The farmers, who have been staging a protest for the past 41 days demanding a Rs-40,000 crore drought relief package, farm loan waiver and setting up of the Cauvery Management Board by the Centre
Farmers organisations and pro-Kannada organisations staged protests in Mysuru, Mandya, Bengaluru and other parts expressing their anger and urging the state government not to release water to Tamil Nadu.
Bharatiya Janata Party's southern ally Al India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Wednesday reiterated its stand against the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code.
In the coming months, globally as well as in India, rice might remain a hot potato.
Today, with the Lok Sabha polls only months away, any inter-state dispute over the Cauvery water dispute has the potential to take more political turns than otherwise, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stalin said that Modi should allow the farmers to meet him and offer a consoling solution at the earliest.
Ayyakannu, who is also president of the National South Indian Rivers Inter-Linking Farmers Association, said the decision to contest the polls from Uttar Pradesh was to urge the Bharatiya Janata Party to include in their manifesto that their demands, including "profitable prices for farm produce," would be fulfilled.
Concerned over the plight of Tamil Nadu farmers as a fallout of the Cauvery crisis, Union Shipping Minister G K Vasan on Thursday appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to impress upon Karnataka to release water from its dams to Tamil Nadu to save the samba crop.
"I don't want to discuss Tamil Nadu or any other state. We have got every right and we are going to start the work," Yediyurappa said in response to a question on Tamil Nadu's objection to the Mekedatu project.
Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Rajya Sabha 'the government is absolutely sensitive and seized of the matter'.
Chennai is one of the cities where works have been completed for almost 62 per cent of the money lined up -- Rs 599 crore of the Rs 959 crore has been utilised so far. Despite this, there was no respite for the people in the city this time either, with North Chennai being the worst affected.
Issues including the Rafale deal, construction of Ram Temple and Cauvery river water caused disruptions in the House.
Tomato farmers from Haryana to Tamil Nadu have been forced to abandon their crop in the field or dump the harvest.
The agitation saw the participation of 147 farmers when it started, which number swelled to 325 by the time it ended.
Centre releases Rs1,712cr to TN, Rs 1,234cr to Karnataka for drought.
Lush agricultural lands have turned parch as groundwater levels deplete to new lows, and wells and water reservoirs go dry. While the administration points to deficient rainfall as a reason, experts and activists say the drought is mostly man-made.
The DMK has been alleging that the AIADMK government was being controlled by the BJP government at the Centre.
A call by the Traders Federation in Tamil Nadu to ban sales of Coca Cola and Pepsi soft drinks came into effect on Wednesday with its president A M Vikrama Raja declaring drinks as 'toxic' for consumption.
The government had also stepped up its vigil at check posts.
The Tamil Nadu government welcomed the decision, hailing it as a 'grand victory for the 'Amma (Jayalalithaa) government' and the state's farmers'.
The AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu doesn't really want to antagonize Karnataka in any way that could have any sort of bearing on the case against party chief Jayalalithaa. However, it is under pressure back home over backing a farmers' bandh call against check dams being proposed by the neighbouring state.
'The corporate sector says by 2022 they will create 300 million jobs.' 'In the last 70 years we didn't do it, how will we do it in 5 years?' 'Only agriculture can bail out the economy. Unfortunately, it is not being looked into.'
'If India is to emerge as a superpower, we must utilise our huge agricultural potential and not, as in past centuries, merely exploit our farmers,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'According to politicians, farmers are the fourth grade citizens of India.' 'We farmers could meet the prime minister and ministers during Congress rule.' 'But none of the BJP ministers want to even meet us.' 'The prime minister has time only for foreigners, but has no time to meet us farmers.'
The storage of water in the six major reservoirs in the state was just 6.2 per cent of capacity as of April 27, 2017, reports T E Narasimhan and Gireesh Babu.
'The Cauvery river has become excessively politicised by all political parties.' 'They see a vote bank in an emotive issue of this kind.'
'The number of deaths attributable to warming is likely to rise in the future.'
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