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With almost all opposition parties too backing the 'Bharat bandh' and many announcing parallel protests in support of the farmers, the Centre has issued an advisory directing the states and Union Territories to tighten security and ensure peace is maintained.
Even before NCP-Ajit Pawar leaders came to meet in Delhi, the central government decided to buy 200,000 tonnes of onions from farmers at Rs 24.1 per quintal. This was among the highest prices at which onions have ever been bought from farmers.
Senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad alleged that a section of farmers has fallen in the grip of a few people with "vested interests" and asserted that the government was working to address their misgivings about the reforms, which have drawn strong protests from a section of cultivators.
Kavitha Kuruganti has been fighting for decades to ensure farmers are respected and get their due from the Indian nation. In order to ensure they don't struggle for a living, she works to ensure sustainable farm livelihoods and farmers' rights.
If Modi wants to leave a real legacy, breaking India's strategic triangulation would be the real gift, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Modi also said that presently a 'new trend' is being seen in the country where protests are based on creating doubts through misinformation while union ministers urged farmers not to have any misconceptions about the three agriculture reform legislations.
Around a dozen Bharatiya Janata Party leaders confined to a house in Patiala's Rajpura for nearly 12 hours allegedly by protesting farmers were rescued early Monday following a late night Punjab and Haryana high court order to the state police.
Farmers started the tractor march around 11 am and moved towards Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Expressway amid heavy deployment of Delhi Police and Haryana Police personnel.
According to sources, the government has worked out possible solutions to the provisions on which farm leaders have raised objections.
A large number of women from various states reached the sites of protest against the Centre's three farm laws that has been going on for over 50 days now.
'On one side you have the farmers of India and on the other side are few corporate families.' 'Unfortunately, those holding the levers of power today are more sympathetic towards these corporate families and helping them benefit at the cost of poor farmers.'
Pawar will be accompanied by Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury, Communist Party of India leader D Raja and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP T R Baalu.
In the coming months, globally as well as in India, rice might remain a hot potato.
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.
Farmers said the agenda of the meeting should also include amendments to be made and notified in the Commission for the Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas Ordinance, 2020 to exclude farmers from its penal provisions.
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.
Countering the opposition claim that farmers across the country are agitated over the three new laws, he said that those in just one state are being misinformed and instigated.
Modi also appealed to farmers not to burn crop residues so as to curb pollution.
During the last few meetings, farmer leaders have been arranging their own lunch, snacks and beverages while refusing to have the food organised by the government.
'Our technology is going to help Indian agriculture the way the White Revolution helped milk production.'
Several candidates, including Taranjit Singh Sandhu, the BJP's Amritsar candidate, are promising resumption of India-Pakistan trade via the Attari-Wagah land route.
'Nitish Kumar is fooling the people of Bihar.' 'He will not probe anything because if he does so, he will be trapped himself.'
India's recent move to remove additional 'retaliatory' duty on eight products from the United States (US), including apples and walnuts, would not have any negative impact on the domestic producers, the government clarified, even as the issue threatened to snowball into a political slugfest between the ruling and Opposition parties. The move would, in fact, result in competition in the premium market segment, ensuring better quality at better prices for consumers, especially for apples, a senior government official said. "There were certain concerns that were being raised on the mutually agreed solution that has come in, more specific to seven-eight agriculture products where we had levied additional import duties in retaliation to the steel and aluminum measures (imposed by the US)," Peeyush Kumar, additional secretary in the commerce department, told reporters in a briefing.
A large number of farmers stayed put outside the gates of the district headquarters in Karnal on Wednesday as they remained firm on their demand for action against IAS officer Ayush Sinha, who ordered a police lathi-charge on a group of peasants last month.
"Stop dreaming of opening the borders," Chaduni told the government while addressing a "Kisan Mahapanchayat" at Kurukshetra's Ismailabad, adjoining Punjab's Patiala district.
Tomato farmers from Haryana to Tamil Nadu have been forced to abandon their crop in the field or dump the harvest.
The latest telecom war kicked off after some pictures surfaced, showing Airtel banners among agitating farmers. According to the Jio camp, it was a giveaway that farmers were being enticed to port their phone numbers.
Behind the movement are shock-workers functioning quietly to ensure that a seemingly spontaneous, apolitical, grassroots mobilisation sustains itself without dribbling into chaos or violence. Sai Manish lists some of them.
Three union ministers -- Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Food Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Commerce and Industries Som Prakash -- will hold discussions again with 40 farmer unions' leaders, including the Bharatiya Kisan Union which is spearheading the protests.
Enthused by rising potato prices after a prolonged slump, Pradeep Sharma was planning to sow the crop on his 15-acre farm near Agra slightly earlier than usual. The delayed departure of the southwest monsoon also prompted his decision, since the good soil moisture would have saved at least one initial irrigation. But the acute shortage of diammonium phosphate (DAP), a crucial nutrient ahead of the sowing season for potatoes, nipped those hopes in the bud. DAP is the second-most used fertiliser in the country after urea.
Chand pointed out that the government is willing to discuss the three farm laws clause by clause, and farmer leaders should consider this offer.
The minister, in an eight-page open letter to farmers, said the Modi-government was committed to their welfare and stressed that the new legislations were aimed at benefitting small and marginal farmers.
'Four years into his tenure and Modi still has no idea what is wrong with the agriculture sector!'
One lakh copies of the three agri laws were burnt at the Singhu border alone, said Paramjeet Singh of Samyukta Kisan Morcha.
'Modi knows the people here are opposed to this project, but he is using the might of government to push this port down our throats.'
A day before the eighth round of talks, the government and the farmer unions stuck to their respective positions on Thursday -- the agitating farmers took out tractor rallies to press their demand for rollback of new agri laws and the Centre asserted it is ready to consider any proposal other than their repeal.
The development came a day after the protesting farmers rejected the Centre's offer to start talks as soon as they move to Burari and continued to stay put Singhu and Tikri borders of the national capital.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday urged dialogue between the protesting farmers and the Centre while addressing a meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party office-bearers, during which he also invoked the border clashes with China and the construction of the Ram temple.
The Punjab CM's reaction has come after Khattar alleged on Saturday alleged that despite wanting to talk to him over the issue, he did not respond even when telephone calls to his office were made for three days.
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