Dominic Xavier asks if the bills will really benefit farmers or if this is a ploy by the Modi government to push the agricultural sector towards privatisation.
The passing of bills without Parliament, including the treasury benches, having any real understanding of what they contained through any rigorous process has accelerated through the Modi era, points out Aakar Patel.
The SAD also castigated the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party for allegedly betraying farmers by not opposing the passage of the bills in Lok Sabha.
The MPs criticised the Shiromani Akali Dal leadership for being in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA even after these bills were proposed by the government.
Another bill related to the farm sector, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, was passed on Tuesday.
As far as possible, investment in the agriculture sector must be from the government, and not the private sector, states Santushti Raj Thapar.
Reacting to a media report in this regard, the deputy chairman said that 'as per rules and practice, in order to have a division, two things are essential'. 'Firstly there should be a demand for division and equally important that there should be order in the House,' he said in a statement.
The SAD has been requesting the Centre not to introduce the three agriculture-related bills for the approval of Parliament until all reservations expressed by farmers' organisations, farmers and farm labourers are addressed, Badal said.
Kaur, the Union Minister of Food Processing Industries, is the only SAD representative in the Modi government.
The provisions exempt farmers from attachment of land up to 2.5 acres and provide for prevention of hoarding and black marketing of agricultural produce.
Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab and Haryana, are protesting at various borders of the national capital for more than a month against the laws and are demanding that these be repealed.
On Sunday, Rajya Sabha passed the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020.
The report, which was submitted to the apex court on March 19, 2021, was made public on Monday. The three-member committee had also suggested many changes in the laws, including giving freedom to states to make Minimum Support Price (MSP) system legal.
According to the Centre's legislative business list for the upcoming session, three bills have also been listed to replace three ordinances.
He maintained that the laws were for their benefit and then apologised to people of the country, adding that the government could not convince a section of farmers despite its clear heart and clean conscience.
'The issue is not whether the farm laws are beneficial for the farmers or not.' 'The farmers have taken a stand that they do not want these laws.' 'Why do you want to thrust these laws down their throat?'
SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal announced the decision to snap ties with the NDA on Saturday night, amid stepped up agitation by farmers in Punjab over the three legislations which were recently passed by Parliament amid Opposition protests.
Farmers protesting the contentious farm laws will hold demonstrations outside the residences of Bharatiya Janata Party lawmakers across the country on Saturday, a Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) office-bearer said.
'The President of India, as advised by the prime minister, has accepted the resignation of Harsimrat Kaur Badal from the Union Council of Ministers, with immediate effect,' the Rashtrapati Bhavan said in a statement.
Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge and some other members sought that the bill be referred to a standing committee for scrutiny.
The numbers, however, appear to be in favour of the ruling dispensation to get these bills passed from Rajya Sabha, while the lower house has already cleared them despite a key NDA member Shiromani Akali Dal vehemently opposing them.
Attacking critics, he said a "clique" of people exploited farmers for long as they remained in shackles of rules regulating the sale of their produce and stated that this needed to change, which his government has done.
Farmers will observe June 5 as 'Sampoorna Kranti Divas' by burning copies of the central farm laws in front of the offices of BJP MPs and MLAs to mark the day when these legislations were initially promulgated as ordinances last year, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha said.
A panel of Union ministers will hold a fourth round of talks with farmer leaders in Chandigarh on Sunday over their demands, including loan waiver and bringing an ordinance on giving legal guarantee to a minimum support price (MSP) for crops.
'The lack of a majority isn't the issue. He has enough in 240, especially as none of his allies can pull down his coalition.' 'That's why he's started as if this were just another, normal term. That pretence is vital for him.' 'The change for Modi 3.0 comes not from numbers, but from the new environment of contestation,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
Badal said the farmers are waging a bitter struggle in the severe cold just to secure their fundamental right to life.
Speaking to reporters at the Gujarat BJP headquarters, the Union textiles and women and child development minister hit out at Gandhi over his comment that the Congress, if voted to power, would scrap the contentious legislations.
After his statement, opposition leaders will speak and if required Singh may give a clarification, the sources said.
Days after their passage in the Lok Sabha, Tomar introduced the Farmer's Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 in the Rajya Sabha.
He asserted that the government purchase of farm produce will remain, adding that the mechanism of minimum support price will continue in the same way it always has.
In her four-page resignation letter addressed to the prime minister, she said, 'In view of the decision of the government of India to go ahead with the Bill on the issue of marketing of agricultural produce without addressing and removing the apprehensions of farmers and decision of my party, Shiromani Akali Dal, not to be a part of anything that goes against the interest of farmers, I find it impossible to continue to perform my duties as a minister in the union council of ministers.'
Thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana and other areas have stayed put at various Delhi border points, protesting against the new farm laws, which they fear will dismantle the minimum support price system, leaving them at the "mercy" of big corporate firms.
She resigned soon after her husband and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal strongly opposed the bills in Lok Sabha on Thursday night, claiming these proposed legislations will "destroy" the agriculture sector in Punjab, and announced that Harsimrat Kaur Badal will quit the government in protest against these three bills.
In his second term in office, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has retained 34 portfolios.
Critics who cannot stop gloating, pronouncing Modi to be a lame-duck prime minister, may be making a huge mistake, predicts Virendra Kapoor.
The opposition will seek to target the government on the issue of farmers' plight as well as their demand for a legal backing for minimum support price.
The Congress leadership has become stunted, it does not understand agriculture and the party is trying to mislead farmers for its own vested interests, said Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.
Since 2014, India has left its moorings as a pluralist, modern, secular State because that is how the BJP wants it to be, notes Aakar Patel.
The Congress expressed its 'whole-hearted' support to the 'Bharat bandh' called by farmer unions against the new agri-marketing laws and announced that it will hold protests that day at all district and state headquarters in solidarity with the demands of the farmers. TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said the party rank and file would actively participate in the bandh to ensure it was a success.
The government on Thursday gave more powers to market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India to crackdown on ponzi schemes, access phone call records to check insider trading and carry out search and seizure operations.
