Archives for 2021

The general body meeting of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) was held on Monday at Singhu border.

CHANDIGARH: Protesting farmers have firmed up their agitation schedule for April-May. On April 10, they plan to block the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) expressway, almost a month ahead of their march to Parliament in May.

“On April 5, the farmers will lay a siege to the FCI offices across the country. On April 10, the KMP expressway will be blocked for 24 hours from 11 am and on April 13, the festival of Baisakhi will be celebrated at Delhi borders,’’ said Morcha leader Darshan Pal.

“Our action is meant to wake up the government,’’ he added.

“We’ll mark April 14 the birth anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar as the Samvidhan Bachao Divas. On May 1, we’ll mark Mazdoor Day on the borders of Delhi. The day will be dedicated to farmer-labourer unity,’’ said Pal.

He said the day of the march to Parliament would be decided later.

“Farmers, labourers, women, Dalit-Adivasi-Bahujans, unemployed youths and every section of the society will be a part of this march. People will come in their own vehicles from villages to the borders of Delhi. After this, a foot march will be undertaken,’’ said the Morcha leader.

“We will form a committee to let the protesters know what to do in case there is police action during the march,’’ he said.

Pal alleged that SKM farmer leaders, who held the banner ‘No vote for BJP/NDA’ in the Kerala capital, were thrashed by BJP and RSS workers.

“We strongly condemn it,’’ he said. The Morcha also released a document explaining ‘what is black in these (farm) laws’.

The Supreme Court-appointed committee to study the three new controversial agricultural laws has submitted its report to the apex court on March 19 in a sealed cover, one of its members said on Wednesday.

The Supreme Court had on January 11 stayed the implementation of the three laws till further orders and appointed a four-member panel to resolve the impasse.

The committee was given two months to study the laws and consult all stakeholders.

“We submitted the report on March 19 in a sealed cover. Now, the court will decide the future course of action,” one of the members of the committee PK Mishra to

As per the committee’s official website, the panel held total 12 rounds of consultations with various stakeholders, including farmers groups, farmer-producer organisations (FPOs) procurement agencies, professionals, academicians, private as well as state agriculture marketing boards.

The panel also held nine internal meetings before finalising the report.

Apart from Mishra, Shetkari Sanghatana President Anil Ghanwat and agri-economist and former chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) Ashok Gulati are other members of the panel.

The fourth member, Bhartiya Kisan Union President Bhupinder Singh Mann, had, however, recused himself from the committee before the work began.

Separately, while briefing Cabinet decisions, Food Minister Piyush Goyal said that while the new farm laws have been brought in the interest of farmers, it is a different issue “some people have misled farmers and tried to create a negative atmosphere”.

However, farmers across the country now understand that the new farm laws do not take away the existing system of mandis, and provide more marketing options, he said.

Goyal also explained that the government’s main concern when the new farm laws were passed in Parliament was how to increase farmers’ income and what steps should be taken to open more avenues to ensure their income rises.

In the new farm laws, the government kept the existing option of selling farmers’ produce in the APMC mandis intact and provided for other marketing options to ensure better returns to farmers besides creating jobs and attracting investment in the farm sector, he said.

While giving other marketing options, the government has carefully designed it to ensure farmers’ land is protected and they do not sell their produce under compulsion for lesser price to a trader, he added.

Goyal was one of the central ministers who was present in the last 12 rounds of meetings held with protesting farmers’ unions to end the impasse.

In its last meeting on January 22, the government had offered to suspend the laws for 18 months which the protesting farmers have rejected.

NEW DELHI: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday underlined the need for “much-needed” reforms in agriculture sector to improve the status of farmers and asked the governments to think beyond loan waivers, saying the farming community needs support in the form of infrastructure and power supply than just doles.

Expressing happiness over enterprising youth returning to villages and introducing advanced techniques in agriculture, the vice president said this is an encouraging trend and must be further accelerated.

He underscored that agri-entrepreneurship is an effective way to gainfully and sustainingly employ and leverage India’s demographic dividend.

Naidu also suggested top priority and coordinated action by both the Centre and the states to bring in reforms.

