What are the three Agri Bills passed and why is there a protest?

 

Whenever farmers in bulk come to Delhi, they come with a valid reason. A protest basically which is in accordance with the decision of the government. And like always, the police come in action with lathi charge on those farmers. Everything goes on its way where the protest is being ignored and politics takes the main frame.

Same happened this time. The BJP led government brought three bills. Farmers from Haryana, Punjab and Western Uttar Pradesh are protesting at a large scale. The BJP alliance Harshimrat Kaur resigned from the cabinet showing her stand against the bills. Congress is also protesting. Farmers are the biggest vote bank in India. If that is the case, why then the center is bringing a bill which will be not beneficial for farmers. Why are there no protests in other parts of the country? Let us know more on the bills and the farmer’s demand.

What are the 3 bills?

1 – Essential Commodity Amendment Bill – This bill was introduced in 1955. The main objective of this bill was that the Government would decide how much storage could be given for a particular commodity. This bill was basically introduced to stop black marketing. There is a change introduced recently which states that only during disaster, the government would decide on the storage front whereas in other time there is no limitation in the storage. During any disaster, the government would decide how much commodity could be stored.

2 – Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce – According to this bill the government has given freedom to farmer’s that apart from Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) broad, farmers can sell their produces elsewhere. And anyone can but from farmers.

3 – Farmers Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill – According to this bill, before farming, farmers can deal with the buyer on how much could be the price. This bill also speaks about contract farming.

All these 3 bills were temporarily passed in June 2020 with an ordinance from President. This happens rarely when the Parliament is not operative. When the Parliament is operative, then ordinance and if the Parliament is running smooth, then it called the bill which is passed both from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. An ordinance is soon passed as a bill once the Parliament starts operation. And this is what happened 2 days back.

Looking into a broader perspective, the protest is not for all three bills but is for only one bill which is the Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce. The bill which says that farmers can sell their produces outside of APMC. Farmers are protesting stating that why was the APMC formed and today the importance of APMC is going to decline. Yes, this might happen when there will be direct deal between farmers and buyers.

After Independence somewhere in 1950, the APMC act was introduced. That was a time when farmers were under huge debt from private money lenders. And were unable to pay that. The money lenders however used to take the farm produces from the farmers if they were unable to pay back. Because of this practice, the money lenders happened to run a monopoly in the market. To overcome this situation, state governments introduced APMC act according to which any farmers could not sell the produces apart from APMC. Here as well only those having license can buy. The buyers would bid on the produces so that farmers could get maximum profit.

How the APMC operates?

Usually a farmer would take his productions to APMC where he would give all his produces to the shops there. These shops were operated by commission agents. The commission agents would sell the products by an auction and would give back the money to the farmers. Some 2.5% commission is charged by the commission agents having shops in the APMC. The buyers would finally sell the products to respective end customers like mills, factories, etc. With times many loopholes were created, and the buyers and commission agents would sell the products at a high price and the farmers go in loss.

The bill for which the protest is going on clearly states that the APMC is not going to be closed. But the farmers would be given free hands in selling their produces either in APMC or outside of APMC.

My View – I completely support this bill. Farmers are given free hands to sell their products to the buyers. And they can decide the price. Any farmer who wants to go to APMC also has the option to go. In an overall approach, I believe that the farmers could get a better price.

What is the main cause for Assam Floods and how that can be prevented?

50 people died, 45 lacs directly or indirectly affected, 95% Kaziranga National Park damaged. This was the situation last year in 2019 and this year 2020 the same situation repeated. The situation gone from bad to worse. More than 120 people till now have died in Assam Flood. This keeps repeating every year.

2012 – 124 people died

2015 – 42 people died

2016 – 28 people died

2017 – 85 people died

2018 – 12 people died

Many people died, lacs of people got affected and many animals also died in national parks. But there is no improvement

Why Assam Floods every year?

Most flood prone states in north and north-east India are affected because of Brahmaputra river which keeps changing its direction every now and then. The river is an unstable river. In the year 1950 a major earthquake in Assam changed the way Brahmaputra river flows. From 1959 – 2010, 12 major floods took place in assam. But from last couple of years the frequency of floods has seen a major rise. Every year Assam encounters a major flood. The main question is why the frequency is increasing.

