Vegetable prices jumped as much as 10 percent in major Indian cities, including Mumbai and Delhi, as a four-day old strike by millions of farmers curtailed supplies.

Farmers began their 10-day protest on Friday to press demands such as farm loan waivers and higher prices for produce such as cereals, oilseeds and milk.

Wholesale prices of some vegetables like tomatoes and french beans have risen due to lower supplies, said a Mumbai-based vegetable vendor Mahesh Gupta.

Outbreaks of rural discontent poses a challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who promised when he came to power in 2014 to double farm incomes in five years.

Farmers in eight states, mostly ruled by Modis Bhartiya Janata Party, have restricted supplies of vegetable and milk to the cities markets.

Also Read: Mandasaur farmers to observe Shaheed Shahadat Divas on June 6

We are distributing milk and vegetables to the poor and needy, but weve decided not sell. The basic idea is to highlight the plight of farmers who have been overlooked by the government, said Ramandeep Singh Mann, a farmer based in Punjab.

Prices for many crops have fallen sharply, while the price of diesel has gone up, squeezing millions of Indias mostly small-scale farmers.

Last year six farmers were killed in similar protests that became violent in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

In recent days, farmers blocked highways in some places and poured milk onto roads. The protests have been peaceful so far, although organizers are planning to increase the intensity in coming days.

The government hasnt fulfilled promises it had given last year. We have no option but to intensify our protests, said Ajit Nawale, state general secretary, All India Kisan Sabha, one of the farmers union participating in the strike.

Two-thirds of Indias 1.3 billion people depend directly or indirectly on farming for their livelihood, but farm incomes only account for 14 percent of gross domestic product, reflecting a growing divide between the countryside and wealthier cities.

I am stocking up vegetables for the entire week, said Anjali Salunkhe, a housewife in Mumbai, fearing prices could double as they did during protests last year.

Nearly a year after Mandsaur firing in which six people were killed in police action in Madhya Pradesh, the farmers today launched fresh stir across seven states. Over 125 farmers’ outfits affiliated to the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh (RKM) launched their 10-day strike today.

The farmers will stop the supply of vegetables, milk and other dairy products to city markets in Haryana, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Kerala. Some of these states are a top vegetable and milk suppliers to big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Jaipur.

Unlike more common mode of strike wherein agitators block roads and take out marches, RKM convener Shiv Kumar Sharma, better known as Kakkaji has said that the farmers will simply stop taking their produce to urban centers. The farmers will not be selling vegetables and dairy products in city markets.

The cities in the seven states where the farmers began their strike are likely to face acute shortage of vegetables and dairy products over the next 10 days. The shortage in supply of vegetables and dairy products may push the prices of these commodities.

North Indian cities including the national capital New Delhi are likely to bear the brunt as they are largely dependent on the supply of vegetables, milk and other dairy products from neighboring states of Haryana, Rajasthan and even Madhya Pradesh. Delhi receives most of its onion and tomatoes from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

However, traders from the cities can go to the striking farmers and buy vegetables and dairy products to bring back to the urban areas. The RKM has not imposed any ban on the sale of vegetables and dairy products if the urban traders approach the growers in the villages.

There is some good news as well

On the other hand, not all the farmers’ outfits are participating in the strike. A more powerful farmers’ body, the All India Kisan Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti (AIKSS) has decided to stay away from the strike.

AIKSS is a federation of over 190 organisations including those affiliated to political parties and groups like the All India Kisan Mahasabha of the Communist Party of India, the Swaraj Abhiyan of Yogendra Yadav and the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatna of Raju Shetty (a influential body in Maharashtra).

This means a majority of farmers will be staying away from the 10-day strike. These two umbrella groups – RKM and AIKSS — are competing bodies in some aspects and their not coming together is likely to save city dwellers much of the trouble.

