Tracking MNCs (fwd)

[Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
For Immediate Release
March 26, 2002

New Website Supports Corporate Accountability in India

Contacts:
Amit Srivastava, CorpWatch, San Francisco	 +1 415 561 6472
<amit@corpwatch.org>
Nityanand Jayaraman, CorpWatch, India  +91 80 8601033  (March 
26)  +91 11 6692871 (March 27, 28)  <nity68@vsnl.com>

SAN FRANCISCO-- The US-based corporate accountability group 
CorpWatch today launched a new website -- 
http://www.CorpWatchIndia.org -- to expose the social and 
environmental impacts of corporate investment in India. The first 
website of its kind, CorpWatch India works in collaboration with 
Indian activists to strengthen and link the vibrant movements 
addressing corporate globalization in India with those worldwide.  

The world's largest democracy as well as home to nearly a third of 
the world's poor, India has seen a flood of foreign corporate and 
capital investment since it began opening its markets in 1991. As 
India opens up to globalization, more and more people are coming 
on line, including activists. 

"CorpWatch India aims to build a bridge between Indian social 
movements and their counterparts in the United States and around 
the world. Together with our allies in India, we recognize that we 
need to be global in our grassroots organizing and also use the 
Internet if we are to achieve social justice in the 21st century," said 
Amit Srivastava, CorpWatch's International Programs Coordinator.  

The current Enron debacle underscores the need for a website like
CorpWatch India.  As the crisis unfolds, little is known in the United
States about Enron's significant role in India.  In fact, Enron had the
single largest foreign investment in India -- a natural gas fired power
plant -- which started to unravel well before the Enron crisis hit the 
US media.  In India, Enron has been dogged by allegations of 
human rights violations, ecological destruction, over-pricing energy, 
corruption, land appropriation and political meddling for nearly a 
decade.  The company has also been the subject of many years of 
campaigning by grassroots activists in India as well as the subject 
of harsh criticism in the Indian media.  

"If the US had heeded what Indians had been saying for so long 
about Enron, about its political connections, corrupt practices and 
disregard for their critics, they would not be so surprised as they 
are today," said Nityanand Jayaraman, CorpWatch's India 
organizer. "There are many other Enrons and potential Enrons in 
India today, and we plan to help expose them."

CorpWatch is also enlisting the help of the Indian community in the 
US.

"With more than one million people, the Indian-American population 
is coming of age not only in terms of its contributions to the IT 
industry or the medical and scientific communities, but also as 
advocates for social justice in both countries," said CorpWatch's 
Srivastava, who has lived in the US for 17 years. "CorpWatch India 
plans to use the Internet as a tool for this new global activism."

Srivastava hopes Indian-Americans can help hold US corporations
accountable for their actions in India. "Companies are much more
susceptible to pressure in their home countries, where they project 
and protect their public image," he noted. "They are also subject to 
the laws in their home countries, which they conveniently forget in 
international operations. This project is an attempt to globalize the 
resistance against corporate abuses."

The CorpWatch India website will offer in-depth analysis, 
investigative reporting as well as action alerts and news from 
campaigns in India on a regular basis.  Current stories on 
CorpWatch India include efforts to hold US based Dow Chemical 
accountable for the ongoing devastation wrought by the 1984 
Bhopal gas disaster, concerns over the privatization of water and 
waste management by companies like Vivendi of France and the 
controversy over Monsanto's Bt cotton for commercial use.

Based in San Francisco, CorpWatch works to hold corporations 
accountable on issues of human rights, labor rights and 
environmental justice.  Our Corpwatch.org website is a leading 
voice and resource for the anti-corporate globalization movements 
in the US and around the world.

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