Vandana Shiva on McDonald's, Exploitation
and the Global Economy
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Vandana Shiva is the Director of The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, a network of researchers specialising in sustainable agriculture and development. She is also Ecology Adviser to the Third World Network, which aims to bring about a greater voice for people in the Third World, a fair and ecologically sustainable distribution of world resources.
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How did you become a campaigner on environmental and animal welfare issues?
You are a leading opponent of fast food chains' expansion into India. What is the present situation?
Will McDonald's be able, through advertising, to sell the 'McDonald's Experience' in India?
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"Our civilisation has come under a new assault with the entire globalisation of a rotten food culture."
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Do you think the McLibel case in the UK has wide significance?
Is the information that is coming out through the McLibel case useful to your campaigning?
What do you see as the connections between the use of resources by multinationals and Third World poverty?
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"The McDonald's Experience is really the experience of eating junk whilst thinking you are in heaven."
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At the Beijing Conference last year there was an anti-McDonalds demonstration. Can you tell us about it?
What do you mean when you say that McDonald's is the most important exploiter of child labour in the world?
What strategies might McDonald's use in India to suppress criticism of themselves?
Do you think McDonald's expansion into India will have an adverse effect on people's diet and health?
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"In democracy unless citizens have the right to bring systems of accountability into the relationship of corporations with people, democracy is a farce - it is empty."
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