley Securities,” Sigurdsson said. “We do not own and have never owned any off-shore companies.”
The documents further show that Hrólfur Ölvisson, the executive director of Gunnlaugsson’s Progressive Party and a top adviser to the prime minister, is associated with two companies in the data: Selco Finance Ltd. and Chamile Marketing SA. In 2005, before his party chairmanship, Ölvisson passed control of Selco Finance to Finnur Ingólfsson, himself a former Progressive Party official who helped lead the purchase of Kaupthing when it was privatized.
Ölvisson said the companies were created to market insurance and other products in Iceland. “Everything connected to me has been legal,” Ölvisson said, adding that the companies hadn’t operated for years. “I had accountants and everything regarding that. There is no problem.”
Ingólfsson said Selco was purchased by an insurance company he led and that “the acquisition in no way related to tax benefits.”
THE VIKING RAIDERS
Iceland was a financial backwater until relatively recently. The country had no stock market until 1985, and its stodgy major banks were owned by the state. It made big moves to liberalize its economy in the 1990s, aiming to “increase economic efficiency by eliminating the distortions inherent in state-ownership.” The government sold its banks to the private sector in the late 1990s and early 2000s and an influx of foreign capital spurred an epic expansion by the country’s financial industry. By 2008, the assets of the three major banks, Kaupthing, Landsbanki, and Glitnir had ballooned to $180 billion — 11 times the size of the national economy, in one of the greatest financial bubbles in history.
News media lauded Iceland’s business and financial titans as the New Viking Raiders. The country’s economic elite snapped up billions of dollars of foreign businesses and flew in artists like Elton John and 50 Cent for private parties. Fishermen became investment bankers. Iceland’s stock market soared800 percent from 2001 to 2007.
Then it all fell apart over three days in October 2008.
Iceland’s big three banks collapsed, sending the country’s economy into a depression. The stock market collapsed 97 percent from its peak. The value of the Iceland’s currency — the krona — fell by half.
Iceland nationalized the big banks and defaulted on deposits from foreign investors, causing diplomatic brawls with the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Thousands protested in front of parliament, pelting the building with rocks and fireworks, and eventually helping to bring down the government. Parliament indicted then-prime minister, Geir Haarde, for negligence in office, and in a largely symbolic move, a court convicted him of failing to inform his cabinet of major events in the crisis.
Amid the chaos, it became clear that many of Iceland’s top bankers had lent money to their cronies through offshore companies and manipulated the market to make the banks look healthier than they really were.
Bank insiders did so by lending tens of billions of krona (hundreds of millions of dollars) to each other, the banks’ owners and favored associates, allowing them to load up on shares in the Icelandic banks with no risk to themselves. This duped investors and regulators into thinking there was real demand in the markets for Icelandic banking shares. In some cases, insiders simply looted the banks, having the bank lend vast sums of money to themselves and their friends to buy stock and then having the bank buy back their shares at more than market value when the banks ran into trouble.
Reykjavik, Iceland. Photo: Philip Ho / Shutterstock.comUNTANGLING THE TIES
Iceland, alone among Western governments, has vigorously prosecuted its top bankers,sending at least two dozen to prison. Four of the top seven Icelandic bank officials, as well as each of the top shareholders of the three big banks, controlled offshore companies registered through Mossack Fonseca. But the dealings were so complicated, thanks to the help of Mossack Fonseca and others, that wrongdoing and reparations are still being sorted out more than seven years after the crash. Some of it may never be uncovered.
“Most definitely something is going under the radar,” Olafur Hauksson, who led Office of the Special Prosecutor created after the crash, said in an interview before the information obtained by ICIJ and Süddeutsche Zeitung was revealed. Hauksson was the brawny police chief of Akranes, a fishing village of 6,600, when he became special prosecutor. He was the only Icelander who wanted the job.
Despite his successes in putting key players in jail, Hauksson said the secrecy enabled by the offshore industry means there are things he has missed.
“You see companies maybe from the Caymans or Tortola or something like that, banks that have a subsidiary in Luxembourg but that (are) actually stationed in Iceland,” Hauksson said. “This gives you a very hard time to see the whole picture of the events. You have fractures in three places, and putting it all together is a huge effort, and it requires that you have a cooperation in various fields and knowledge to know what to seek.”
