India’s Deficient Healthcare System: Is Public Healthcare the Only Model?

Must India model its healthcare system on the vastly inefficient and costly healthcare system of the West?

US Healthcare costs and expenditure | Credits and source details embedded in image.

he Euro-zone health system costs the tax-payer close to a trillion dollars (two-thirds of total healthcare expenditure paid by the State; total healthcare expenditure by EU is 10% of EU GDP, that is US$ 15 trillion). Ditto multiplied by two for the US.  One trillion and two trillion for EU and US respectively.

As a result of high tobacco consumption, aging problem, China’s expenditure on healthcare is expected to be a trillion dollars by 2020, due to proposed expansion of facilities, coverage.

The combined population of the US and EU is about the 800 million – versus the 1200 million of India. Even if due to lower costs, India were to replicate the EU and US systems, the expenditure will be US$3 trillion. That is 50% more than the Indian GDP.

Simplistic?

Sure. But, if we are going to throw around billions and trillions that belong to taxpayers, why worry?

These systems will collapse – and when that happens, there will be plagues and epidemics across the West.

Remember that less than a 100 years ago, the flu-epidemic killed tens of millions in the West. Conservative estimates start at 2 crores, go to realistic estimates of 4 crores (40 million) and some estimates go beyond 5 crores (50 million). This depletion in population, coupled with WWI deaths toppled the West into the Great Depression, ten years later.

As John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza,” has observed, “Influenza killed more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century; it killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years.”

via Grounding a Pandemic – New York Times.

The State as the natural and logical answer to every social problem is uniquely modern extension of Desert Bloc model of governance. The confidence that media and academia project in this model has no relation to reality.

We have seen the collapse of Spain, Portugal as imperial powers, Britain is at a tipping point – and many expect Pax Americana to follow.

Why must India duplicate this vastly inefficient and costly healthcare system of the West, as this recent article in the FT suggests.

Western governments could haul New Delhi to the WTO dispute panel to challenge its patent law as non-compliant with global trade rules, generics executives’ and health activists’ bigger worry is that the EU, and eventually the US, will secure provisions in new free-trade deals. These provisions would give western drugmakers more tools to stop Indian generic rivals.

Western pharmaceutical companies counter that India’s real health crisis is not the price of a handful of patented drugs but of a government that has abdicated its responsibility to ensure decent healthcare for its citizens. India’s government spends less than 1.2 per cent of gross domestic product on healthcare.

Some western companies, led by GlaxoSmithKline, are trying tiered pricing strategies in India to reflect the extremes of its wealth and poverty. Merck Sharp and Dohme sells its patented diabetes drug Januvia in India for about $24 per month, 80 per cent lower than its global price.

Still, the cut-rate price for Januvia has not deterred Glenmark, an Indian generics firm, from making its own version, which it sells for 30 per cent less than the discounted price. Last month MSD tried unsuccessfully to get a court order stopping Glenmark from selling its medicine, and protracted litigation lies ahead.

“You can parachute free medicine across the country but that will not improve access because you don’t the health infrastructure,” says Mr Shahani. “You don’t have doctors, you don’t have nurses, you don’t have nursing homes and you don’t have diagnostics.”

Shortages of nurses and orderlies meant young doctors had to do menial tasks such as carrying laboratory samples or wheeling patients into the operating theatre.

The junior doctors say the public hospital is so overstretched – and poorly managed – that they have to make snap decisions on how to handle patients, as if processing the wounded from a battlefield.

“This government doesn’t want patients to die, so our major concern is to prevent death, but what about proper management after that?” asks Sameer Prabhakar, a doctor at Safdarjung. “A doctor seeing 100 patients a day won’t have time.”

Safdarjung’s problems resonate across India’s public health system, which is starved of funds. Clinics struggle to cope with the flow of patients who can spend days queueing to see a doctor, only to be told they will have to wait months for treatment – even for potentially fatal diseases such as cancer.

