The Hindu Business Line on Drugs, Water and Pepsi

Before you come to the conclusion that I am on Drugs or Pepsi please see THIS

Here is the summary – (i) Pepsi is going to fight anemia (!!?) and (ii) they are patenting a seeding technology for dry land paddy to help farmers who are affected by the water scarcity that invariably affects farmland in the vicinity of wherever they set up shop.

Let us look at the first absurd claim – They are going to launch a soft drink with medicinal properties that will treat Anemia. The clinical trials for this will begin in India.(ROFL)

There is a very fundamental and contradictory problem with that objective. Pepsi Co are a disease themselves. They first need to get their pipes out of India's vulnerable water resources before they start wearing a halo around their heads.

• In 2002, PepsiCo India used 6.21 liters of water per liter of beverage manufactured by it. YOU do the math!
• The volume of Blue Gold that they consumed can be best described as vulgar. This is happening when the country is struggling for water!
• More accurate reports estimate that Pepsi saved 8 billion litres of water last year by applying some "new" technology. Now, how much did they waste?
• Plachimada in Kerala is an excellent example of how ground water resources are over-exploited and locals are denied the right to an equal share of water by the beverage giants. Toxic chemicals are in abundance in wells 1km away from the beverage factory.
  
• Thanks to local voices and the Supreme Court the factory eventually lost its license.

This same factory (Coke) was getting environmental awards! An eerie reminder of the Satyam Fiasco and it’s Corporate Governance awards. Every time a company splashes a Press Release about an award, I promptly take a clip off the clothesline and take it to the bridge of my nose.

The HBL article in question refuses to address the intolerable levels of pollution created by beverage companies, their poaching and unbridled looting of water resources, and the cognizant exploitation of water resources that are essential to farmers.

We have a water crises on our hands and they have the gall to launch a product with medicinal value? Since senior citizens are likely to read this blog, I will desist from profanity.

Pepsi now says they will sell soft drinks that cure anemia. They conveniently ignore the fact that excessive groundwater extraction causes diseases far graver than Anemia. The idea itself is anemic and my face turned pale the first time I read the article.

You can not fool all the people all the time! Their publicity stunts are becoming intolerable. Their claim of "sustainability" needs to be proven!

What is alarming about the piece is the tag line - "India lead country in global project; clinical trials soon". It is well known that the pesticide levels in their drinks are not great. Now they want to run clinical trials? We are supposed to be guinea pigs for some grand CSR scheme that messes with our livers?

The second issue is typically American. The profiteering is transparent in this line - "Pepsi is in the process of patenting the seeder which seeds the soil directly"

First you take away their water. Then you invent technology that seeds without water. Then you patent the technology. This vicious cycle is getting absurd.

Navadarshanam, a Gandhian Ashram in the outskirts of Bangalore has been growing dry land paddy without fertilizer for several years. They brought in farmers from North Karnataka who were experts in this crop because of the perennial drought conditions in Northern Karnataka. If Pepsi thinks that dry land farming and related technology is their invention - they need to read up on the history of Agriculture. We do not need a bunch of R&D suits from the US telling us how to plough, till and harvest.

God forbid, if we ever need to kill a large number of innocent civilians in a third world country, we will call upon the expertise of the US corporate sector and their R&D wing.

The outstandingly brilliant journalists who wrote this piece must been on drugs themselves. It looks like they lapped up every piece of bovine manure that the Pepsico CEO regurgitated without questioning it one bit.

My Glasshouse

While I waste no time in blaming the US for many of the problems across the world, I am not quick enough to condemn similar behavior that has Indian roots. Let me bring up a few examples.


Cash Crops -
The Indian government blatantly encourages cash crops. Cash crops make the farmer dependent on the "market" for prices. Prices as we all know are always controlled by cartels. Investments in cash crops are encouraged and farmers from a "cash-crop" background are treated with far greater respect than their poorer peers who grow food crops that find their way to our kitchens more readily.
Aditya Birla group recently received coverage for its search for large tea-estates. At the other extreme there are farmers who have managed to profitably cultivate dry-land paddy. When we are tryin to increase the per capita availability of food grain (a genuine measure of growth), why should we be more interested in tea than in paddy?