INDEBTED TO THE BANKS
The documents obtained by ICIJ detail the wider role of Mossack Fonseca in a global secrecy machine that helps the rich and the powerful hide their business dealings and hang on to more of their money, which results in other taxpayers paying more tax. They also shed light on the cozy ties among elites on this wet, windswept island of 329,000 people.
“Iceland is so small, and we know the person, and we know the family of the person,” says Vilhálmur Bjarnason, a member of parliament and an academic who was one of the first to warn about the fast-and-loose practices of the country’s banks.
The timing of some of the future Prime Minister’s activities coincides with those of companies controlled by controversial Icelandic businessmen.
Wintris and two other unrelated bearer-share companies controlled by Icelanders each opened separate bank accounts at Credit Suisse in London on the same day in March 2008, the documents show. The three companies each had the same nominee directors — straw men provided by Mossack Fonseca to rubber stamp decisions while obscuring the true identities of the owners. All three companies — Wintris, Jarl Universal SA and Jade Trading Services Ltd— were purchased and administered through the Luxembourg subsidiary of Landsbanki.
Jade Trading and Jarl Universal are not run-of-the-mill companies. They were controlled or associated with powerful Landsbanki players who have been investigated — though not charged — in the market-manipulation scandals that roiled Iceland.
Jade Trading Services was controlled from 2004 to November 2007 by Landsbanki chairman Björgólfur Guðmundsson and Andri Sveinsson, who works for Guðmundsson’s son, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson,the richest man in Iceland.
In January 2008, Jade Trading issued power of attorney to Sigurdur Bollason, an Icelandic investor who used other companies to secure $144 million in collateral-free loans from Landsbanki, Kaupthing, and Glitnir during the summer of 2008 to buy shares in the two banks. Bollason was later named as a co-defendant in a class action suit and was a target of raids by Hauksson’s Office of the Special Prosecutor in Luxembourg regarding the market-manipulation scandal. Bollason has not been charged.
Jarl Universal, meanwhile, was also controlled by Bollason and linked with other companies he controlled, including one that sent a $622,000 dividend to the Landsbanki Luxembourg account of another of his shell companies four days before Landsbanki was seized by the government.
Even with the information revealed by the Mossack Fonseca files, it’s still unclear exactly what was going on with these companies. While the Panamanian law firm is a key link in the chain of secrecy used in the Icelandic banking schemes, it’s only one link. Getting the full picture would require a look inside the banks, investment advisers and other law firms connected to the shell companies.
“Some of the cases have been so complex you actually don’t get through to see what’s actually in there,” says Hauksson, the special prosecutor. “Who is the real person behind this? And that is going to be the battle between the investigators and the ones that want to have the money hidden.”
Iceland’s tax authority did end up purchasing from whistleblowers a small portion of the documents relating to Mossack Fonseca in the hope of finding tax evaders and recovering lost revenue. The documents purchased include information about Wintris, the shell company now owned solely by Gunnlaugsson’s wife.
To date, authorities have said nothing publicly about what they’ve learned.
