Alternative Perspective
 Issue 16, January 15, 2003
 Compiled by Madhukar Shukla

Introduction: Alternative Perspective is an attempt to widen our awareness about issues related to business, environment, role and influence of media, geo-politics, culture, etc. It aims to share, on a regular basis, some of those pieces of news and information, which do not find place in the highly monopolised mainstream media. Please feel free to share/ forward/ distribute this newsletter to others who may be interested.



Note: The URLs of sources used in the text are numbered and given at the end of the Newsletter.

In This Issue:
  • Dow Chemical Sues Bhopal Gas Victims
     In an ironical twist of sense of justice, Dow Chemicals (which took over Union Carbide) sued the protesting victims of Bhopal Gas Tragedy for $10,000, for "loss of work"!!!?? - In another litigation, Nestle sued Ethiopia[1], one of the most impoverished counries, Ethiopia, to pay $3.7mn for a sum which the company says was owed to it since 1970s... perhaps, in a different interpretation, justice is blind.
    http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/news/details?news_id=95504

  • Grassroot Economics: Ithaca HOURS
    An interesting case-study on "complementary currency" system (which featured in one of the earlier issues of this newsletter), which creates jobs, trade, collaboration and a sense of community... And just in case one thinks this is just an aberration in the otherwise standard centralised monetory system, do also check out Time Dollars[2] and LETS[3], which are among almost 2000 similar currency systems which are used across the world.
    http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC41/Glover.htm

  • Patenting to Kill
    When Patent Laws were put in shape, few would have thought that they can become a vehicle for greed and mass killing. Unfortunately, that is what has happened - is happening. As pharma majors use IPR to block access of life saving drugs to developing countries[4], IPRs are becoming a reason for mass deaths in developing countries - often through the influence which pharma giants have in trade negotiations[5]... Few remember now that Penicillin, the first wonder drug, was never allowed to be patented by British Government, since the values of that time would not allow monopolies to cash on human life.
    http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=959

  • The Paradoxical World We Live In
    A phenomenal listing of facts about a world where forests are supposed to be cut down to contain forest fires, where there are more obese people than those dying of hunger, where the second largest market for Montblanc pen is one of the poorest country in the world... the list goes one...
    http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=2604§ionID=13

  • Rogue's Gallery
    An interesting - and in some cases, startling - array of personality, who have committed serious violation of International Law. Have a look to find out some lesser publicised facts about people such as Henry Kissinger, Ariel Sharon, etc.
    http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/wanted/wntdindx.htm


    Other Sources Quoted in the Newsletter:
    [1]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/famine/story/0,12128,862655,00.html?=rss
    [2]: http://www.timedollar.org/101/x1Question_one.htm
    [3]: http://www.gmlets.u-net.com/
    [4]: http://www.aegis.com/news/wsj/2000/WJ001202.html
    [5]: http://www.globaltreatmentaccess.org/content/press_releases/02/121002_HGAP_WP_TRIPS_exp.html


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