Newsclick discusses with Biswajit Dhar, Director General of Research and Information System for Developing Countries, the India – EU Free Trade Agreement and its fall-outs.

Dhar says the agriculture sector is going to be particularly affected by the dumping of highly subsidised agricultural products from the EU. Several sections like the automobile industry and the milk co-operative, Amul, have expressed concerns over the FTA. The entire negotiating process has been non-transparent. Even the Parliament of our country has not been taken into confidence. Addressing concerns like the Current Account Deficit actually get defeated by agreements like these FTAs. Dhar feels such policies will make India more import-dependent.

Professor Samir Amin, one of the leading Marxist thinkers in the world today, speaks about the implosion of contemporary capitalism. He articulates the need for the radical left, in the North as well as the South, to be bold in formulating its political alternative to the existing system. It is time for the left to articulate a new socialist agenda, not merely as a repetition of the 20 century socialism, but recreating it in light of the lessons learned from the past and the changes we are seeing in the world today.

The current confrontation on the Lok Pal Bill has eroded the middle ground between a corrupt UPA Government and the high decibel “Team Anna”.

Interview with Prof. David MacDonald, Queens College, Kingston, Ontario, Canada on "Electricity Capitalism in South Africa and beyond".