The vice president also suggested that the 4 Ps–Parliament, political leaders, policymakers and press — must proactively adopt a positive bias towards agriculture, an official statement said.

“In fact, a radical shift in making agriculture profitable is the need of the hour. We must also ensure that the growth is steady and sustainable,” he said.

He made these remarks at the release of a book on agriculture in India in Hyderabad.

Suggesting that the Centre and states should give a helping hand to farmers, he advised governments to think beyond loan waivers, the statement said.

Farmers need timely and affordable credit, assured and quality power, infrastructure support like godowns and marketing facilities, more than just doles, Naidu remarked, according to the statement.

The vice president suggested that the problems that are holding back Indian farmers from realising their full potential must be identified, adding “we can’t continue with business as usual”.

Referring to key issues affecting agricultural productivity such as the decreasing size of land holdings, continued dependence on the monsoon, inadequate access to irrigation and lack of access to formal agricultural credit, he said “as a result of these factors, agriculture is not seen as a profitable venture”.

Naidu observed that many people are leaving agriculture and migrating to urban areas because it is not remunerative, because of rising input costs and unfavourable market conditions.

The vice president called for long-term policy changes like governance and structural reforms to make agriculture viable.

Kasaragod: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday dubbed as “shameful” and “utter lie” Union Minister Piyush Goyal’s dismissal as “wrong” the reports that two nuns and two postulants belonging to a Kerala-based congregation were attacked during a trainjourney in UP recently.

Vijayan’s reaction comes a day after the Union Minister had rejected the charge that the nuns and two others were “attacked” in Jhansi by some Bajrang Dal activists and said the Kerala CM was “making false statements” on the issue.

Responding to the remarks, Vijayan said according to theUnion minister, the nuns were not attacked and were let off after their travel documents were inspected and that the attackers were ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) workers was an allegation of the state government.

“They (nuns) hadbeen attacked in a country, where one has all the rights to travel freely, for the sole reason that they were nuns.

The action isshameful. He has justified the action of ABVP activists against the Nuns and two others..

A union minister is justifying the attack on the nuns, which is evidenceof the RSS agenda being implemented by the Centre,” Vijayan told a press conference at Kasaragod.

Vijayan also referred to the attack on members of the minority community in the name of beef.

“There was a lot of protest across the country against the attack on muslims in the name of beef.

Have they changed? No. When they found some nuns, they attacked them..”

Goyal was justifying the attack, he said adding this shows that the minorities and those who want democracy in this country were not safe under the central rule which is implementing the RSS agenda.

Vijayan said an attempt was being made to “cover up” for the culprits.

Earlier, it was lynching in the name of beef, he said adding secular forces will fight them.

Kerala will be in the forefront.

Moyna (WB): Former India speedster Ashok Dinda, the BJP’s candidate from Moyna in West Bengal’s Purba Medinipur, was allegedly attacked and his vehicle vandalised during the campaign on Tuesday, prompting the Election Commission to seek a report from the district authorities.

Dinda was returning from a roadshow when his SUV was attacked around 4.30 pm by hundreds of goons, wielding lathi and rods, his manager said.

They also hurled stones at the vehicle, injuring the former cricketer on his shoulder, he said.

“The incident happened right in front of Moyna Bazar when we were returning from a roadshow. There was one local TMC goon, Shahjahan Ali, who along with others, numbering more than a hundred, attacked with lathi, rods and bricks,” the manager told PTI.

“There was no way we could escape as they had blocked all the roads. Dada, was sitting in the middle row and fortunately could lower his head as one huge brick flew in, shattering the front window pane,” he claimed.

Dinda is in severe pain following the injury to his shoulder, he said.

The TMC denied the allegation, saying the attack was the result of an infighting within the BJP.

“The BJP old-timers could not accept Dinda as the candidate so they attacked him. TMC has no connection to the incident,” TMC’s district president Akhil Giri said.

The Election Commission sought a report from the district administration in connection with the incident, an official said.

“An immediate report has been sought regarding the attack on Dinda,” he added.

This report was first published in bbc

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government did not consult key ministries and states while imposing the world’s strictest coronavirus lockdown a year ago, according to an investigation by the BBC’s Jugal Purohit and Arjun Parmar.

