-Hindustan Times The mandi has been a major rallying cry for the protests in Punjab. Its importance to agricultural life cannot be overstated The stand-off between the government and the farmers on the new farm laws shows no signs of easing. For a long time, the government insisted that the protest was led by middlemen and large farmers only in Punjab, and to some extent Haryana, who were concerned about losing their...
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Caught between debt and landlessness, Punjab’s protesting women assert fight for rights -Sangeet Toor
-CaravanMagazine.in The sky had been overcast all day in Gharachon village, in Punjab’s Sangrur district. It was cold and by evening, it started to rain. None of that deterred Gurmail Kaur, as she prepared for the “Chalo Dilli” rally for the next day—an “onwards to Delhi” march called by farmers’ organisations of Punjab, to protest the three farm laws recently enacted by the Narendra Modi government. The plan was to reach...
More »Farmers' Protests: An Opportune Moment to Review the Development Model of Land Grabbing -Vasundhara Jairath
-TheWire.in Engaging with the agrarian question must necessarily mean questioning the development model that is hungry for land but spits out the people that live on it. Over the last few weeks, images of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh engaged in pitched battles against the police, and by extension the state, have caught the nation’s attention as it forced the government into unconditional talks with a broad coalition of farmers’...
More »Govt needs to encourage more remunerative cropping patterns, while addressing farmer anxieties -Amitabh Kundu and Harbir Singh Sidhu
-The Indian Express Centre must make transparent efforts to push exports consistently and not follow the stop-go policy emanating from price controls for the Indian consumer market. The flashpoint between the agitating farmers and the central government is essentially rooted in the mismatch between the supply and demand for the wheat crop in India. The genesis of the current state of affairs stems from policies initiated over half a century ago when...
More »Farm laws worsen a development model that covets land, ignores cultivator -Vasundhara Jairath
-The Indian Express For a healthy agrarian sector, the state must strengthen and protect the position of the cultivator. As long as land acquisition continues at its current pace, there is little chance of that happening. As farmers from Punjab and Haryana force the central government into unconditional talks, demanding nothing less than a repeal of the three new farm laws, the BJP-led NDA government insists the reforms are “farmer-friendly”. The farm...
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