India has just six doctors and nine hospital beds for every 10,000 people, compared with 15 doctors and 38 beds in China, and 24 doctors and 30 beds in the US, according to UN data. “The biggest question is: why is the government not building more hospitals and opening more medical colleges?” says Dr Prabhakar.

The emergence of swish upmarket private hospitals catering to India’s rich and middle classes is exacerbating the strain on public hospitals, as doctors, nurses and other specialists are drawn to the higher salaries and better working conditions.

With India spending just 1.2 per cent of gross domestic product on health – compared with nearly 3 per cent in China – the problems will not be resolved easily. Many poor Indians go to unqualified quacks. Lower middle-class patients are driven to private hospitals they cannot afford, clocking up debt to pay for essential treatment.

via India: Patents and precedents – FT.com.

Related Articles

• World economy in a tizzy, but Indian pharma flying high (thehindu.com)
• Should pharma MNCs be peeved? (rediff.com)
• India’s Solution To Drug Costs: Ignore Patents And Control Prices – Except For Home Grown Drugs (forbes.com)
• Fortis Healthcare to raise Rs 322 cr via IPP (news.in.msn.com)

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Exporting disease, making a killing

How pharma lobby uses misuses money to subvert law, opinion and science!

Mental illnesses popular in the US, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anorexia and depression, in particular, are now spreading across the world with the speed of contagious diseases, says Watters, who went about investigating why this was happening although different cultures view mental illnesses through a complex prism of religious, scientific and social attitudes. In short, the West, primarily the US, has been homogenising the way the world goes mad.

Underlying this trend is the western assumption that human beings are innately fragile and should consider many common emotional experiences as illness that require professional intervention. There is also the dangerous assumption that certain types of events in a person’s life, such as being laid off, are certain to result in psychological trauma that requires psychiatric care and medication. Why is mental illness being globalised to such an alarming degree that different conceptions of the troubled mind in different cultures are being overridden by the dominant view and are fast vanishing? (via Exporting disease, making a killing).

View from a bridge

Many years ago, reading The Constant Gardener by John Le Carre, only confirmed suspicions and common knowledge about medical malpractices – at least in India. In the last 10-15 years, it has become commonplace for doctors to get beaten up at hospitals in India. Medical malpractice was, personally, never an issue as I have been off Western medicines for nearly 40 years.

But to see the exploitation, from a distance, by the combination of ‘doctor-pharma company’ is a study in nausea. Western medical system is the single biggest creator of disease! Apart from the cases of Japan-Paxil, Sri Lanka-PTSD-Pfizer, there is the well known case of how family planning activists misused quinacrine in India.

From being highly respected citizens, to being beaten up regularly is sad decline for the medical community.

But it had to happen.

The road from Copenhagen | Ed Miliband | Comment is free | The Guardian

Stop this scaremongering! We got enough problems of our own to worry about yours!

We did not get an agreement on 50% reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80% reductions by developed countries. Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries. Indeed, this is one of the straws in the wind for the future: the old order of developed versus developing has been replaced by more interesting alliances. (via The road from Copenhagen | Ed Miliband | Comment is free | The Guardian).

Old bulldog … old tricks

President Bharrat Jagdeo. *Photo credit: thereddsite.files.wordpress.com

Gordon Brown, The British Prime Minister declared, “today, together with Norway and Australia, the UK is taking a further step to a Copenhagen agreement: publishing a framework for the long-term transfer of resources to meet the mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries.” (Paris Hilton note, who the PM of Britain is!)

More interesting was when Europe went ahead and committed funds and disbursed carbon credits. Small amounts – but nevertheless a significant step! So, what gives! How come Europe was disbursing – not serious money, but more than pocket money, without using IMF, World Bank, et al. No UN! How come?