Banking services throughout India including West Bengal continued to remain paralysed for the second day today in response to a two day nationwide strike since yesterday.
The 48 hour All India strike has been called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), a conglomerate of nine bank unions, to press for its demand for a 30 per cent hike in salary and other payments with immediate effect.
Congratulating large number of bank employees throughout the country for their overwhelming support for the ‘success of the two day strike’, All India Bank Employees President Rajen Nagar and other senior office bearers of UFBU said here on Thursday that over 4,50,000 employees of all Public sector, Private and Regional Rural Banks and even the security guards of their respective ATMs participated the strike in support of their demand.
They however, expressed sincere regrets for causing huge inconveniences and untold miseries to millions of bank customers across the country because of the two day complete strike when not only all banks, their ATMs also downed their shutters.
‘We squarely blame the alleged big brother attitude of the Indian Bankers’ Association for forcing us to go for the nationwide strike by not agreeing to our demand (for a 30 per cent pay hike) for all Bank employees in accordance with the previous tripartite agreement with them,signed in 2012, said Nagar.
Instead of listening to us and seat for a dialogue for a negotiated settlement of the issue,they unanimously decided to offer us a meagre two per cent hike in salary against our demand for 30 per cent, Nagar said echoing others adding that in view of the current inflation and hike in prices of all commodities they could not accept such an offer and decided to go for a two day All India strike in protest.
About the timing of their strike and their decision to close all ATMs across the country, including over 21,000 odds in West Bengal, and that too at the time of payment of monthly salary and other dues for the employees of both organised and un organised sectors, Nagar claimed that they had no other option but to call the strike at this juncture to draw the attention of IBA.
However, all on line bank transactions remained open and functioned normally on both the days, he claimed and regretted the severe inconveniences to a large number of customers particularly those in rural and semi urban areas where bank branches were most active in every aspect of the banking transactions. Incidentally, this was the second nationwide bank strike on similar demand this year.
Hindusthan Samachar/Ankur/Shri Ram Shaw\

Several pourakarmikas organized a protest outside the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) head office on Wednesday, ahead of monthly board meeting. The pourakarmikas, who had gathered under the aegis of the Karnataka State City Corporations, City Councils and Town Councils’ Pourakarmikas Federation, demanded that the BBMP promptly pay their pay pending for five months, regularize services, and direct an inquiry on “benami pourakarmikas”.

Leader R. Sampath Raj and BBMP’s Joint Commissioner (SWM and Health) Sarfaraz Khan met them and guaranteed them of looking into their demands.

In the council meeting, the issue was raised by Opposition Leader Padmanabha Reddy. He requested that the BBMP adjust the small scale arranging by mulling over the IPD Salappa report, which suggested one pourakarmika for each 500 individuals. At present, the BBMP is following the Government Order of having one pourakarmika for each 700 individuals.

Mr. Khan educated the board that the zonal chiefs had been solicited to confirm the number of pourakarmikas in each zone, after a few instances of fake names were accounted for. He additionally said that the ESI and PF of around 6,000 pourakarmikas, put together by the garbage contractors, were not coordinating. “We are in converses with authorities of both ESI and PF in such manner,” he said.

Mr. Raj guided the authority to lead a review of the pourakarmikas required in each zone.

About a lakh employees of 22 state-run and affiliated banks in Karnataka participated in the nationwide two-day strike called by bank employees’ trade unions to press for wage revision and other benefits, a trade union official said on Wednesday.

“The response to our strike call has been total as about one lakh bank employees, including officers, are staying away from work across the state in support of our demands, especially wage revision,” All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) General Secretary Y. Sudarshan told IANS here.

About 8,000 employees, including 2,000 women, participated in a two-hour demonstration in the city centre to protest against the “indifference” of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) to their demands.

There are about 10,000 bank branches across the state, including 3,000 in and around Bengaluru, with the State Bank of India (SBI) accounting for 1,000 of them after it merged its associate banks like SBM and SBH with it recently.

Admitting that banking operations have been affected due to the nationwide strike, Sudarshan said the onus was on the IBA and the government as the wage revision for the 2018-23 period had been overdue since a year.

“There has been no progress on our talks with the IBA and the government through the Labour Commissioner, as the representatives of the banks’ apex body are unwilling to increase their offer for 2 per cent hike, which is a pittance and not acceptable to us at any cost.”

