[India's] Intelligence Bureau has advised the government to cancel the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration of Greenpeace, re-assess its tax compliance and place all its international affiliates on a home ministry watch list. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) report is a follow up to its earlier report where it had identified Greenpeace as a “threat to national economic security”. --Priyadarshi Siddhanta,
Indian Express, 19 June 2014
Following an Intelligence Bureau (IB) report that alleged foreign-funded NGOs were creating obstacles to India’s economic growth, the Home Ministry has clamped down on Greenpeace. In a letter dated 13th June, the Ministry has directed the Reserve Bank of India that all foreign contributions to Greenpeace must be kept on hold until individual clearances are obtained from the Ministry for each transaction. The RBI has been asked to direct banks to this effect. --Varghese K George,
The Hindu, 19 June 2014
Having been declared an obstacle to economic development in India as a result of its campaigns against coal-fired power stations, Greenpeace now finds itself on the end of something of a crackdown by the Indian government. Of course, being against most state controls, I'm not at all comfortable with the Indian government action, but you can still make a good case that the government has a right to prevent foreign interference in India's internal politics - at the end of the day, whether coal-fired power stations get built in India should be down to the Indian people alone. We should be pointing out, again and again, what a shameful thing it is to give money to Greenpeace. --Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 19 June 2014
Greenpeace International, the Amsterdam-based environmental advocate, is robbing Filipino farmers of their chance to increase agricultural productivity and mocking the world food security program. Ranged against Filipino scientists, Greenpeace is doing all it can to stop the Philippines from expanding the adoption of pesticide-free crop varieties. It wants to ban the field testing of Bt Talong, an eggplant variety developed by scientists that does not require pesticide because of a built-in resistance against pests. --Ray S. Eñano,
Manila Standard Today, 19 June 2014
France on Wednesday unveiled a much-anticipated bill to reduce the country’s dependency on nuclear energy and fossil fuels, after months of intense debate over one of the Socialist government’s pet projects. Experts estimate it will cost the country between 15 and 30 billion euros in investments every year until the so-called “energy transition” is completed. --
Agency France-Press, 18 June 2014
It was 1985 when, at the height of her glory, Mrs Thatcher’s office invited me to discuss the economics of science with her. She opened the discussion with “we need more Nobel Prizes”. Margaret Thatcher glared as she made that assertion, because she knew I disagreed, and after about 10 minutes of discussion, when we were failing to find common ground, she repeated that “we need more Nobel Prizes”. To which I responded “You mean like the Soviet Union?” The Prime Minister was not pleased by my response, because she knew that, thanks to its government’s funding of science, the USSR had won many Nobels (but its economy was collapsing) while Japan, whose government funded the least science in the developed world, had won few (yet its economy was then growing fabulously). There was a short pause before she replied with “Don’t be so silly young man.” --Terence Kealey,
The Daily Telegraph, 18 June 2014
George Monbiot, not for the first time, has admitted to being wrong. He feels his life’s work, banging on about saving the planet, has annoyed people. He wants to stop being annoying, which entails “changing the language”. Like many middle-aged men, George Monbiot, one of the Guardian’s more prominent left-wing messiahs, is having a wee crisis. To Monbiot’s mind, repeatedly being proven wrong by both argument and history couldn’t possibly be why environmentalists lack credibility when they warn about threats. No, he thinks it is because the green left fails to heed “psychologists and cognitive linguists”. --Ivor Vegter,
Daily Maverick, 17 June 2014
