The government's predicament is a result of its own doing: That of not ensuring adequate buy-in by the stakeholders before passage of the laws, notes Vivek Gumaste.
The farmers have said the weather will not dampen their spirit and they will continue the protest till their demands are met.
Not all change is good, but this one is, applauds Shekhar Gupta.
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.
Referring to Modi, Adityanath and Union Home Minister Amit Shah as 'outsiders', the farmer leader said he has no objection if they become prime ministers after winning polls from Uttarakhand or Gujarat.
'This is going to be our home in the near future as it is going to be a long fight'
Farmer unions opposing the Centre's new agri laws on Wednesday rejected a suggestion by police officers to hold their proposed January 26 tractor rally on the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Expressway instead of Delhi's busy Outer Ring Road, sources said.
Chand pointed out that the government is willing to discuss the three farm laws clause by clause, and farmer leaders should consider this offer.
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.
Addressing a press conference, farmer leader Gurnam Singh Chadoni said if the Centre does not accept their demands during Saturday's talks, they will intensify their agitation against the new farm laws.
Without naming the Congress, he said the frustration of a party, which ruled for four generations, was at the root of this politics of opposition for opposition's sake.
A delegation of opposition parties including Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar and Left leaders on Wednesday met President Ram Nath Kovind seeking repeal of the three farm laws against which thousands of farmers have been protesting on various borders of the national capital.
A key committee member and president of Maharashtra-based Shetkari Sanghatana, Anil Ghanwat said the farm sector reforms are much needed and no political party in the next 50 years will ever attempt them again if these laws are repealed.
The Bhartiya Kisan Union Lokshakti said the principle of natural justice is going to be violated as those appointed to the four-member committee 'have already supported these laws'.
'We will resist it.' 'Farmers will not let that happen.'
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh welcomed the 'positive spirit' in which the farmer unions and the Centre held the discussions and termed it a 'constructive development'. The meeting with representatives of various farmers unions at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi was attended by Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Commerce Som Prakash.
"Those who are sitting on dharna are farmers and are born to farmers' families. We have a lot of respect for them," Singh said.
Farmer leader Kulwant Singh Sandhu had said that 32 farmer unions from Punjab held a meeting on Tuesday and discussed the next course of action.
The two bills -- 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 -- were passed by Lok Sabha on Thursday.
One lakh copies of the three agri laws were burnt at the Singhu border alone, said Paramjeet Singh of Samyukta Kisan Morcha.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting that lasted for little over two hours, Tomar said the government is still hopeful that union leaders will come with alternatives to discuss in the next round of talks on January 15.
'Legally, anything can be promised in the manifestos. However, the SC has said the promises should not be unreasonable'
The next meeting has been scheduled for January 22, a day after the farmer unions hold their internal discussions on Thursday, farmer leaders said after the 10th round of talks ended at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi after nearly five hours of talks, including two breaks.
Farmer leaders on Saturday said the protesting unions stand firm on their demand of a complete repeal of the three agri laws and asserted that they are ready for talks with the government, but that should be held without any condition.
Mandeep Punia was arrested from the Singhu border on Sunday for allegedly misbehaving with the police personnel on duty at the farmers' protest site there, officials said.
Union leaders, who came out of the meeting venue shouting slogans, said the talks remained deadlocked and some of them threatened to boycott any further meetings if no solution was found at Thursday's meeting.
According to them, these marches were a "rehearsal" for their proposed January 26 "Kisan Parade" to the national capital from different parts of Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
Moving the Motion of Thanks to the President's address in the upper house, BJP member Bhubaneswar Kalita said the government respects farmers. He said the government has given new rights to farmers through these new farm laws and none of their rights or facilities have been taken away.
'If the government wants to see our strength, we will show them'
'Our discussions with investors and the market's multiples suggest that Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning 2019 is being priced in,' says a UBS report.
V Singh said that "actual farmers are very happy with what has been done in last six months."
Svaiman Singh, one of the doctors in the team, said they set up medical camps at Tikri nearly 20 days back and have been attending to the sick farmers since then.
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 number of protesters swelled at Delhi border points on Wednesday. Police stepped up security after thousands blocked key gateways into the national capital for the seventh day on the trot, leaving commuters facing a harrowing time.
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.
With farmers on Thursday blocking railway tracks across the country, at stations big and small, protesters at Singhu said it proves that the agitation is not just limited to Punjab and Haryana.
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.
A large number of farmers on Tuesday squatted at the gates of the district headquarters in Karnal, locked in a showdown with Haryana's Bharatiya Janata Party-led government over a police lathi-charge last month.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday presented the Budget for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha that is expected to provide relief to the pandemic-hit common man as well as focus more on driving economic recovery through higher spending on healthcare, infrastructure and defence amid rising tensions with neighbours, As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth Budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.
Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha leader Derek O' Brien met the agitating farmers at the Singhu border in the afternoon.
