Farmers launch ‘Awake Bharat, Defeat Modi’ campaign in Ongole
The Hindu
SKM farmers launch 'Awake Bharat, Defeat Modi' campaign ahead of 2024 LS polls. They demand statutory backing to MSP, withdrawal of Electricity Amendment Bill, no GM crops, minimal power tariff for upland farmers, stop monetisation of PSU assets, scrap UAPA & PMLA, debt relief commission.
Farmers under the banner of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Tuesday launched a campaign christened ‘Awake Bharat, Defeat Modi‘ campaign ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Paying tributes to farmers who were mowed down during a protest in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh on October 3, 2021, they set the ‘farmers’ agenda‘ for the Parliamentary elections — which they said was fulfilment of the promises made by the Centre to farmers at the time of repealing the three controversial farm laws.
Observing this day as a ‘black day‘, they said that those behind the violence remained unpunished. They raised slogans pressing for statutory backing to the Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime for all crops as per the formula evolved by agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan (C2+50%) and withdrawal of the Electricity Amendment Bill which threatens to do away with subsidised power for farmers practicing rain-fed agriculture. They also raised slogans against genetically-modified crops stating that they adversely affected human health and the environment.
Leading the protest, Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangam State general secretary K.V.V. Prasad recalled that former Union Irrigation and Power Minister K.L. Rao had advocated minimal power tariff for farmers of upland areas as they grew crops without assured irrigation water and end up making losses in the event of the failure of southwest and northeast monsoons.
SKM Prakasam district convener Ch. Ranga Rao said the Centre should stop its policy of monetisation of the assets of public sector units, including the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) and also scrap the “draconian” Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as both the laws were allegedly misused by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against those opposing the ‘‘corporate-friendly’‘ economic policies of the Narendra Modi government.
Acharya N.G. Ranga Kisan Samata general secretary Ch. Seshaiah lamented that the high level of indebtedness of farmers which forced them to end their lives was as a result of institutional credit remaining elusive to a majority of farmers, including small, marginal and tenant farmers. He demanded constitution of a debt relief commission as in Kerala to come to the rescue of farmers caught in a debt trap.
“We are judges and therefore, cannot act like Mughals of a bygone era ... the writ courts in the guise of doing justice cannot transcend the barriers of law,” the High Court of Karnataka observed while setting aside an order of a single judge, who in 2016 had extended the lease of a public premises allotted to a physically challenged person to 20 years contrary to 12-year period stipulated in the law.
The High Court of Karnataka on Monday declined to interfere, at present, in the investigation against a Bharatiya Janata Party worker, who is among the accused persons facing charges of circulating obscene clips, related to “morphed” images and videos clips related to Prajwal Revanna, former Hassan MP, in public domain through pen drives and other modes.