Some of the main reasons behind any floods

1 – Deforestation

2 – Unplanned growth

3 – Encroachments of Floodplains

4 – Improper Drainage System

5 – Failure of embankments

6 – Climate Change

Let us discuss on two main topics Climate change and Failure of River Embankments

Climate Change – This time Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura, some parts of Bihar and some parts of Uttar Pradesh are affected drastically. Because of climate change sometimes we are seeing drought and sometimes heavy rainfall. All are unpredictable. Couple of days back I wrote a blog on

Embankments – Also called as Levy or Dykes. This is that wall which is constructed on the riverbanks to help the streamlined flow of the river water and to prevent the floods in the nearby areas. Historically its been proved that this is the best way to stop and control floods. Could be made up of concrete or mud. Usually when embankments are made, the river water flows in a are narrower than it was flowing earlier to the construction of embankments. Eventually the sedimentation will also rise high. And if the sedimentation is not taken out from the embankments, the water will start flowing above the embankments which will then again go to the food plains. People in the riverbank thinks that when embankments are made, they are safe to stay in a riverbank which is wrong. The chances of floods go high if the sedimentation is not cleared. Also, they need to think that sedimentation clearing is not an easy task to carry out. Any government may or may not attempt that on a regular basis. An embankment is as useful as it is destructive at many cases. Low standard embankments are used to be to flood prone if that collapses. Also, high sedimentation would cause for the river overflow that would directly contribute to floods. There are almost 450 embankments in Assam from which more than a half are in extremely vulnerable conditions. They can break easily. Experts say that in Assam, there is a huge contractor-administration nexus that benefits monetarily from a flood situation. After every flood, the contractors build new embankments which is kind of a source of income to them. According to a report in

My View – Any river is a natural resource and man should act in accordance to that not against that. Building embankments is good but not extreme near to the riverbanks but rather at some distance to the riverbanks. The floodplains in between the embankments and the river should be utilized properly to do plantation. Netherlands is one such country to adopt such a measure. In this approach what would happen is river would get more space to flow and the sedimentation as I told earlier will also be reduced and everything will be on control. And yes the most important point is embankments should be made much more stronger to have proper and good control of the river water to help them flow with no harm to mankind.

What are the mysterious parcel from China to USA and UK

How would you feel when you receive any parcel without placing any order? Feels good right! But how would you feel when you got to know that there is something mysterious and is harmful? There is no doubt that your excitement would be broken. Something like that happened with some of the people in USA and UK. Let us talk about that today.

A state in USA named Louisiana on 24^th July 2020, a resident there received a parcel in which it was mentioned as jewelry. At first, the man no doubt had a better feeling of getting jewelry without placing any order and that is too free of cost. But when he opened the parcel, he was surprised to see that the packet consists of seeds. And with a confused state of mind he immediately called the Department of Agriculture and Forestry. They took the parcel for examination. With no time, many other residents of the USA received such parcels on which jewelry, headphone and many other such stuffs were written. On July 27^th, 2020, the department issued an order saying that any such parcels received should be informed to police immediate. Since the rules in the USA are very strict, the actions were taken with immediate effect and there was a significant control over the mysterious parcel. Now, the question is from where these parcels are coming. The text written over the parcels were in a language from Mandarin, China. The from address are also from China and some from Uzbekistan. These two points clearly proves that the seeds sent were a plan of China. Not only the USA but certain parcels were received by residents in Britain. The parcels received in Britain are from China, Malaysia, and Serbia.

Why is China sending seeds? Sounds funny right!

Let me drive you through an example. In the year 1947, when India got independence, there were extreme shortage of food and food used to be imported from many countries among which USA was one. Along with the food products, by mistake a parcel came from the USA carrying Parthenium in the year 1950. Parthenium is a plant that is little long in height and at the top it carries small flowers. These plants are not very ecofriendly. Research says that Parthenium damages 20% of the world’s eco system by minimizing the growth of grass which is a source of nutrition to many lively creatures. This is called agricultural bioterrorism which will drastically have an impact on the economy. There are certain other plantations also in the world. In Italy, there is a special type of cheese called ParmigianoReggiano made from a milk. The milk is produced by cow who eats some grass which are not good for health. But the taste of those cheese is little salty and good to taste. With strict restriction, the milk production is allowed in 4 places of Italy.

Question here is if the seeds coming in parcel from China would also have some negative impact on the eco system? Why are the seeds coming in a confused way? Somewhere written jewelry, somewhere headphone! Is this only because of the trade war between China and USA? Is China trying to take over the world economy by destroying the eco system? Many such questions are yet to be answered. The main reasons are yet to come forward. Let us wait and watch.

My View – If anyone is receiving any such mysterious parcels from any places, please make sure to report to the police and do not open the parcel until and unless you are very much sure about that. This is a tough time we are going with. And wrong step would hard the mankind and eco system which directly or indirectly impact the economy.