Left-wing activists protest against WTO meet India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Hundreds of left-wing activists protested against the ongoing ministerial meet of key World Trade Organization (WTO) member states aimed at breathing fresh life into the stalled global trade talks here today. Carrying banners and placards slamming the global trade body, activists of the Left-wing Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) shouted anti-WTO slogans. An informal meeting of some 35 trade ministers to advance the WTO's Doha round started here on Thursday. Some of the main players may use the ongoing meeting to try to make progress on some of the thorniest issues in the talks, launched in late 2001 by WTO members to boost the world economy and help poor countries grow through trade. Many experts see the current meet as an attempt by India to stamp its authority on the global economic stage. However, those opposed to the WTO said it was meant to benefit big corporations and safeguard the interests of rich at the cost of the common man and poor. "The WTO has fuelled hunger, inflation and unemployment everywhere. The WTO is responsible for privatisation and globalisation. The WTO meet is being organised here so that the industrialists in the country and industrialists from all over the world can join in -- in robbing and plundering the people and the country," said Pratap Samal, secretary, SUCI, state unit. "The WTO is an organisation of robbers. The public will protest in full force against such an organisation. We have all collected here to protest the WTO meeting," said Hemlata Kale, one of the protestors. The Pittsburgh summit of G20 later this month is likely to see a Doha deal as part of the cure for the global economic crisis as well as a bulwark against protectionism.