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“Relevance of Mahatma Gandhi Today”
Foundation for Peace, Harmony and Good Governance (FGG)
cordially invites you to a discussion on
“Relevance of Mahatma Gandhi Today”
Speaker:
Prof. (Dr.) Suman Khanna Aggarwal,
Founder President of Shanti Sahyog – A Gandhian NGO
Keynote Address:
Prof. Ramesh Bijlani,
Chairman,
Sri Aurobindo Education Society, New Delhi
Chair:
D R Kaarthikeyan,
President, FGG
Date : Tuesday 5th April 2016
Time : 6.30 PM onwards
Venue : Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
—
Time : 6.30 PM onwards
Venue : Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
—
D.R.Kaarthikeyan
Advisor: Law-Human Rights-Corporate Affairs
Advisor: Law-Human Rights-Corporate Affairs
Former :
Director, Central Bureau of Investigation
Director General, National Human Rights Commission
Special Director General, Central Reserve Police Force
Director, Central Bureau of Investigation
Director General, National Human Rights Commission
Special Director General, Central Reserve Police Force
102, Ground Floor
Anand Lok
New Delhi – 110 049
India
Anand Lok
New Delhi – 110 049
India
Phone : 91- 11- 4601 3255
: 91- 11- 4601 3266
Fax : 91- 11- 46013277
E-mail : drkaarthikeyan@gmail.com
www.goodgovernance.in
www.lifepositive.com
: 91- 11- 4601 3266
Fax : 91- 11- 46013277
E-mail : drkaarthikeyan@gmail.com
www.goodgovernance.in
www.lifepositive.com
41th Workshop on Respiratory Allergy : Diagnosis and Management”
Subject: Fwd: Info. – Allergy Workshop 2016
To: Gyaan Prakash <gyaanrs2007@gmail.com>
To: Gyaan Prakash <gyaanrs2007@gmail.com>
Dear Friends,
During World Allergy Week 2016, we have great pleasure in informing you that Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute in collaboration with CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology is organizing the“41th Workshop on Respiratory Allergy : Diagnosis and Management” from 4th – 8th April, 2016 at PaintalGolden Jubilee Auditorium at Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, University of Delhi, Delhi 110007.
The VP Chest Institute (Estd. 1949) is a unique postgraduate medical institution devoted for education, research, and patient care in chest diseases and allied medical sciences and is located in the heart of the main campus of the University of Delhi. The Institute has made significant scientific contribution and is well known internationally. This unique conference will be held at Golden Jubilee Auditorium at Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, University of Delhi, Delhi.
The 41st Allergy Workshop – 2016 will be a Five-day event focusing on all major issues of topical interest in the field of Allergy, Asthma, and Applied Immunology, being organised in the capital city. The Scientific activities including Workshops (training in allergy testing, Pulmonary Function Testing (PFT) and laboratory investigations related to respiratory allergy), Plenary lectures Panel Discussions on the latest developments in the fields of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology will definitely provide you an opportunity to share and gain experiences with the well known experts. Several eminent speakers of National and International repute will deliver lecture on different areas of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and its management.
Medical professionals (Medical graduates with PG qualification in Medicine/ Pediatrics / ENT/ Pulmonary Medicine) working / with interest in respiratory allergy and applied immunology from different part of country are participating in the upcoming Allergy Workshop-2016.
With warm greeting….
(Dr. Raj Kumar)
Organizing Secretary- Allergy Workshop-2016
Professor and Head, National Centre of Respiratory Allergy, Asthma
and Immunology (NCRAAI), VP Chest Institute, University of Delhi
Dr. Raj Kumar
MD (Pul. Med.), MNASc, MNAMS, FICAAI, FICS, FNCCP(I), MAAAAI, MACAAI
Professor & Head, National Centre of Respiratory Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (NCRAAI) & Department of Respiratory Allergy & Applied Immunology,
(Department of Respiratory Medicine)
Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007 (India)
Office : +91-11-27667102, 27667667, 27666182 Extn: 127; 144
Home : +91-11-27666868; Fax (O) : +91-11-27666549
Mobile : +91-9810146835; e-mail : rajkumarvpci@gmail.com
Website: www.drrajkumar.com; www.ncraai.org.in
Secretary, Society for Tobacco Control;
Treasurer, South Asia Association of Asthma, Allergy & Clinical Immunology;
Fellow- NCCP, ICS, ICAAI;
Member-NASI, MNAMS, IMA, ACCP(Indian Chapter), AAAAI, ERS, ECAACI, GSI, IAS, IAOHES, IAT, ICOH, IAAPC;
Section Editor, Lung India; Member, Editorial Board- IJCDAS, IJAAI
Former Head, Univ. Deptt. of Pulmonary Medicine, FMS, University of Delhi.
DECLARATION OF 3RD KISAN SWARAJ SAMMELAN
Hyderabad, April 3rd 2016
INCOME GUARANTEE, RIGHTS OVER RESOURCES & SUSTAINABILITY IN AGRICULTURE
We, the delegates of the 3rd Kisan Swaraj Sammelan in Hyderabad during April 1st to 3rd2016, belonging to numerous people’s movements, farmers’ unions, farmers’ cooperatives, non-governmental organisations and national/regional/state level alliances working on farming related issues, have come together at a time when Indian farming is reeling under severe distress as manifested in unabated farm suicides, increasing debt burden, large displacement of cultivators and serious depletion of groundwater, soil health and biodiversity.
