Skip to main content

Minimum Support Price satyagraha to start on Oct 8: NAPM completes Gujarat yatra to "save" constitution

By Our Representative
Top civil rights network, National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM), which began the nationwide Samvidhan Samman Yatra on Gandhi Jayanti from Dandi, against “increased mob violence, hate crimes, casteist attacks, natural resource loot, and consistent attack on constitutional values”, completed its Gujarat leg on Thursday in Ahmedabad, announcing that it would launch a parallel Minimum Support Price (MSP) Satyagraha from October 8 to 12, 2018.
In a statement, NAPM said, farmers are fighting for fair remunerative prices for their produce as per the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations of keeping MSP through the formula of ‘C2+50%’, which provides for at least a 50% margin over the comprehensive cost of cultivation.
It said, “The Government of India is, however, playing many games on this MSP that farmers are legitimately demanding. After the government in its fourth year in power, that too in an election year, farmers’ hopes were dashed when it announced the Kharif 2018 MSP for various crops.”
It added, “While the prices were indeed a hike compared to the previous years of this government, the MSPs were not providing a 50% margin over comprehensive cost of production (C2) but were only meant to cover a deceitful suppressed cost definition used by the government (A2+FL, which is cost of production calculated at out-of-pocket expenses added to value of family labour, ignoring other legitimate cost components like land rental value).”
“The MSPs are lower to an extent of even Rs. 2000 per quintal in some crops, compared to what the MSP ought to have been, due to this latest cheating by the government”, NAPM said.
  Even as strongly condemning what it called “fresh MSP betrayal”, NAPM’s Samvidhan Samman Yatra – which will end in Delhi on December 10, the international human right day – saw Prafulla Samantara, alternative Green Nobel winner 2017, who led the yatra, said that the country has gone backwards to the British era under the current BJP rule.
Samantara accused the government of being “hell bent to destroy the spirit of our Constitution”, adding, “The Gujarat model, sold as the panacea to the whole country, stands exposed today after four years of the rule in Centre. We have travelled through Gujarat and everywhere the sort of despair and hardship for farmers and all we can say that Gujarat model is anti-farmer and anti-worker model.”
Those who participated in the yatra in Gujarat, apart from Samantara of the Lok Shakti Abhiyaan, Odisha, included Suhas Kolhekar (NAPM, Maharashtra), BR Patil (Karnataka), Dr Sunilam (Kisaan Sangharsh Samiti, Madhya Pradesh), and Nita Mahadev (Gujarat Lok Samiti, Gujarat).
Nita Mahadev said, “Whether it is Gujarat or any other state, everywhere environmental laws and democratic rights of the people are being changed or diluted for corporates. Farmers cultivating for the entire country, workers engaged in development of the country, Adivasis protecting the natural environment and forests, everyone is getting marginalized.”
Before reaching Ahmedabad, where the yatra participants held a press conference, it reached Bavla, 30 km away from Ahmedabad city, where the Ahmedabad Jilah Kisan Sangharsh Samiti has been fighting for irrigation water from Dharoi dam, something, its leaders said, they are not getting “in absence of canal networks.”
Addressing media, Anand Mazgaonkar of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, Vadodara, said, “Gujarat is being tore apart by various projects in the name of development, caste and communal violence. This is the Gujarat model being imposed in the whole country. Mob lynching, communal riots, and loot of resources in all over the country are face of it.”
Gandhian intellectual Prakash Shah asked, “Where is the ‘Independence’ for that we fought for? What we are seeing today is a total opposite of our constitution and moving towards weakening, diluting the basis of our democracy.”
The Yatra travelling through Bhavnagar, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Bharuch, Surat and other districts, hearing what people had to say about the bullet train, industrial corridor, riverfront development, Bhadbhut barrage, special economic zones, special investment regions, and water diversion from the Narmada command area to corporate houses.

Comments

TRENDING

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Central pollution watchdog sees red in Union ministry labelling waste to energy green

By Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran*  “Destructors”, “incinerators” and “waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration” all mean the same thing – indiscriminate burning of garbage! Having a history of about one and a half centuries, WTE incinerators have seen several reboots over the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. 

First-of-its-kind? 'Eco-friendly, low cost' sewage treatment system installed in Gujarat

Counterview Desk Following the installation of the Unconventional Decentralized Multi-Stage Reactor (UDMSR) for sewage treatment, a note on what is claimed to be the  first-of-its-kind technology said, the treated sewage from this system “can be directly utilized for agricultural purposes”, even as proving to be a “saviour in the times of water crisis.”

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Indo-Bangla border: Farmers facing 'illegal obstacles' in harvesting, transporting yields

  Counterview Desk  In a representation to the chairperson, National Human Rights Commission, human rights defender Kirity Roy, who is secretary, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), has said that Border Security Force (BSF) personnel are creating "illegal obstacles" for farmers seeking to harvest their ripened yields and transport them to the market in village Jhaukuthi of Cooch Behar district.

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

Wasteland, a colonial legacy, being used to 'give away' vast tracts to Ratnagiri refinery

By Fouziya Tehzeeb* William D’Souza, a 55-year old farmer from Kuthethur, Mangalore, was busy mixing cattle feed when we arrived at his doorsteps. Around 25 km from the bustling city of Mangalore, Kuthethur is a lush green village with thick vegetation. On the way to William’s house the idyllic view gets blocked by the flares and smoke arising from the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL).

CAA disregards India's inclusive plural ethos, 'betrays' ideals of freedom struggle: PUCL

Counterview Desk    "Outraged" at the move of the Central government to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA 2019) weeks before the election, the top rights group, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), has demanded that the law be repealed. 

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Invincible, Modi 'taller' than BJP, RSS: An opportunity for Congress beyond 2024?

By NS Venkataraman*  With the announcement of poll schedule for the 2024 parliamentary election, there is palpable excitement and expectation amongst the countrymen  about the shape of things to happen in India after the  results of the election would be announced. There is also speculation abroad about the future course of developments in India.