-Newsclick.in Sundar believes this will result in the creation of “regional labour markets”, which will lead to “a race to reach the bottom of labour standards” among the states. The Congress-led Punjab government will soon bring an ordinance and become the latest state to effect labour law reforms, including eased retrenchment norms in the state, in a move that can be seen as following in the BJP’s footsteps to jump ranks in...

-Down to Earth Instead of putting Punjab farmers at the mercy of big corporates and private players, there is a need to strengthen existing infrastructure The Union government announced three agriculture-related ordinances as part of its novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) relief package — permitting agricultural trade outside the boundaries of market committees, easing regulation and control under the Essential Commodities Act and facilitating contract farming. Out of these, the Farmers’ Produce Trade and...

-IndiaSpend.com Bengaluru: As India deals with growing numbers of COVID-19 cases and the economic ramifications of the resultant lockdowns, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has made a slew of announcements and promulgated ordinances to revive the economy, including the agriculture sector. It brought in the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion & Facilitation) ordinance 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services ordinance 2020, and amended the...

-TheWire.in The text of the ordinances raises some questions about their stated objective to ‘free up’ curbs on trade and help farmers get a remunerative price for their crop. Recently, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government introduced three ordinances to bring in far-reaching agricultural ‘reforms’ in the country. Taken together, these ordinances intend to liberalise the regulatory system in the agriculture sector, provide freedom to farmers and traders to trade in farm...

-Scroll.in The Central government has thrown its weight behind traders, investors and corporations. Three ordinances approved at a cabinet meeting on June 3 were hailed as landmark decisions that would benefit Indian farmers and transform the agricultural sector. One of these, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) ordinance, 2020, amends the existing act to remove all agricultural commodities from the list of essential commodities. The government assumes that “the freedom to produce, hold, move, distribute...