Sudan -
One of my mentors recently visited Sudan. She explained how there were many Indians in Sudan. I assumed they were like Indians in many parts of Africa. Indians that could be described as second and third generation migrants who first came as labor. I could not have been farther from the truth. Two large Indian companies have a huge presence in Sudan's oil sector. They have substantial contracts from the Sudanese government. We know that Sudan is about as far away from democracy as America's corporate citizens. The government is totalitarian and violation of human rights is omnipresent. Sudan is an oil producing nation state and India's presence in the region can only be looked at as a strategy to try and gain some control over it's own energy needs. This presence of Indian corporate houses in Sudan is as unacceptable as the presence of Bechtel and Halliburton in Iraq.

Kashmir -
I have lost a few good friends over my opinions on the Kashmir issue. I believe that the presence of the Army in the region is unacceptable. India never delivered on it's promise of a plebiscite in the region. The world is turning a blind eye to the human rights violations and the thousands of people who are living under gun-point (militants and the army).
My position is simple. As an individual who lives down-south I have no right to have a say in what the people of Kashmir want. If cessation is what they want and that is the opinion of the overwhelming majority of ALL Kashmiris then that is what they should get. The only conclusive way to resolve the issue is through a plebiscite. What gives us the right to "integrate" a bunch of people who do not want to be part of this country.

North East
Out of sight is out of mind! This area in India is probably the most soaked in insurgency. As a citizen of India, I need a "permit" to enter many parts of North Eastern India. Most Indians look on the people of the North Eastern Region as outsiders. They are called "chinky" or "Chinese". They are quickly labeled as beauticians or cooks in Chinese restaurants. The discrimination and stereotyping is rampant. The region has given us some of the best Human Rights activists that this country has seen. Women, in general, have far more rights in the communities of North Eastern India than in the rest of the country. The presence of the army, insurgency, and Human Rights violations in the region receive little or no attention in the mainstream. You cannot have a such a vast region as a part of this country and treat it’s citizens as “outsiders”.

Water Water Nowhere and Not a Drop to Drink

There are areas in Karnataka and Kerala that I have read about that are facing a serious water shortage thanks to beverage companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. These companies continue to dig their bore wells deeper and deplete water resources as if they owned water. Water is the asset that they sell. Why should they be allowed to get it for free and sell it at a premium at the cost of the blood and life of an India farmer?

A farmer gets very little electricity because, people like me, need electricity to stay networked, refrigerate beer and sleep under a fan. With the little electricity that the farmer gets, it is close to impossible to tap water from the existing bore wells. A farmer is now forced to dig deeper because the Cola c are sucking the water out from under their feet faster than they can sink a bore-well. I am tired of seeing companies make massive profits out of assets that are not theirs and deny the farmers a right to existence (forget livelihood).

My wife is unable to drink bottled water because it tastes awkward. She drinks straight from the tap and has never had a stomach upset. I invariably fall ill with a stomach flu once every two months. If people like me would put the fear of infection behind them, people who are thirsty will probably have more water to drink.

While the exploitation of water resources continues by the stars of the “market”, India is on the brink of a drought and rumors have started about at El Nino taking root. If this climate change becomes a reality we will be in a deep mess.

While all this happens, the Government of Karnataka has said there will be no water to TN from the KRS dam. I guess the legal and verbal water wars between the two states will commence shortly. There will be a few skirmishes as Karunanidhi and Yedyurappa try and consolidate their positions in the their respective states. Farmers on both sides of the border will, in the meanwhile, get screwed for water. Pepsi and Coke will continue to bottle and sell Pepsi and Coke.

My frustration is increasing day-by-day. The magnitude of problems is growing and the solutions seem nowhere in sight. Finding optimism in the middle of all this seems a challenge.