With a strong belief that without protecting and promoting sustainable farm livelihoods as opposed to the increasing corporatization being supported and promoted, the nation’s food security will be threatened, and given that Constitutional commitments to Right to Life and Right to Equality cannot be fulfilled without addressing fundamental concerns relating to farmers[1], we declare the following:
· Income Guarantee: We demand a comprehensive Farmers’ Income Guarantee Act which assures an income level that achieves dignified living for every agricultural household including tenant farmers, sharecroppers and agricultural workers. In its Budget Speech, the government announced that it will work towards income security for farmers, but its promise of doubling farm incomes by 2022 is hollow and inadequate. We demand that along the lines of the 7th Pay Commission, a permanent Farmers’ Income Commission be put in place to ensure parity of incomes in Indian society. All government policies that impact agriculture – including support prices, marketing, credit, disaster relief and insurance, subsidies, trade and export-import policies – should translate into ensuring incomes for dignified living and sustainability in farming.
· Relief and Insurance against Natural Calamities: As more than half of the country is reeling under consecutive years of drought and other natural disasters, highest priority should be given to ensure that farmers don’t fall into extreme distress and debt at times of such natural calamities. The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana fails to address serious faults in the crop insurance system. We demand a comprehensive revamp of the Bima Yojana along the lines demanded by farmer unions (such as making individual farms as assessment units, covering all risks including wild animal attacks, stopping corporatization of this sector and ensuring that all cultivators including sharecroppers/tenants are brought under the scheme), and a timely disaster relief system that comprehensively covers the loss incurred. There should be an automatic re-scheduling of bank loans. It is important to institute systems that also compensate agricultural workers for the impacts they suffer. In view of drastic climate change, disaster proofing, preparedness and diversity-based low-external input climate-resilient ecological agriculture should receive highest-priority.
· Land Rights and Acquisition: The widespread land grab in the name of infrastructure and industry, running into crores of acres across the country, forms the biggest threat to agriculture and farm livelihoods and Adivasis are the worst affected. This needs to be stopped immediately. We demand that Land Acquisition Act 2013 be amended to address serious shortcomings that exist – primacy of prior informed consent of Gram Sabhas should be upheld in all cases. We oppose the dilution in rules and bypassing of the 2013 Act through Government Orders and methods such as Land Pooling. Rather than creating land banks to give land to the corporates, land should be given to landless cultivators which is a bigger “public purpose” and government should ensure that land that has not been put to use for the stated purpose should be returned to the original landowners. Further, no land acquisition should take place from assigned landholders. We demand a comprehensive Land Use policy, statutorily embedded, that prevents and stops diversion of agricultural land and commons that form the basis of millions of livelihoods, to non-agricultural purposes.
· Tenant Farmers’ Rights and Recognition of Actual Cultivators: Tenant farmers, sharecroppers and women farmers are the worst affected in the agrarian crisis because they are left out of all the government support systems including low-interest bank loans, disaster relief, crop insurance, marketing systems, subsidies etc. There should be a comprehensive system of formally recording and recognizing the real cultivators including tenant farmers, sharecroppers and women farmers, so that they are entitled to get the benefit of all government support systems and schemes.
· Seed Sovereignty: Farmers’ seed sovereignty is a critical aspect of livelihood and food/nutrition security. While we welcome the recent order restricting the prices of Bt cotton seed, we demand that royalties on seed be completely abolished even if it means that MNCs leave India. We oppose Intellectual Property Rights on seed, and the fact that India has embedded Farmers’ Rights in an IPR law. We demand that seed diversity be revived in farmers’ fields. The Seeds Bill should be enacted incorporating all necessary provisions that will protect farmers’ interests.
· Hazardous technologies like Pesticides & GMOs: An important reason for agrarian distress is the use of hazardous and unsustainable farm technologies like chemical pesticides including herbicides, fertilisers and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in the guise of modern agriculture, ignoring post-modern science of agro-ecology which provides greater viability and sustainability in agriculture. Introducing Green Revolution paradigm in Eastern India is unacceptable to us, and BGREI investments should be diverted to promotion of ecological agriculture. We demand that the government phase out agri-chemicals in a time bound commitment, and stop any environmental release of GMOs. The government should put an immediate halt to the processing of the application for commercialization of GM mustard.
