As SOS, Hillary Pressured India Leaders to Allow WalMart in India, to Detriment of Indian Mom & Pops

[amborin]

The Straits Times (Singapore)

May 7, 2012 Monday

Retail reforms on Clinton's agenda in India trip;

Diplomat set to discuss entry of foreign chains with West Bengal leader

Nirmala Ganapathy, India Correspondent

NEW DELHI: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a three-day visit to India, will meet West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who blocked the entry of foreign chains like Walmart to protect the nation's small shopkeepers.

Today's meeting in Kolkata, which is Mrs Clinton's first stop, reflects the growing importance of regional leaders, who are increasingly having a say in national politics in India. Retail reforms are expected to be on the agenda.

Ms Banerjee heads the Trinamul Congress, the ruling Congress party's key ally.

Professor Chintamani Mahapatra, chairman of the Centre for Canadian, US and Latin American Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said:

'Mamata Banerjee is a political heavyweight in the Congress-led government, which is why Mrs Clinton will try to convince her it is in the interests of the United States and India to have lenient views on Walmart.

snip


[e-mail]

[metroins]

1. Sounds like she's promoting US Businesses nt

[Mufaddal]

5. Walmart: Nothing to see here

[Armstead]

10. No she's promoting Transnational "Screw the US as well as the domestic economies of other nations"

[wendylaroux]

2. Our Hilly,she's for the common folk!

and

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Conflict of interest?

[nationalize the fed]

4. It's one thing to do this to your own country

But to take it on a world tour is disgusting.

To people like Hillary, India is just another group of riff-raff to be exploited so that the Walton family has a few more billion. What a disgrace.

[stillwaiting]

6. Maybe she doesn't know how Walmart destroys local communities! Someone needs to tell her!!

[Enrique]

7. but it benefits American families

one family anyway.

[kath]

8. Yet another repulsive thing that she's done. the list just grows and grows and grows.

[Vattel]

9. How people have behaved in the past

is the best predictor of how they will behave in the future. Vote based on the respective records of the two candidates. Vote for Bernie!

[moondust]

11. The best interests of India?

If she actually believed that then she was even more clueless and unqualified for the job than I thought.

If India really wanted or needed a one-stop national general store chain then they could have started their own which still would have damaged small businesses but at least it would have kept all the profits in India.

And here they are: http://www.wal-martindia.in/

[Cheese Sandwich]

12. Hillary represents Walmart first.

They helped Walmart conquer America now they are helping it conquer the world

[Armstead]

13. I just have one thing to say