The BBC filed more than 240 right to information applications with various Indian government departments – health, finance, disaster management – to find out if and how much they were consulted ahead of the lockdown.

The responses revealed that there is no evidence of key experts or government departments being consulted prior to the lockdown being implemented.

The home ministry, which played a key role in executing the lockdown, repeatedly rejected our request for information. It said the answers we sought were related to “strategic and economic interest and it also contains information which is held under fiduciary relationship and thus exempt from disclosure of information under section 8(1)(a) and (e) of Right to Information Act, 2005.”

The government has also denied a BBC request for a statement explaining why concerned departments were not consulted ahead of time.

The world’s ‘strictest’ lockdown

India went into a lockdown early – it had confirmed just 519 cases and nine deaths at the time. Experts hoped that forcing people to stay home would halt the virus’ spread and give officials time to ramp up test and trace efforts as well as medical facilities.

But the 68-day shutdown – which the University of Oxford termed the world’s strictest – proved devastating for the poor, costing them jobs and, in some cases, their lives.

All services, expect hospitals, pharmacies and groceries, closed. Offices, schools, colleges and all public transport was suspended. Flights in and out of India were stopped.

The poor, especially undernourished children and pregnant women who rely on government programmes, found it difficult to access benefits. Immunisation programs were halted. People suffering from serious illnesses struggled to access crucial health services even in urban areas such as Mumbai and Delhi.

But the hardest hit were informal workers, who make up the bulk of India’s workforce – from domestic helps to street vendors to construction workers. They were suddenly left out of work and with no guarantee of when they would start earning again.

Experts believe the lack of consultation ahead of the lockdown led to local governments being ill-prepared for the exodus of migrant workers from cities to villages. Without any public transport, millions of them began walking them home and many died on the way in accidents or due to hunger and exhaustion.

On the other hand, some epidemiologists believe that India’s lockdown saved tens of thousands of lives, and bought time to beef up medical infrastructure and capabilities.

But when the country began to reopen in June last year, cases began to spike. India now has the world’s third-highest number of infections after the United States and Brazil.

It has so far reported more than 12 million cases and 160,000 deaths.

‘No consultations, no meetings’

Even before the national lockdown was imposed, 30 states and federally administered territories had already declared local lockdowns, according to government data. Many of them were in effect until 31 March, 2020.

But the federal government said a nationwide lockdown was necessary “for consistency in the application and implementation of various measures across the country”.

“The prime minister acted only after consultations with everyone,” said Rajiv Kumar, vice chairman of the Niti Ayog, a government think tank. “To say that it was done out of nowhere would be wrong.”

But queries to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) revealed that no consultations or meetings were held with Mr Modi in attendance about Covid-19 or the need for a lockdown.

The offices of the chief ministers in Delhi, Assam and Telangana, as well as those of the governors of Punjab, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh replied to the BBC’s request saying they did not have any evidence indicating prior consultations on the lockdown.

“The kind of responses you have received are unacceptable,” says Anjali Bhardwaj who works to promote transparency and accountability in government.

“”The coronavirus infections and India’s response began from early January and we locked down after 20 March. It was not like there was an overnight development akin to a flood or an earthquake. So the expectation was that when the prime minister declared there would be a lockdown, it was a decision arrived at after consultations from all quarters.”

The lockdown also hobbled India’s economy and its GDP recorded the sharpest contraction in its history.

Both economic and health experts believe localised lockdowns would have had better results and allowed state governments more flexibility.

“There was scope to plan better. It needed to be a decentralised decision, depending on states and districts. A complete lockdown was not required. What has happened now is a huge shock because the Indian economy was performing poorly anyway,” says Priya Ranjan Dash, a public policy analyst.

Recollecting the events of last year, Sima Kumari says, makes heart pound.

She was working as a nurse at a care home in Goa state when the lockdown was announced.

“Our employer denied us our salary and wanted us to work without Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). We had no option but to quit,” she says.

She says she was finally forced to go home to Jharkhand on the special trains the government organised for migrant workers. They were crowded and she says was terrified.

“One man would keep shouting at us, asking us to maintain distance even as they packed us in like sheep. I would prefer death over reliving a situation like that again.”