· Women Farmers’ Rights: Women farmers have been rendered invisible and unsupported despite performing 70% of work in Indian agriculture, and despite evidence that when treated on part with male farmers, women’s farming will improve production by upto 40%. We demand that governments recognize them as farmers in their own right, secure their rights over resources both individual and commons, entitle them to agricultural services on par with male farmers, provide comprehensive social protection, ensure equal wages and guarantee equal space for women farmers in all decision-making bodies related to agriculture.
· Ecological Agriculture: Ecological agriculture is no longer a choice but an imperative, given the damage to environment and health across India. There is also an economic and social imperative for decisively shifting towards such farming. We welcome recent positive initiatives by some governments in this respect but they should go beyond treating organic farming as yet another scheme, that too with meager investments. We demand that agro-ecological approaches be mainstreamed into Indian agriculture in its agriculture education, research, extension and marketing support systems. All states should adopt organic farming policies with public consultation in a time bound manner, to enable large investments to support production and marketing of organic produce, as well as instituting incentives like Ecosystems Services payment to ecological farmers. Organic produce should be channeled into various food schemes of the governments in a localized fashion.
· Water Conservation: Water is a critical input that is getting fast-depleted and polluted all over India. We demand concrete measures for water conservation, and preventing the resource from being privatized. Water-intensive crops should be de-prioritised and any diversion of water to industry at the expense of agriculture should be stopped.
· Adivasi Agriculture: We demand that the Forest Rights Act should be implemented fully and effectively with particular emphasis on community rights. Respecting the importance of Adivasi knowledge, diversity and way of life, interventions in agriculture should be re-oriented towards reviving the earlier continuum between Nature-Agriculture-Community-Culture. Food security and forest policies should recognize and support the fact that forests are important food producing habitats for these communities.
· Free Trade Agreements and WTO: International trade policies and agreements are heavily rigged and tilted against the interests of our farmers. We demand that India’s ratification and positioning in various negotiations cannot happen without widespread consultations with farmers, and should in no way compromise food and livelihood security, and should prioritise farmers’ interests in decisions taken related to export-import policies. We demand that until India finds a permanent solution to our ‘food stockpiling’ issue in the WTO which is also directly connected to MSPs and procurement support offered to farmers, the government should not move forward on negotiations on any other issues. We demand that the government stop signing any new Free Trade Agreements, and review all FTAs and BITs until now, to assess how farmers have been affected. India should force a review of TRIPS Agreement to ensure that livelihood and trade security is not compromised in the name of IPRs.
· Support to farmers’ organisations: Based on principles of cooperation and aggregation at the community level, adequate support should be provided to organizing farmers into Farmer Producer Organisations. Such organisations should be supported with land as well as appropriate support for setting up agro-based industries and enterprises at the village level, and tax exemptions should be provided to these collectives.
· Relief and Rehabilitation for Farm Suicide Families: Addressing therelief and rehabilitation needs in farm suicide families has to be taken up by governments promptly and comprehensively.
We also hereby announce that to achieve the above, through peaceful and democratic means, we would all work in a coordinated fashion by evolving common plans and strategies, even as we take up actions through various organizational platforms. Creation of informed debates and decentralized action would form a core of future action. We will hold governments accountable towards upholding Constitutional commitments as they pertain to Indian farmers. We recognize and appreciate that many urban Indians are seriously concerned about their food safety and diversity as well as farm livelihoods. We give a call not only to the farmers of the nation but all citizens to join the struggle to take forward the agenda of food and livelihood security and sovereignty of Indian farmers.
