India trade unions, farmers call for nationwide protests on Trump tariffs, UK deal
The unions termed the Trump administration's actions as 'blatant economic coercion' and called on citizens to resist them.
The organizers called upon 'all farmers, workers, students and patriotic citizens to join the nationwide day of resistance on August 13, 2025, with various mass actions like tractor and motorcycle rallies, protest demonstrations, public gatherings, and other forms of protest as decided by different platforms and partner organizations,' according to an official statement.
Additionally, the groups demanded that the Indian government should stand firm against the threat of tariffs and assert its right to trade freely with all countries, including Russia.
Meanwhile, the organizers accused the India-UK Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) of practicing corporate imperialism, while demanding that future trade deals be finalized with complete transparency and with participation of all stakeholders.
'The East India Company colonized India through trade – today, CETA and US trade deals are the new instruments of corporate imperialism,' the statement said.
The groups said that US corporations were using tariffs to 'bully sovereign nations,' while criticizing the Indian government for its silence.
Therefore, the planned protest aims to defend India's sovereignty and economic independence.
'On August 13, farmers and workers will rise in defense of sovereignty and freedom, sending a clear message,' the statement added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
12 minutes ago
- Arab News
Writers demand boycott of Israel until Gaza receives sufficient aid
LONDON: A group of more than 200 writers in the UK have signed an open letter calling for a boycott of Israel. For the latest updates, follow us on Instagram @ The letter, which demands ties be severed with Israel until sufficient aid supplies are delivered to Gaza, comes after the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned that famine was gripping the Palestinian enclave. Israel imposed a blockade in Gaza in March following the collapse of a ceasefire between the Israeli government and Hamas. Shipments of aid restarted in May, but 197 people have now died in Gaza of hunger-related conditions since the outbreak of hostilities on Oct. 7, 2023. Signatories include Zadie Smith, Michael Rosen, Irvine Welsh, Hanif Kureishi, Brian Eno, Elif Shafak, George Monbiot and Geoff Dyer, among others. In the letter, the writers 'call on all people, institutions, governments and states to observe an immediate and complete boycott of all forms of trade, exchange and business with the state of Israel until the people of Gaza are adequately provided with drinking water, food and medical supplies, and until all other forms of relief and necessity are restored to the people of Gaza under the aegis of the United Nations.' The letter was co-organized by Horatio Clare, who was also behind another letter in March signed by writers accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. In the new letter, the signatories said: 'We make this call because the words and feelings of millions of people and thousands of politicians worldwide have failed to bring about the feeding of the people of Gaza, the protection of civilians or their supply with humanitarian and medical aid. 'We regret that this boycott affects a great many individuals and groups in Israel and other countries who share our rejection of the policies of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu; individuals and groups whose pain and compassion for the people of Gaza we share.' The signatories said that the boycott should stay in place until the civilian population of Gaza is judged to be 'safe and in receipt of adequate food and aid' by the UN. They called for the 'return of all hostages and those imprisoned without charge or trial on all sides,' an 'end to settler violence against Palestinians on the West Bank' and 'the immediate and permanent ceasefire and cessation of violence by Hamas and Israel. 'We stand in solidarity with the resistance of Palestinian, Jewish and Israeli people to the genocidal policies of the current Israeli government,' the writers added. 'We note that prominent and respected Israeli and Jewish groups in Israel and other countries, including many of our fellow writers, have recently called for serious and impactful sanctions on Israeli institutions, to which we add, on, and only on, objectively culpable individuals. A boycott is the only sanction an individual can apply. 'In calling for and observing this boycott, we assert without reservation our absolute opposition to and loathing of antisemitism, of anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli prejudice. 'We reject and abhor attacks, hate and violence — in writing, speech and action — against Palestinian, Israeli, and Jewish people in all and any form.'
Arab News
12 minutes ago
- Arab News
Amnesty tells London police to avoid arresting protesters supporting Palestine Action
LONDON: Amnesty International has warned London's Metropolitan Police to avoid arresting protesters who show support for the banned group Palestine Action, The Guardian reported. It comes ahead of a major protest planned for this Saturday in London, and as the number of people prosecuted for showing support for the organization continues to grow. Three people who were arrested in Westminster in July and charged with showing support for a proscribed organization are due to appear in court on Sept. 16. Since Palestine Action was proscribed on July 5, police across the UK have arrested 221 people for suspected offenses under the Terrorism Act. The pro-Palestinian group was listed as a terrorist organization after breaking into an RAF airbase on June 20 and damaging aircraft. The protest in support of the group this weekend will take place in Parliament Square, central London. The organizer, pressure group Defend Our Juries, has requested that protesters hold signs saying: 'I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.' Dominic Murphy, the chief of the Metropolitan Police's counterterrorism unit, cautioned people against showing support for the group. 'I would strongly advise anyone planning to come to London this weekend to show support for Palestine Action to think about the potential criminal consequences of their actions,' he said. In a letter to London's police chief, Mark Rowley, Amnesty International UK called for officers to show 'restraint' during Saturday's protest. Signed by CEO Sacha Deshmukh, it said any arrests of peaceful protesters simply for holding placards would violate the UK's international obligations to protect freedom of expression and assembly. 'As such, we urge you to instruct your officers to comply with the UK's international obligations and act with restraint in their response to any such protests that occur, by not arresting protesters who are merely carrying placards that state they oppose genocide and support Palestine Action,' it added. On Wednesday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who was responsible for proscribing the group, said she did so after a 'unanimous recommendation by the expert cross-government proscription review group.' She added: 'It also follows disturbing information referencing planning for further attacks, the details of which cannot yet be publicly reported due to ongoing legal proceedings. 'Those who seek to support this group may yet not know the true nature of the organization. But people should be under no illusion — this is not a peaceful or nonviolent protest group.'