Anglo-Euro efforts

The joint trojan operation (Norway, Australia and UK + EU) against China (or was it India?) was immaculately pursued. Bernarditas de Castro Muller, former lead coordinator and negotiator for the G77 and China in Copenhagen, writing in the Guardian of UK, reported,

The UK financed workshops in selected vulnerable countries and deployed climate envoys. One of its envoys told intransigent negotiators that the UK would mobilise a group of vulnerable countries to pressure the major developing countries – such as China, Brazil and India – into committing to emissions reductions, contrary to their obligations under the climate treaty.

The EU for example made sustained attempts to influence and pressure developing nations – something that only served to increase their cohesion. They bribed where they could, promising the same recycled financing and maybe more to come if countries bent to their demands. And they bullied when they could not bribe.

India’s neighbours, like Maldives, Bangladesh were co-opted – as were countries, led people of Indian extract like Caribbean island of Guyana, Mauritius. The strategy was to isolate China and pair India with the ‘vulnerble 14′ – like Maldives, Guyana, Bangldesh, etc. For instance, alongwith Mohammed Nasheed, Bharrat Jagdeo in Guyana, was faultlessly pursued. Long ignored and isolated, countries like Guyana suddenly found themselves in the spotlight.

Agreeably surprised, they wondered how Guyana “received a disproportionate amount of coverage and access given its size for its progressive and leading stance on climate change.” Time magazine nominated Guyanese president Bharrat Jagdeo, as one of Heroes of the Environment 2008. This year Time magazine included Mohammed Nasheed in its Heroes of the Environment 2009. It was also announced,

Stabroek News in Guyana has confirmed that President Bharrat Jagdeo has been nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to combat climate  change. He was nominated by Professor David Dabydeen, Director of the Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick.

US actor Harrison Ford and Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo at a news conference about forest protection on September 21, 2009 in New York. Photograph: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

The Commonhealth Heads meeting a few weeks before Copenhagen was supposed to seal this ‘alliance.’ Intriguingly, the French President Sarkozy joined the Commonwealth Summit, with Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen and UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon – and proposed a US$10 billion fund for climate change. Just imagine the French joining in a Commonwealth meet (a first, I would think).

Possibly it was the US efforts which made China and India stand together at Copenhagen.

Why the US did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol?

The political undertones of climate control talks are unravelling. The first major smoke signal was when the USA refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol – while talking about global warming and climate change at the same time. Sometimes puzzling and wholly beyond understanding! The lip service paid by the US to climate change can be best summarized by a Hindi idom हाथी के दांत, खाने के एक, दिखाने के एक. Meaning, elephants have two sets of teeth – one for actual use and another for show.

Cynical subversion of media, honours and public opinion

The third element in the multilateral equations set was the efforts made by Bush /Obama to get India and China to ‘get on the climate change band wagon’ with the US. The Chinese ‘unilateral’ announcement of ‘voluntary’ carbon intensity cut after Obama’s trip to China a few days before Copenhagen was a signpost of this unusual ‘alliance’. India followed soon thereafter with its own ‘voluntary’ carbon intensity cuts. One of the justifications of Bush’s nuclear deal with India was climate change.

This US master-stroke of Obama+BASIC meeting, ensured that the “only breakthrough was the political coup for China and India in concluding the anodyne communiqué with the United States behind closed doors, with Brazil and South Africa allowed in the room and Europe left to languish in the cold outside.”

In hindsight, US covert resistance to climate change was actually resistance to the monopolisation by the EU on the climate change agenda and campaign. Under the garb of climate change, EU was trying to do what US did to the world, under the garb of poverty elimination, population control, Bretton Woods in the aftermath of WW2.

What were the BASIC countries resisting

Writing from a Western standpoint, John Lee, in the Guardian, of the UK, faults China for not allowing,

“Teams of international economists, scientists, inspectors and statisticians roaming China to gather information on carbon emissions and reduction initiatives … reporting to political masters in America and Europe … (on) the further problem of cheating in current and future carbon reduction schemes.” (ellipsis and linking text in brackets mine).

The Climate Change Agreement would have delivered us - hog tied and helpless!

