World forum against privatising water

Environmental activist Vandana Siva said on Thursday that the recent decision of the Union Cabinet to liberalise the agriculture sector and deregulate prices would end up in privatising the country's water sector as water was the principal ingredient in all cultivations.

A march led by activists from around the world was taken out to the Hindustan Coca-cola company in Plachimada Thursday morning where they shouted slogans saying no toCoke and Pepsi and asked for clean drinking water.

Some 300 persons including tribals took part in the dharna in front of the Coke plant, which was led by Vandana Siva, French farmers' leader Jose Bove and delegates from the United States and Sweden.

"The new water policy of the government is geared towards privatisation. There is no substitute for water and the government cannot have rights to groundwater, forests and air as per recent high court order," Siva said opening the second day's session of the ongoing World Water Conference.

"Power, like water, is a continuum. To struggle against this, it has to be globalised. We will see to it that the resistance is globalised.  There is only one politics in this and that is to ensure that fundamental rights of the people are protected," she said.

The little ripples created at Plachimada has become an expanding circle to embrace the entire world, Siva said.