Introduction

CUTS Centre for International Trade, Economics & Environment (CUTS-CITEE) was established in 1996 as a specific centre to take forward the activities of CUTS on trade and development issues in a scientific manner and also to establish the identity of the organisation among the trade community at large. Today, the Centre has established itself as one of the major global think-tanks on trade and development issues.

CUTS-CITEE is implementing the Grassroots Reachout and Networking in India on Trade & Economics (GRANITE) project which aims to raise awareness on globalisation issues, in general, and WTO issues, in particular, in India (and outside the country).

GRANITE project started on January 1, 2005 and will continue up to December 2006.

The project is supported by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD, through the Royal Norwegian Embassy, New Delhi, India) and Novib (OXFAM, The Netherlands).

It is being implemented in eight states, viz., Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharastra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal in partnership with civil society organisations (CSOs) working at the grassroots. It focuses on agriculture and textile & clothing, as they are the key sectors to livelihood of a large section of the population.

The activities are being carried out in these states in association with the following organisations:

• Andhra Pradesh: Consumer Guidance Society, Vijayawada

• Karnataka: Consumer Research, Education & Awareness Trust, Bangalore

• Maharastra: Samarthan, Mumbai

• Orissa: Centre for Youth & Social Development, Bhubaneswar

• Rajasthan: CUTS Centre for Consumer Action, Research & Training, Jaipur

• Tamil Nadu: Citizen consumer & civic Action Group, Chennai

• Uttar Pradesh: Network for Entrepreneurship & Economic Development, Lucknow

• West Bengal: CUTS Calcutta Resource Centre, Calcutta

These organisations are actively pursuing action-oriented research and advocacy activities in their respective states. Thus, they have developed a network of grassroots groups, which will be utilised in implementing this project. Besides these groups, two other targeted groups of beneficiaries are local media and policy-makers (at the sub-national level, i.e. state governments and at the national level).