Ed Milliband, Britain’s Energy Minister, younger brother of British foreign secretary, David Miliband, writing for the Guardian,

“We cannot again allow negotiations … to be hijacked in this way. We will need to have major reform of the UN body overseeing the negotiations and of the way the negotiations are conducted (for this) global campaign, co-ordinated by green NGOs, backed by business … we must keep this campaign going and build on it. It needs to be more of a genuinely global mobilisation, taking in all countries …this year has proved what can be done, as well as the scale of the challenge we face. (ellipsis and emphasis mine).

Indeed much has been done.

Face behind the mask

Faceless NGOs, without accountability to anyone, were able to bring global political leadership, to the very brink of an agreement. Like Milliband’s boss, Gordon Brown remarked, “the political will to secure the ambitious agreement … comprehensive and global agreement that is then converted to an internationally legally binding treaty in no more than six months.” was very much there. The same 25,000 people (25 countries x 1000 powerful people) who rule over the G8-/OECD wanted the poor to invite these 25,000 to have undue and illegitimate oversight over our ‘poor’ lives – in the name of climate change.

The message I got ... loud and clear

To deliver more than 600 crore (6 billion) of humanity to an agreement that would have allowed the likes of the Milliband Brothers (and their NGO ‘partners-in-crime’) to pry into our lives, our affairs and dictate our very existence – with our own consent. Without recourse, with no checks and balances. With large amounts of unaccounted money at their disposal. To decide how we live our lives. Under a system, that would have re-invented colonialism, in a way wholly unknown to us earlier.

Any deal was a bad deal

Last time around, India was called the deal breaker at Doha. This time around, it is China. Who gets called, what by whom, may seems unimportant! But as my grandfather reminded me many times, बद हो जाओ, लेकिन बदनाम नहीं (Beware of getting a bad reputation).

The Guardian, goes onto say, “Only China is mentioned specifically in Miliband’s article but aides tonight made it clear that he included Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba, which also tried to resist a deal being signed.” Sadly India is not included in this list of ‘deniers’ who are, as Gordon Brown puts it, “anti-science and anti-change environmental Luddites who seek to stand in the way of progress.”

Climate control noise is just drowning out all debate

How I wish India was blamed for the failure of Copenhagen!

De-construction of climate change by 2ndlook

• Climate change – How India is falling for propaganda
• Climate Change at Copenhagen – Britain mounts a Trojan operation
• Indian cows were blamed for global warming!
• US Euro Clubs hobble Third Wold
• Climate head steps down over e-mail leak
• NASSCOM wakes after 15 months
• PR Stunts – The Maldives underwater meeting
• Indian to head Amnesty
• Amartya Sen at the Aspen Institute India’s Conference in New Delhi – WSJ.com
• Climate change – ‘Time for Plan B’ says Nigel Lawson

Copenhagen Talks End With Agreement, But No Binding Deal – AlterNet

Too much money ... creating too much of maya

Environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben of 350.org voiced his disapproval. (and) summarized what Obama accomplished:

He formed a league of super-polluters, and would-be super-polluters. China, the U.S., and India don’t want anyone controlling their use of coal in any meaningful way.

(via Copenhagen Talks End With Agreement, But No Binding Deal: So, How Screwed Are We? | Environment | AlterNet).

QED

On Aug 14, 2009, a Quicktake post wondered if this entire climate change and global warming had something to do with coal-fired power plants.

This is too close to my dis-comfort zone

Bill McKibben’s peeve does prove that this is indeed the case.

Now, coal is the cheapest way to generate electricity. Looking at the shortfall in electricity, and Indian consumers’ ability to pay, coal is the answer.

To low costs, add the fact that India has coal reserves that will last for the next 100 years – at least. But, coal-generated electricity, will also makes India industrially competitive.

And we don’t want that, do we? Right, Billy Boy!

Inside Indian bedrooms

60years ago, an assault was made by foreign ‘observers’ into Indian bedrooms. Foreign ‘observers’

1. Tied ‘development aid’ to India’s population control.
2. Trained Indian ‘health workers’ to control India’s human reproductive behaviour.
3. Paid for by Western Governments, soon after that, we had ‘health workers’ fanning out across the Indian country-side, conducting  vasectomies /tubectomies on India’s (especially poor) population.