Arab News
42 minutes ago
- Arab News
Harvard scientists say research could be set back years after funding freeze
CAMBRIDGE: Harvard University professor Alberto Ascherio's research is literally frozen. Collected from millions of US soldiers over two decades using millions of dollars from taxpayers, the epidemiology and nutrition scientist has blood samples stored in liquid nitrogen freezers within the university's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The samples are key to his award-winning research, which seeks a cure to multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. But for months, Ascherio has been unable to work with the samples because he lost $7 million in federal research funding, a casualty of Harvard's fight with the Trump administration. 'It's like we have been creating a state-of-the-art telescope to explore the universe, and now we don't have money to launch it,' said Ascherio. 'We built everything and now we are ready to use it to make a new discovery that could impact millions of people in the world and then, 'Poof. You're being cut off.'' Researchers laid off and science shelved The loss of an estimated $2.6 billion in federal funding at Harvard has meant that some of the world's most prominent researchers are laying off young researchers. They are shelving years or even decades of research, into everything from opioid addiction to cancer. And despite Harvard's lawsuits against the administration, and settlement talks between the warring parties, researchers are confronting the fact that some of their work may never resume. The funding cuts are part of a monthslong battle that the Trump administration has waged against some the country's top universities including Columbia, Brown and Northwestern. The administration has taken a particularly aggressive stance against Harvard, freezing funding after the country's oldest university rejected a series of government demands issued by a federal antisemitism task force. The government had demanded sweeping changes at Harvard related to campus protests, academics and admissions — meant to address government accusations that the university had become a hotbed of liberalism and tolerated anti-Jewish harassment. Research jeopardized, even if court case prevails Harvard responded by filing a federal lawsuit, accusing the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university. In the lawsuit, it laid out reforms it had taken to address antisemitism but also vowed not to 'surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.' 'Make no mistake: Harvard rejects antisemitism and discrimination in all of its forms and is actively making structural reforms to eradicate antisemitism on campus,' the university said in its legal complaint. 'But rather than engage with Harvard regarding those ongoing efforts, the Government announced a sweeping freeze of funding for medical, scientific, technological, and other research that has nothing at all to do with antisemitism.' The Trump administration denies the cuts were made in retaliation, saying the grants were under review even before the demands were sent in April. It argues the government has wide discretion to cancel federal contracts for policy reasons. The funding cuts have left Harvard's research community in a state of shock, feeling as if they are being unfairly targeted in a fight has nothing to do with them. Some have been forced to shutter labs or scramble to find nongovernment funding to replace lost money. In May, Harvard announced that it would put up at least $250 million of its own money to continue research efforts, but university President Alan Garber warned of 'difficult decisions and sacrifices' ahead. Ascherio said the university was able to pull together funding to pay his researchers' salaries until next June. But he's still been left without resources needed to fund critical research tasks, like lab work. Even a year's delay can put his research back five years, he said. Knowledge lost in funding freeze 'It's really devastating,' agreed Rita Hamad, the director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center at Harvard, who had three multiyear grants totaling $10 million canceled by the Trump administration. The grants funded research into the impact of school segregation on heart health, how pandemic-era policies in over 250 counties affected mental health, and the role of neighborhood factors in dementia. At the School of Public Health, where Hamad is based, 190 grants have been terminated, affecting roughly 130 scientists. 'Just thinking about all the knowledge that's not going to be gained or that is going to be actively lost,' Hamad said. She expects significant layoffs on her team if the funding freeze continues for a few more months. 'It's all just a mixture of frustration and anger and sadness all the time, every day.' John Quackenbush, a professor of computational biology and bioinformatics at the School of Public Health, has spent the past few months enduring cuts on multiple fronts. In April, a multimillion dollar grant was not renewed, jeopardizing a study into the role sex plays in disease. In May, he lost about $1.2 million in federal funding for in the coming year due to the Harvard freeze. Four departmental grants worth $24 million that funded training of doctoral students also were canceled as part of the fight with the Trump administration, Quackenbush said. 'I'm in a position where I have to really think about, 'Can I revive this research?'' he said. 'Can I restart these programs even if Harvard and the Trump administration reached some kind of settlement? If they do reach a settlement, how quickly can the funding be turned back on? Can it be turned back on?' The researchers all agreed that the funding cuts have little or nothing to do with the university's fight against antisemitism. Some, however, argue changes at Harvard were long overdue and pressure from the Trump administration was necessary. Bertha Madras, a Harvard psychobiologist who lost funding to create a free, parent-focused training to prevent teen opioid overdose and drug use, said she's happy to see the culling of what she called 'politically motivated social science studies.' White House pressure a good thing? Madras said pressure from the White House has catalyzed much-needed reform at the university, where several programs of study have 'really gone off the wall in terms of being shaped by orthodoxy that is not representative of the country as a whole.' But Madras, who served on the President's Commission on Opioids during Trump's first term, said holding scientists' research funding hostage as a bargaining chip doesn't make sense. 'I don't know if reform would have happened without the president of the United States pointing the bony finger at Harvard,' she said. 'But sacrificing science is problematic, and it's very worrisome because it is one of the major pillars of strength of the country.' Quackenbush and other Harvard researchers argue the cuts are part of a larger attack on science by the Trump administration that puts the country's reputation as the global research leader at risk. Support for students and post-doctoral fellows has been slashed, visas for foreign scholars threatened, and new guidelines and funding cuts at the NIH will make it much more difficult to get federal funding in the future, they said. It also will be difficult to replace federal funding with money from the private sector. 'We're all sort of moving toward this future in which this 80-year partnership between the government and the universities is going to be jeopardized,' Quackenbush said. 'We're going to face real challenges in continuing to lead the world in scientific excellence.'