KISAN SWARAJ SAMMELAN PARTICIPANTS INCLUDE:
1. Ms Medha Patkar, National Alliance for People’s Movements (NAPM)
2. Dr Devinder Sharma, Kisan Ekta
3. Prof Yogendra Yadav, Jai Kisan Andolan
4. Dr K Sunilam, Bhoomi Adhikar Sangharsh
5. Dr Vijoo Krishnan, All India Kisan Sabha
6. Dr V Rukmini Rao, Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch
7. Prof Kodandaram, Telangana Raithu JAC
8. Shri Ajayvir Jakhar, Bharat Krishak Samaj
9. Shri Chamarasa Patil, Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha
10. Shri Rampal Jat, Kisan Mahapanchayat
11. Shri Lingaraj Pradhan, Paschim Odisha Krishak Sanghatan
12. Shri Nallagounder, Tamizhaga Vyavasayigal Sangam
13. Shri Vadde Sobhaneedreeswara Rao, former Agriculture Minister, Andhra Pradesh
14. Shri Benny Antony, Haritha Sena
15. Shri Prafulbhai Senjalia, Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, Gujarat
16. Shri Subhash Sharma, OFAI
17. Shri P S Ajay Kumar, AP Vyavasaya Vruthidarula Union
18. Shri Achutaramaiah, All India Kisan Mazdoor Sabha
19. Shri Kiran Vissa, Dr G V Ramanjaneyulu & Shri Ravi Kanneganti, Rythu mSwarajya Vedika
20. Ms Kavitha Kuruganti and Shri Kapil Shah, Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA)
And hundreds of other organisations and individu
Taxing Foods or Gold? Pay For Three Meals Get One
April04, 2016 (C) Ravinder Singh progressindia2015@gmail.com
When we order Foods we pay VAT and Service Tax and invariably Taxes add up to one meal.
A Senior Citizen who can’t easily cook food at home or a Working Women returns home late and orders food have to pay over 20% VAT & SERVICE tax.
Why can’t GoI impose VAT & Service Tax on making and retailing of Jewelry?
People of India should ‘Force GoI to Implement People Friendly Taxation.’
I have reported earlier how a Bottle of Beer cost just Rs.11/- or say Rs.20/-including profits to Beer Makers but retails for Rs.70 to Rs.160 – 4 to 8 Times the cost of supply to manufacturer. Taxes on Hard Drinks like Whisky & Rum could be doubled and on lighter Beer reduced by 50%.
The second issue relates to Charging of E-Rickshaws.
Even if an E-Rickshaw has two Batteries and they are fully charged they shall use just Two Units each or Rs.20 worth of Electricity Only.
An E-RICKSHAW can transport 4-10 people effortlessly at a time all day, Corrupt DERC & NDPL hadn’t provided E-Charging Points 4 Yrs.
Criminal Minds DERC & NDPL – Made ‘Tariff Issue’ in to ‘Criminal Issue’. ‘Police had alleged that Titu was illegally charging batteries of 23 e-rickshaws through his connection’
Domestic Tariff for Delhi for Consuming Over 40 Units a Day is Rs.8.75/Unit – So was No or Little Loss to NDPL. But Tata Solar, sister company of NDPL was Selling Solar Lanterns for Rs.6000/- each. I paid Rs.300 for Two Emergency Lights.
Ravinder Singh, Inventor & Consultant, INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND PROJECTS
Y-77, Hauz Khas, New Delhi-110016, India. Ph; 091- 9871056471, 9718280435, 9650421857
Ravinder Singh* is a WIPO awarded inventor specializing in Power, Transportation,
Smart Cities, Water, Energy Saving, Agriculture, Manufacturing, Technologies and Projects
Can a Dress Shirt Be Racist?
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Today om 13:06
Dear Sir / Madam,
We are pleased to inform that National Centre for Design & Product Development with the support of Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India is organizing a Thematic Exhibition-cum-Sale of Indian Handicraft Products developed by SC/ST at Select City Walk, Saket, New Delhi from 6th – 10th April, 2016
The event shall be inaugurated by Secretary, Textiles, Govt. of India, Mrs. Rashmi Verma in the August presence of Dr. K. Gopal, Development Commissioner (Handicrafts) as per following:-
Date – 6th April, 2016 at 6.00 P.M.
Venue – Amphitheatre Open Plaza
Select City Walk, Saket, New Delhi
To support the cause, we would like to invite yourself for the same. A copy of invitation card and brochure is also attached for ready reference.
Kind Regards
(R.K. SRIVASTAVA)
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
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