Though all transactions, cheque clearances, loan approvals and inter-bank operations have come to a standstill, banks have stocked their ATMs with adequate cash to ensure retail customers are not impacted.

However, private banks, including ICICI, HDFC, Axis and Kotak Mahindra, are open for business.

Rejecting the IBA’s contention that banks were unable to bear the burden of huge losses as loans or advances turned into NPAs (non-performing assets) for various reasons, Sudarshan said the wages for employees and officers were a meagre Rs 4,475 crore per annum for the previous five years (20012-17).

“In the past too, after repeated strikes and protests, the IBA had reluctantly increased our wages 15 per cent as against 17.5 per cent in the previous bipartite agreement even when there were NPAs, albeit in lesser amounts.”

Justifying their demand for wage revision in double digit, Sudarshan said unions were asking for parity with their counterparts in central and state governments, state-run enterprises, defence and other personnel who are benefiting from the 7th Pay Commission recommendations.

“In which way we are different from other government employees to be denied what is due for us as we also contribute to the development and growth of the economy. Over 80 per cent of bank loan defaulters are corporates whose funds are cleared by boards and executives,” he added.

As apprehended banking services throughout West Bengal like the rest of India, came to a grinding halt this morning in response to a two day nationwide strike from today, (on 30 and 31 May) called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), a conglomerate of nine bank unions, to press for their demand for a 30 per cent hike in salary with immediate effect.
Informing this All India Bank Employees President Rajen Nagar said here on Wednesday that since this morning all banks and their branches downed their shutters as over 450,000 employees of all Public sector, Private and Regional Rural Banks, and even the security guards of their respective ATMs joined the two day nationwide strike on 30 and 31 May in support of their demand.
Expressing sincere regrets for causing severe inconveniences to millions of bank customers throughout the country because of the two day strike, Nagar squarely blamed the alleged big brother attitudes of the Indian Bankers’ Association by not agreeing to UFBUs demand for a 30 per cent pay hike for all Bank employees in accordance with the previous Tripartite agreement with them, signed in 2012.
Instead of listening to us and seat for a dialogue for a negotiated settlement of the issue,they unanimously decided to offer only a two per cent hike in the Bank employees salary against our demand for 30 per cent, Nagar said adding that in view of the current inflation and hike in prices of all commodities ‘we cannot accept such an offer and have decided to go for a two day All India strike in protest’.
But again when his attention was drawn to the severe inconveniences to people because of their decision to close even all ATMs across the country,including over 21,000 odds in West Bengal alone,and that too at the time of payment of monthly salary and other dues for the employees of both organised and un organised sectors, Nagar claimed that they had no other option but to call the strike to draw the attention of IBA.
He, however, assured the customers that all on line bank transactions would remain open on 30 and 31 May. Meanwhile,though the largest public sector Bank State Bank of India announced yesterday that all efforts would be made to keep their ATMs open and ensured that they would never run out of cash during the next two days, none of their ATMS was found to be open anywhere in the city today.
Apprehending that no cash would be available during the striking period,almost all branches of every public and private sector banks experienced huge turnout of customers both in their branches and outside the ATMs on Tuesday trying to withdraw money.
Incidentally this was for the second time this year such a nationwide bank strike was called by UFBU causing huge trouble to the customers,particularly those living in rural India and in far flung areas.
Hindusthan Samachar/Ankur/Shri Ram Shaw\

 
The much-awaited panchayat polls are all set to be held on Monday (May 14) in West Bengal amid tight security.
Political parties are viewing the event as a warm up match ahead of 2019 general elections.
Polling will begin at 7 in the morning and end at 5 in the evening. The counting will take place on Thursday (May 17).

Today’s elections will be held in 621 zilla parishads and 6,157 panchayat samitis, besides 31,827 gram panchayats.

Around 1,500 security personnel from Assam, Odisha, Sikkim and Andhra Pradesh are in the state to reinforce security arrangements for the polls.

Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw

In a bid to encourage first-time voters, an eatery here was giving away free dosas to those had voted in the Karnataka assembly election on Saturday.

The eatery at Nrupathunga Road here was also giving free coffee to other voters after seeing the ink-mark on their fingers and their voters card.

Several of the first-time voters, aged 18-19, who comprise 15.42 lakh of Karnataka’s 5.06 crore electorate, took selfies with ink mark on their index finger after coming out of the polling booths.

A few hospital patients here were seen reaching the voting booths in ambulances to cast their vote, while several senior citizens across the state braved the summer heat to stand in the queues in order to vote.

Also, three to-be brides in Belagavi, Madikeri and Dharwad districts headed down to the polling stations before going to their weddings.

Meanwhile, hundreds of villagers in Kalaburagi, 630 km north of Bengaluru, have boycotted the polls protesting the lack of basic facilities in the area.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, fighting a tough battle to retain power in the state where no party has been re-elected for a second straight term in 33 years, described his chief rival, BS Yeddyurappa, as “mentally disturbed” for predicting a BJP victory.

He also said there was “no doubt” that the Congress would return to power with over 120 seats in the 224-member Karnataka assembly when the results were declared on Tuesday.

Asked by reporters to react to Mr Yeddyurappa declaring he would be sworn in on May 17, Mr Siddaramaiah quipped: “He is mentally disturbed.”

Earlier in the day, Mr Yeddyurappa, the presumptive chief minister of the BJP, declared, “I will fly to Delhi on the 15th once the results are announced and meet Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi. I will invite him and others for the swearing in ceremony which is going to happen most likely on the 17th.”

siddaramaiah pti 650
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is fighting a tough battle to retain power in the state where no party has been re-elected for a second straight term in 33 years.

Was this overconfidence, reporters asked Mr Siddaramaiah. “It is a strategy. He (Yeddyurappa) thinks this is a strategy, but in reality he is a mentally disturbed man,” he said.

“The BJP can say what they like. The Congress party will get a clear majority, there is no doubt about that, there is no confusion about that. We will form the government again. We are very confident of a win,” said the chief minister.

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COMMENTSOpinion polls have not backed any winner but mostly predict a close fight between the Congress and the BJP, with the Janata Dal Secular hoping to win enough seats to matter in the event of a hung verdict.

Mr Yeddyurappa projected that his party would win between 145 and 150 seats.

All the three party leaders of Congress,BJP and JDS have expressed confidence today that their own party will get majority and form the government. Siddaramaiah claimed in Mysuru after casting his vote in Varuna constituency that his party will romp back to power with more than 120 seats.

On the other hand BS Yeddyurappa,state BJP president cast his vote in Shikaripura constituency of Shivamogga district and declared that BJP will return to power with full majority. HD Kumarswamy,state JDS president told in Bengaluru that his party will score the magic number.

HD Devegowda,his wife Chennamma,his son HD Revanna and family members cast their votes in 244 number booth of Holenarasipura constituency of Hassan district.Talking to media persons HD Devegowda claimed that the JDS will bag all the seven seats in the district.

HD Kumarswamy and his wife Anitha Kumarswamy,former MLA cast their votes in Ramanagar constituency in Ramanagar district.It may be recalled here that the former chief minister is contesting both,from Ramanagar and neighbouring Channapatna constituencies. Anitha Kumaraswamy had unsuccessfully contested from Channapatna constituency last time and this time around her husband wants to avenge the defeat.

Yaduveer Krishnadutta Chamraj Wodeyar of the Mysuru royal dynasty cast his vote in Mysuru. KJ George,district in charge minister cast his vote in Sarvagnanagar constituency in the city.If Moorusavira Mutt pontiff exercised his franchise in Hubballi,Sri Sri Ravishankar Guruji voted in Kanakapura constituency.

Mallikarjun Kharge,veteran Congress leader voted in Kalaburgi.BS Yeddyurappa, BJP state president meantime has appealed to the voters to be fast in exercising their franchise as the Meteorological department has forecasted rainfall by evening.

Hindusthan Samachar/Manohar Yadavatti