Is this the science we are talking about?

It did not matter then, who the ‘observers’ were – foreign or Indian. Neither does it matter now. What matters is someone’s monitoring. And I don’t like that at all.

Even if the monitors have brown skins (my liking for brown skin notwithstanding). Even if it comes with a recommendation from Nobel prize winner, Amartya Sen. How Indian power producers generate electricity is our business.

Getting a handle on the Indian  economy is the second and related part of the agenda.

An agenda, I don’t like.

All that nice, fresh, white newsprint …

Wasted!

Just the amount of newsprint that has been devoted to climate change and global warming must have raised temperatures (going by the ‘warmers’ calculations and estimates) enough to make this debate of questionable value. To that add, the amount of gimmickry and media overdrive (through slick PR) that raises many doubts and questions.

Hush, boy! Do not even mention ‘scientific manipulation’.

Just look at the record.

The most prominent and vocal votary of Climate Change was Al Gore – who was promptly awarded the Nobel Prize. The recruitment of Maldives and the positioning of President Mohammed Nasheed was again a very slick operation. The underwater Maldives cabinet meeting had a interesting story.

Maldivian officials said the idea to hold the attention-grabbing underwater cabinet meeting came from President Mohamed Nasheed when he was asked by an activist group to support its “environmental day” action on October 24.

“The 350.org group asked if the Maldives can hold an underwater banner supporting environmental day,” an official from the president’s office said.

“The president thought for a while and then came up with the idea to have an underwater cabinet meeting.” (via Maldives cabinet rehearses underwater meeting).

Is this the problem?

Propping up Maldives as ‘fifth’ column was done over the last more than 20 years. Based on excellent PR and media management skills, the Maldives was the trojan horse loosed on the G77+Basic grouping.

350.org is rather well armed on the PR front – with a specific agency for South Asia itself. The PR agency for the Maldives Travel and Tourism Authority McCluskey International does  seem to either bask in reflected glory – or is hinting at the authorship of this stunt. The Maldives climate change campaign seems to be headquarted in Britain also.

Been there and done that

The hallmark of the Maldives’ climate  change campaign has been it slick PR. Dramatic statements, intriguing sound bites, the Maldives’ campaign was beyond the common bureaucratic ‘creature’ – much less a Maldives’ bureaucrat. This is consistent and in line with Al Gore’s media and public relations management – which won the PR agency, the campaign of the year award. And Al Gore the Nobel Prize.

All this is much like, how from the early 1950’s to the late eighties, the Western world created hysteria regarding ‘population explosion’  in India and China. Enormous pressures were brought onto the Chinese and Indian Governments to ‘control’ their populations.

Same game, different name! Doesn’t wash. Just like last time.

Related Posts

• Climate change – How India is falling for propaganda
• Climate Change at Copenhagen – Britain mounts a Trojan operation
• Indian cows were blamed for global warming!
• US Euro Clubs hobble Third Wold
• Climate head steps down over e-mail leak
• NASSCOM wakes after 15 months
• PR Stunts – The Maldives underwater meeting

Climate change – How India is falling for propaganda

Polluter cleans ... and Pollutor pays and gets away

I have been surprised by the number of reasonable Indians who have come to accept the proposition, advanced by equally reasonable but perhaps nationalistically-motivated Americans, that the acceptance of internationally-mandated restrictions on carbon emissions by India is in its own national interest. Some have even come to argue that India should actively seek a climate change treaty at the Copenhagen conference in December 2009.

If the big and largely rich emitters of today were to take mitigation in the immediate future seriously, they could achieve emission cuts commensurate with the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) without denying the poor in India (and Africa) the prospects of a humane existence. With abject poverty eliminated and electricity and water provided to all, India could join the mitigation effort by 2040. (via India and climate change talks).

