Today, the 8th of January, the eight round of talks is scheduled to be held between the Central Government and farmer unions.
The discussion would be over the ongoing protest against the three farm bills, passed by the Parliament in September 2020.
The agitation against the three laws started in September, after the Central Government proposed the laws in the Parliament.
The Parliament passed the three laws – The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020 – amid large scale protests from the Opposition and farmer unions.
According to the passed bills, the Minimum Support Price (MSP,) area of trading would be under the purview of the Indian Governmentmeeting.
The reason behind the farmers protest is their fear of being at the mercy of corporates or zamindars for crop prices. The new bills would also demolish the Minimum Support Price (MSP) advantages for farmers.
The Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, the Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal and the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Prakash are going to be present at the 8th round of talks.
Besides the Union ministers, Union chiefs of 41 farmers unions would be present during today’s meeting.
Ahead of the meeting in the afternoon, the ministerial committee is likely to call the Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The last round of talks was held on the 4th of January, but remained fruitless.
The protesting farmers declined to accept amendments proposed by the Government of India (GoI.)
Meanwhile, thousands of farmers are continuing their protest at the Singhu border of New Delhi. The farmers of Haryana and Punjab entered the 43rd day of protest today.
A day before the talks, the 7th of January, thousands of farmers held a tractor march, a “dress rehearsal” for Republic Day on January 26, when they plan to hold a bigger march towards Delhi. Farmers say over 5,000 tractors rode towards the eastern and western peripheral expressways from Singhu, Tikri, Ghazipur and Palwal. In addition, on the 13th of January, farmers would burn the copies of the three farm laws on Lohri, on the 18th of January, the Mahila Kisan Diwas, women farmers who are protesting would take a lead and on the 26th of January, they would conduct a parallel Kisan Republic Parade.
The meeting is scheduled to be held at 2:00 P.M., on the 8th of January.
Stay tuned for further updates.
