In midnight swoop, Vidarbha farmers' families "removed" off Modi's hometown, leader nabbed in North Gujarat

By A Representative
Maharashtra’s maverick MLA Bacchu Kadu, who was set free from South Gujarat after being detained on Thursday at inter-state borders, was again nabbed by the Gujarat police off Mahsana, as he was proceeding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hometown Vadnagar to stage his protest against the plight of Vidarbha region farmers.
Kadu, who began his Nagpur to Vadnagar yatra on April 11, was to reach his destination on April 21, where he had planned to organize a blood donation protest. Representing Amravati as an independent, he proposed to send a message to Modi that farmers were “willing to give their blood if he spared their lives.”
According to local sources in South Gujarat, most of the 1,400 farmers, 1,000 of them from Maharashtra and the rest from Gujarat, were detained and set free along with Kadu. While the farmers were told to return to their respective villages, Kadu, accompanied by a dozen supporters, decided to continue his planned protest.
After reaching Ahmedabad on Friday morning, where Kadu met Khedut Samaj Gujarat (KSG) leader Sagar Rabari, Kadu, accompanied by his colleagues in three vehicles, proceeded to Vadnagar via the highway leading to Mehsana.

“Kadu and his team were stopped at Mevad toll plaza and detained”, Sagar Rabari, who received a message from Kadu, told Counterview, adding, “They had decided to first go to Mehsana, donate blood, and then go to Vadnagar, there is no blood donation facility. They were adamant to declare their protest in Vadnagar.”
In a related development, about 200 family members of the Vidarbha farmers who had committed suicide, and who had reached Vadnagar by rail or buses to register their protest, were removed from the vicinity of Modi’s hometown on the wee hours on Friday. Many of those who were “removed” were women.
“Staying put in a private party plot of a farmer off Vadnagar, where arrangements were made for them to live overnight, they were all herded into two buses early at around 2.30 am, and were left at Ahmedabad railway station to proceed to Maharashtra”, Rabari said.
Called Aasood Yatra under the auspices of Kadu’s farmers’ organization, Prahar, “the rally, which began in Nagpur, the home town of Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, did not face any such hurdles in his state”, said Rabari.
The Nagpur to Vadnagar rally consisted of hundreds of whip wielding farmers of Vidarbha. The rally was allowed to pass through Sukhpur, the last village in Maharashtra along the border with Gujarat, before it was stopped by the Gujarat police.
The rally was called Aasood, which in Marathi means whip – whose idea was taken from top Maharashtra social reformer Jyotiba Phule’s novel 'Shetkaricha Aasood', which is based on the theme that the farmer should use the whip not only on the bullocks he mends but also on the oppressors.
Passing through Wardha, the rally traversed through Yavatmal and Nanded. It covered Latur, Osmanabad, Solapur and later via Sangli, Satara, Kolhapur, Pune, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Nashik, Dhule and Nandurbar, before it reached the border with Gujarat, where it was first prevented, as it wanted to proceed towards Vadnagar via Ahmedabad.

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Stands 'exposed': Cavalier attitude towards rushed construction of Char Dham project

By Bharat Dogra* The nation heaved a big sigh of relief when the 41 workers trapped in the under-construction Silkyara-Barkot tunnel (Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand) were finally rescued on November 28 after a 17-day rescue effort. All those involved in the rescue effort deserve a big thanks of the entire country. The government deserves appreciation for providing all-round support.

'Restructuring' Sahitya Akademi: Is the ‘Gujarat model’ reaching Delhi?

By Prakash N. Shah* A fortnight and a few days have slipped past that grim event. It was as if the wedding preparations were complete and the groom’s face was about to be unveiled behind the ceremonial tinsel. At 3 PM on December 18, a press conference was poised to announce the Sahitya Akademi Awards .

The war on junk food: Why India must adopt global warning labels

By Jag Jivan The global health landscape is witnessing a decisive shift toward aggressive regulation of the food industry, a movement highlighted by two significant policy developments shared by Dr. Arun Gupta of the Nutrition Advocacy for Public Interest (NAPi).

The illusion of nuclear abundance: Why NTPC’s expansion demands public scrutiny

By Shankar Sharma* The recent news that NTPC is scouting 30 potential sites across India for a massive nuclear power expansion should be a wake-up call for every citizen. While the state-owned utility frames this as a bold stride toward a 100,000 MW nuclear capacity by 2047, a cold look at India’s nuclear saga over the last few decades suggests this ambition may be more illusory than achievable. More importantly, it carries implications that could fundamentally alter the safety, environment, and economic health of our communities.

Madhav Gadgil: The ecologist who taught India to listen to nature

By Raj Kumar Sinha* Among the exceptional individuals who laid the intellectual and scientific foundations of environmental conservation in India—and challenged the dominant development discourse—Professor Madhav Dhondo Keshav Gadgil stands as a towering figure. He was not only a pioneering ecologist, but also among the first to view environmental protection through the lens of democracy, local communities and social justice.

Search This Blog