Acquisitive Indian companies making US nervous?

What if

The entire global warming debate is just a facade to keep up demand for oil from India and China. The opposition to coal fired power plants is to stop India and China from reducing the growth in oil consumption.

After all practically all of British GDP today is declining North Sea oil and British Petroleum. Apart from Chinese money, the other source of liquidity, which keeps the US afloat is petro-dollars. And, remember, US future is so closely linked to Arctic oil. If India and China were to reduce their reliance on oil, leading to a price collapse, the biggest losers will be the Anglo Saxon bloc.

Makes one think!

India’s pharma exports

Three things…

First, many of the regulatory bodies are actually a US-Euro Club – to fool the world, with token actions and steps to demonstrate inclusion and fairness to the developing world.

And second, these token actions divert the attention of the developing world. For instance, World Bank list of banned entities were significantly, from two sectors - Software and Pharma. These are the two sectors where the US still has a lead – and the Indians are its biggest challengers. Generic pharma firms from India have become world beaters - and the Indian software companies have built up US$50 billion a year business, in less than 10 years. These 50 billion dollars have come out of (arguably) US pockets.

At least, the actions against Wipro and Nestor Pharma were pathetic excuses to ban a business – and no third party arbiter will uphold these actions.

Third, on January 9, Standard & Poor’s announced that Greece, Spain and Ireland were on review for a possible downgrade, indicating that a Euro-zone country could default. The cost of the US bailout is likely to exceed US$3 trillion. Current US budget deficit is likely to break all records and estimates.

Not so long ago …

In 1999, an employee of an auto-components manufacturer, Autolite, was arrested in France for trademarks and copyright infringement – based on a complaint by the car manufacturer PSA Puegeot Citroen. The French police, on similar complaints, arrested two other nationals, a Belgian and a Taiwanese woman also.

The Belgian was of course granted bail – and the Indian and the Taiwanese were denied bail - ‘The lawyers representing the Indian businessman offerred to deposit his passport and the sum of 100,000 French Francs claimed by Peugeot in the custody of the court as bailbond, pending the trial of the case on November 12′.

French court procedures took nearly 1 month and the Indian executive was finally granted bail after being in prison for 1 month. After two years of appeals and expensive litigation, the complaint was found to be without any merit – and dismissed.

When the North Pole greens over

More recently …

A shipment of medicines destined for Brazil, from India, was detained at Rotterdam. The Dutch Customs used a complaint from a local Dutch company, to detain this shipment, based on local patent laws. After a few months of ‘negotiations’, the shipment was sent back to India. An expert writes, what

‘EU is doing is using Council Regulation (EC) No. 1383/2003 to impound drugs that are suspected of violating patents registered in member-countries even if these are simply in transit. The regulations permit customs to hold these goods for a minimum of 10 working days while informing the patent holder of the seizure. The patent holder then applies to a civil court to initiate legal proceedings in order to prove that infringement has taken place.’

Whats the Quicktake

These seem like offensive actions from the EU and the US – to undermine their competitors and to bolster Euro-US businesses. It makes me doubt the Satyam saga. To carry the conspiracy theory thread forward, was there a Merrill Lynch-Ramlinga Raju ‘deal’?

'demmed' Indian cows

Modern day protectionism, huh?

This also furthers the importance of having non-Western bodies, which are sponsored by the Third World, which will regulate and govern international laws. To depend on the West, is to further dig the hole that the Third World finds itself in.

And in case you forget, remember that for some time Indian cows were blamed for global warming!

US Euro Clubs hobble Third Wold

Rich nations are using every forum available to step up intellectual property curbs on developing country exports. India needs to wake up.

…  if a group of developed countries and their rights holders are successful in pushing through a clever initiative at the World Customs Organization (WCO) to lay down global norms and model laws for heightened protection of IP rights. Unsurprisingly, the majority of developing countries have been caught off guard by the move to push SECURE (Standards to be Employed by Customs for Uniform Rights Enforcement) … (as) they did not expect WCO to be looking at IP issues … SECURE was not a member-driven initiative but put together by the secretariat of the 174-member organisation based in Brussels. SECURE, says the WCO, will be a set of standards, procedures, and best practices to coordinate the “global effort to suppress all kind of IP rights infringements”. (via Latha Jishnu: Policy of encirclement).

