Eminent citizens, farmers and environmental activists on Friday threatened to launch a sustained agitation to oppose entry of BT Maize crop into Punjab and prevent any attempt to jeopardise the country's food sovereignty. This was announced at a press conference organised in response to reports that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had supported cultivation of BT Maize as part of the State Government's crop diversification mandate. Kheti Virasat Mission chief Umendera Dutt...

Pressing ahead with their demand for amendment in the Hindu Marriage Act, the Sarv Khap Mahapanchayat on Sunday resolved to slap a token fine of "ek aana" (currency unit formerly used in India) on MPs and MLAs if they failed to meet its demand by June 19. In a meeting held in Jind, which was attended by around 2,000 representatives of khap panchayats, they also ruled out establishing any matrimonial...

A large white tent in the middle of an arid ground in Jind served as the venue for a Sarv Maha Khap Panchayat meeting on Sunday. Organisers who were expecting “thousands of supporters” to join their ranks to announce “threats” aimed at everyone from the government to young couples who choose to marry within the same gotra (sub-caste) were in for a disappointment. By 12 noon, two hours after the...

The capital got a fulsome dose of the country today, and the country a swift pledge from the capital. Within hours of swarming in from the restive western Uttar Pradesh neighbourhood and trapping New Delhi in feisty gridlock, farmers had forced a retreat by the government on sugarcane pricing and sent the Congress panicking over the electoral consequences of provoking rural anger. Rahul Gandhi, who is blue-printing the Congress’s comeback bid in...