As the issue remained deadlocked with both sides sticking to their respective positions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while laying the foundation stone for a new Parliament building, invoked Guru Nanak to underscore the importance of dialogue and noted that the Sikh Guru had said that interaction should continue till eternity.
Tomar said the government is committed to "peaceful talks with farmers' leaders and does not intend to hurt farmers' sentiments".
The move came a day after Parliament approved two agriculture sector-reform bills which have been bitterly opposed by the opposition parties like Congress and TMC.
Tomar said the next meeting will take place on Saturday at 2 pm which he hoped would take the matter to a decisive stage and towards a final resolution.
The two, one a celebrity singer-actor from Punjab and the other a Bollywood star known for her combative comments, began bickering on the social media platform on Wednesday evening and continued till well into Thursday.
Badal said the farmers are waging a bitter struggle in the severe cold just to secure their fundamental right to life.
In televised remarks after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the budget, Modi said it has many provisions for the agriculture sector, including for making loans easier for farmers.
Retail prices of pulses have shot up 25-30 per cent in the last one year, forcing the government to ban exports and ease imports of the commodity.
Following the outbreak, Iran has stopped Indian basmati shipments. This has led to exports already falling 18-20 per cent this fiscal year. Iran and the rest of West Asia account for the largest imports of Indian basmati, and comprise more than 30 per cent of the shipments.
With car penetration of around 22 per 1,000 population, India continues to be a big opportunity to sell cars, especially in rural areas.
The government has also swung into action to ensure that it is able to procure adequate quantities and avoid imports at exorbitant rates.
'The question often being asked is whether the demand for petrol and diesel is price inelastic?' asks Arun Balakrishnan, former chairman and managing director, Hindustan Petroleum.
With the farmers' protest against the three new laws and in support of legalising the minimum support price (MSP) going strong, state governments have announced a slew of measures in their annual Budgets to placate farmers. The Centre kicked things off in the Union Budget by assuring farmers that the MSP would continue and coming out with a report card to demonstrate its commitment. However, these efforts don't seem to have yielded tangible results. In their respective Budgets, states chose to go a step further by announcing a variety of measures.
As sugarcane farmers and large landowners do not form a part of her vote bank, Mayawati is expected not to raise further the minimum support price for sugarcane when mills go on stream in October 2007.
One lakh copies of the three agri laws were burnt at the Singhu border alone, said Paramjeet Singh of Samyukta Kisan Morcha.
Addressing a press conference at Singhu Border in New Delhi, farmer leader Balbeer Singh Rajewal said that farmers never demanded the Supreme Court form a committee to resolve the impasse, alleging the central government was behind this development.
This is bound to create more trouble for the Centre on the wheat front.
The dilemma is that if farming is to be efficient, farmers will be worse off -- and if farmers are to be better off farming will be worse off, reveals T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Growth in 2012-13 slipped to a decade-low of 4.5 per cent. The economy expanded 4.6 per cent in the first half (April-September) of this financial year.
'Interestingly in spite of slightly more than half (52%) the respondent farmers opposing the three new agri laws, almost 44% respondent farmers said the Modi government was 'pro-farmer'
'If a company contracts to buy its produce after three or four months, is there any loss in it?'
The strike, however, had no impact on production of auto majors Maruti Suzuki India, Hero MotoCorp, Honda Cars India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors and Hyundai Motors India as their plants in various parts of the country functioned normally.
Chand pointed out that the government is willing to discuss the three farm laws clause by clause, and farmer leaders should consider this offer.
"Manmohan Singh Ji (former Prime Minister) tried many times but could not do. Today when it is implemented, propaganda is being spread," Tomar said.
For these women, who describe themselves as homemakers, farmworkers and protesters all rolled into one, any suggestion that farmers are about being alpha males because it requires physical labour is met with scorn.
The minimum support price for the rabi season will not radically alter the falling trajectory of farm incomes
The government on Wednesday raised the minimum support price (MSP) of paddy marginally by Rs 72 per quintal to Rs 1,940 per quintal for the 2021-22 crop year, while the rates of pulses, oilseeds and cereals were hiked substantially. Among the commercial crops, the MSP of cotton was increased by Rs 211 per quintal to Rs 5,726 for medium staple variety, and by Rs 200 per quintal to Rs 6,025 for long-staple variety of cotton for the 2021-22 crop year (July-June). The decision taken by the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will help farmers take a call on which kharif (summer) crop to grow as sowing picks with the spread of the Southwest monsoon in the coming weeks.
"They have put these barbed wires, not us. They are not allowing people to come to Delhi. We are not the one blocking the roads. If we block roads, they ask us to vacate, but no action is taken when the same is done by these security forces," said.
'This is going to be our home in the near future as it is going to be a long fight'
Bharat Krishak Samaj demanded that the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana should be replaced with a new crop insurance and compensation scheme.
Talking to reporters Khatkar Kalan, he also suggested that Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence will use farmers' unrest over the new farm laws and will try to foment trouble in the border state of Punjab.
Party's state unit chiefs of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat were also detained along with the workers during the protests.
The protesting farmers dubbed the three laws as "anti-farmer" and claimed they infringe upon their basic right to sell their produce at MSP.
Police personnel in adequate strength were deployed across the state to maintain law and order, officials said.
Thousands of farmers from across Maharashtra reached Mumbai on Sunday evening to participate in a rally at the state capital on Monday against the Centre's three new farm laws.
23 trains have been partially cancelled and five short terminated till September 26 as protesters blocked rail tracks at various places, including Amritsar, Ferozepur, Sangrur, Barnala, Mansa and Nabha.
A day after protesting farmer leaders paraded a youth who claimed a plot to disrupt their January 26 tractor rally, the Haryana police on Saturday said it had found no proof to support the allegations during its probe. It said the youth had claimed that he 'cooked up' the conspiracy story under fear after some volunteers at a protest site caught him and accused him of eve teasing.
Thousands of farmers have reached the national capital on their tractor-trolleys and other vehicles, responding to the 'Delhi Chalo' call against the agri-marketing laws enacted at the Centre in September. On Saturday morning, it wasn't clear if they will agree to move to the Burari ground on the outskirts of the city, where police said they can continue with their protest. Many protesters were demanding a better venue in the centre of Delhi. Originally, the protest was meant to be on November 26 and 27.
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