This article goes onto mention how

1. That ‘rights holders are not obliged to provide adequate evidence to show that there is prima facie an infringement to initiate action.

2. Brazil, as usual, has been the rare developing country to be alert to the dangers posed by SECURE, and is the only one actively taking part in the SECURE working group discussions … Brazil along with Argentina, China, Cuba, Ecuador, and Uruguay has sent a report highly critical of the SECURE draft and also that it “departs from the member-driven nature that should guide the process.”

3. India is once again missing in action. Bureaucratic and political apathy have been characteristic of India’s approach to critical trade negotiations.

4. … more than a dozen initiatives by the US, EU and OECD which shift forums both horizontally and vertically to achieve their goals. Since voluntary agencies and developing countries are active in the WTO, WIPO, and WHO, these are no longer the arena for IP maximalists, she says.

Acquisitive Indian companies making US nervous?

Three things…

First, many of the regulatory bodies are actually a US-Euro Club – to fool the world, with token actions and steps to demonstrate inclusion and fairness of the developing world.

And second, these token actions divert the attention of the developing world. For instance, World Bank list of banned entities were significantly, from two sectors – Software and Pharma. These are the two sectors where the US still has a lead – and the Indians are its biggest challengers. Generic pharma firms from Indiahave become world beaters - and the Indian software companies have built up US$50 billion a year business, in less than 10 years. These 50 billion dollars have come out of US pockets.

India's pharma exports

At least, the actions against Wipro and Nestor Pharma were pathetic excuses to ban a business – and no third party arbiter will uphold these actions.

Third, on January 9, Standard & Poor’s announced that Greece, Spain and Ireland were on review for a possible downgrade, indicating that a Eurozone country could default.

The cost of the US bailout is likely to exceed US$3 trillion. Current US budget deficit

Not so long ago …

In 1999, an employee of an auto-components manufacturer, Autolite, was arrested in France for trademarks and copyright infringement – based on a complaint by the car manufacturer PSA Puegeot Citroen. The French police, on similar complaints, arrested two other nationals, a Belgian and a Taiwanese woman also.

The Belgian was of course granted bail – and the Indian and the Taiwanese were denied bail - ‘The lawyers representing the Indian businessman offerred to deposit his passport and the sum of 100,000 French Francs claimed by Peugeot in the custody of the court as bailbond, pending the trial of the case on November 12′.

French court procedures took nearly 1 month and the Indian executive was finally granted bail after being in prison for 1 month. After two years of appeals and expensive litigation, the complaint was found to be without any merit – and dismissed.

More recently …

A shipment of medicines destined for Brazil, from India, was detained at Rotterdam. The Dutch Customs used a complaint from a local Dutch company, to detain this shipment, based on local patent laws. After a few months of ‘negotiations’, the shipment was sent back to India. An expert writes, how

‘EU is doing is using Council Regulation (EC) No. 1383/2003 to impound drugs that are suspected of violating patents registered in member-countries even if these are simply in transit. The regulations permit customs to hold these goods for a minimum of 10 working days while informing the patent holder of the seizure. The patent holder then applies to a civil court to initiate legal proceedings in order to prove that infringement has taken place.’

Whats the Quicktake

These actions seem like offensive actions from the EU and the US – to undermine their competitors and to bolster Euro-US businesses. It makes me doubt the Satyam saga. To carry the conspiracy theory thread forward, was there a Merrill Lynch-Ramlinga Raju ‘deal’?

Modern day protectionism, huh?

This also furthers the importance of having non-Western bodies, which are sponsored by the Third World, which will regulate and govern international laws. To depend on the West, is to further dig the hole that the Third World finds itself in.