NITI Aayog has been working on an action plan to relieve rural distress and energise the agricultural sector
As cracks began to appear in their ongoing agitation against the agri laws, farmer unions on Wednesday cancelled their planned march to Parliament on February 1 when the Budget would be presented.
Farmers protesting the Centre's three farm laws on Saturday blocked the six-lane Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway at some places in Haryana to mark the completion of 100 days of their agitation at the Delhi borders.
The project is scheduled to be completed by March 2019, while work is expected to start by this financial year.
A meeting between Mann and several farmer leaders took place at Punjab Bhawan to discuss their demands, including a bonus on wheat and beginning paddy sowing from June 10, the sources said.
Western UP contributes nearly 70 seats to the 402-member UP assembly. In 2017, the BJP had swept the region. Every pre-2022 poll survey had suggested the party would face its biggest attrition from this region because of the farmers' groups.
The fulcrum of victory or defeat of parties attempting to form a government is held by smaller players and those willing to defect.
Nitish Kumar has said the only remarkable thing during the period was that prime minister has more selfies than all his cabinet colleagues put together.
Though the Bills of Punjab and Rajasthan have a lot of similarities, the one approved by the Chhattisgarh Assembly is structurally different. None of the three has tried to address a key demand of the agitating farmers in full, which is to make all payments below the MSP, within and outside mandis, illegal.
Congress on Sunday ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assurances to the farmers.
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.
British lawmakers will debate the issue of press freedom and safety of protesters in India next Monday in response to an e-petition which had crossed the 100,000-signature threshold required for such a debate, the House of Commons Petitions Committee confirmed on Wednesday.
The area-based income compensation scheme says that farmers should be paid the difference between the actual price they get and the state-mandated MSP. The compensation will be determined on a per acre basis by using district-level estimates of marketable surplus and prices in the harvest season.
The Gujarat government believe it can usefully utilise its 1,600-km coast for cultivating more coconuts in the coming years.
"Manmohan Singh Ji (former Prime Minister) tried many times but could not do. Today when it is implemented, propaganda is being spread," Tomar said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that he held a "good discussion" with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on many important issues, including on the two nations' commitment to democratic principles, recent protests, and the importance of resolving issues through dialogue.
Reliance Jio has suggested an alternative plan to the The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) under which spectrum required by non-geostationary orbit satellite (NGSO) operators to run their gateway terminals should be auctioned geographically, based on districts, rather than circles as done for mobile services. For spectrum which would be required to connect user terminals (like individual homes), Jio has suggested it should be auctioned frequency-wise and exclusively to an operator at a pan-India level. The move is significant as the auctioning of satellite space spectrum has been vehemently opposed by low earth orbit satellite operators (satellites which circle at low altitudes of 200-2000 km).
India Ratings on Mondy projected a 7.7 per cent growth this fiscal driven by consumption demand.
With Pawar backing farmers' protest against the contentious agri reforms, government sources on Sunday pointed out that as the agriculture minister in the UPA dispensation he had asked chief ministers to amend the APMC Act in their states to allow the private sector to play an important role in the field.
'Only then will we withdraw the agitation.'
The Republic Day tractor parade by agitating farmers will feature a number of tableaux from across states depicting village life, the protest against the Centre's contentious farm laws, and hailing their courage, according to organisers.
The Maharashtra Kisan Sabha announced that the strike will be intensified in the coming days.
A group of 200 farmers will travel to Jantar Mantar from the Singhu border in buses with a police escort and hold protests there from 11 am to 5 pm, sources in the Delhi Police said.
Without directly referring to the farmers' agitation, which entered the 17th day on Saturday, Modi said agriculture reforms as part of government efforts are aimed at removing roadblocks, and the new laws will also bring in technology and investment in the sector.
A meeting convened by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday afternoon will see the leaders of around 20 opposition parties come together on a common platform through video-conferencing.
British Parliament's Petitions Committee will consider a Westminster Hall debate in the House of Commons complex on the issue of farmers protests and press freedom in India after an online petition attracted over 106,000 signatures.
'If the Delhi Police has some issues over law and order on Republic Day, they can sit with Sankyukt Kisan Morcha and tell about alternatives routes for the tractor rally'
'Since September 1, a senior cabinet minister has been to-ing and fro-ing between Jalna and Mumbai by chartered flight every single day with messages from the two deputy chief ministers and the chief minister to get Manoj Jarange-Patil to back down from his agitation.'
Unlike the 2012 manifesto, the BJP has chosen not to make any extravagant promises.
The Centre has sought five names from the Samkyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) to be included in a committee for discussion on a host of issues, including MSP, and the umbrella body of farmer unions will decide those in its December 4 meeting, farmer leader Darshan Pal said on Tuesday.
Data shows that the current system of decentralised marketing and centralised procurement helps Punjab and Haryana farmers the most, while its efficacy in other states has been poor. Experts and farm leaders say success of the laws rests heavily on implementation.
Will the 6 per cent inflation target be met?
Government's objective is to bring down the cost of cultivation through efficient use of fertilisers and agro chemicals, and increase in realisation. It is, thus, planning to connect 200 agricultural mandis with electronic National Agricultural Mandis this year and 225 next year, to enable farmers to sell their produce hassle-free online.
Ghanwat, also a senior leader of Shetkari Sangathan, said he will mobilise one lakh farmers and bring them to Delhi in the next couple of months demanding farm reforms.
Centre's move to form a 29-member panel on making the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism effective and keeping three positions vacant in it for SKM representatives has triggered strong disapproval from it.
The ongoing Gujarat cotton farmers' agitation demanding better minimum support price took a new turn on Wednesday, after a 21-year-old farmer died due to self-immolation at the district's Vinchhiya marketing yard, because of not getting a good price for his cotton.
Sanjiv Mehta, chairman of the country's largest consumer goods company, HUL, believes that the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic between April and June this year has been a mere pause in India's consumption story, and that it will not change the country's overall growth trajectory. India is poised for growth, especially in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, Mehta told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting on Tuesday. The signs of recovery are becoming evident with many states lifting lockdown restrictions in recent weeks.
Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Choudhary also said the government is always ready for talks but it is up to farmer unions to decide whether they want to go ahead with the scheduled ninth round of talks on January 15.
He said the parties rejected by the electorate are pushing their own political agenda by misleading farmers.
The agriculture ministry also reiterated it is ready to find a "logical solution" to the issues raised by protesting farmer unions.
