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- INDIA
Thousands of protesting farmers are camping on different highways leading to New Delhi and demanding a rollback of the new farm laws passed by the Narendra Modi government, which they fear benefit corporations at their expense.
"I have been on road protesting against the law. Government should tell us how it would benefit us. They haven't been able to convince us," Parminder Singh, a farmer from Ludhiana told The Citizen.
The government had passed three bills - The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020- saying it would collectively provide farmers with better marketing options and break the monopoly of commission agents and government regulated market yards.
Critics say the changes to the previously existing farming structure may end the system of purchase of grains by the government from farmers at guaranteed prices called Minimum Support Price (MSP). MSP's are a safety mechanism to ensure minimum profit to the farmers for their harvest, even if the open markets offer lesser price than the cost incurred in the cultivation.
During the night, many farmers patrol the protest site voluntarily in a bid to 'thwart' attempts to vilify them.
"They (media) along with their media are trying to project us with the Khalistan movement. But we are farmers from Haryana and Punjab," Karamajeet Singh Gill, a protesting farmer said.
Hanan Zaffar spends a night at the Singhu border to document the protests:
