Reuters :
Indian farmers opposed to reforms they say threaten their livelihoods renewed their push against the changes with nationwide protests on Monday, a year after laws on the liberalization of the sector were introduced.
For 10 months, tens of thousands of farmers have camped out on major highways around the capital, New Delhi, to oppose the laws in the longest-running growers’ protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
“Thousands of farmers have spread out to different districts to ensure a complete nationwide strike aimed at reminding the government to repeal the laws introduced to favour large private corporations,” Rakesh Tikait, a prominent farmers’ leader, told Reuters.
Farmers shout slogans while blocking railway tracks during a nationwide strike against the central government’s agricultural reforms at Devi Dasspura village on the outskirts of Amritsar on September 27, 2021 AFP
In Noida, a New Delhi satellite town, farmers confronted police and pushed past them to break through barricades. There were no immediate reports of any injuries or arrests.
In Gurgaon – another satellite town near the capital’s main airport – farmers thronged onto a road and blocked traffic, while protesters stormed into a railway station in the northern outskirts of New Delhi, a Reuters witness said.
Nearly a dozen opposition parties have supported the farmers’ protest to step up pressure on Modi’s administration to repeal the laws.
