The South Asia Politics, News, and Analysis Thread

Hundreds of people in Indian-administered Kashmir have staged protests after a man was said to be killed by security forces who were also accused of placing his grandson on top of his body to take photographs.

The Inspector-General of police in Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, told reporters that rebels opened fire at security forces from a mosque in the northern town of Sopore, setting off a battle on Wednesday.

Kumar claimed that the civilian, Bashir Ahmed Khan, was killed by the rebel fighters as he was driving past and "the family was pressurised by them to blame it on the security forces".

However, the family of the slain civilian alleged that Khan was dragged from his car and shot dead by paramilitary troopers.

His three-year-old grandson, who was travelling with him, was later pictured sitting on his chest.

"We received a call that my father had met with an accident," Khan's son, Suhail Ahmad, told Al Jazeera.

"When we reached Sopore, we were told he was killed in a crossfire. If it was a crossfire, his body should've been inside the car but it was found on the road."

Khan's brother, Nazir Ahmad, also rubbished the police claims and blamed security forces for the death.

"I can go to meet the top police officers to counter their claims. My brother was not a militant. He did not carry a gun. Why was he killed?" he asked.

The family members also accused the security forces of putting the child on the deceased civilian’s body for taking pictures.

The photo of the child sitting on the body of his dead grandfather was widely shared on social media.

"They dragged the body out and put the child on top. The child’s clothes were drenched in his grandfather’s blood. He was not a militant," one of Khan's relatives claimed.

Kumar added that one security official was killed and three were injured.

Later on Wednesday, hundreds assembled at the man's funeral near Srinagar, shouting "We want freedom" from Indian rule.

Government forces have intensified counterinsurgency operations against rebels since a coronavirus lockdown was imposed in March.

Since January, at least 229 people have been killed during more than 100 military operations across Indian-administered Kashmir, including 32 civilians, 54 government forces and 143 rebels, according to the Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), a rights group.

For decades, rebel groups have fought for the region's independence or its merger with Pakistan. Since 1989, the fighting has left tens of thousands dead, mostly civilians.

India has more than 500,000 troops stationed in Kashmir, a Himalayan territory also claimed by Pakistan.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training rebels. Islamabad denies the allegations.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, a region both claim in entirety but rule parts of.

China's Belt and Road program has found new life in Pakistan with $11 billion worth of projects signed in the last month, driven by a former lieutenant general who has reinvigorated the infrastructure plan that's been languishing since Prime Minister Imran Khan took office two years ago.

The nations signed deals on June 25 and July 6 for two hydro-power generation projects costing $3.9 billion in the disputed Kashmir region, and another to revamp the South Asian nation's colonial-era railways for $7.2 billion — the most expensive Chinese project yet in Pakistan.

Khan's government appointed Asim Saleem Bajwa last year to run the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority, which oversees more than $70 billion in projects from power plants to highways. He also joined Khan's cabinet in late April, becoming one of more than a dozen former and current military officials in prominent government roles as the army expands its influence in the country.

The Chinese financing has helped rid Pakistan of an electricity deficit that left exporters unable to meet orders and major cities without electricity for much of the day. Still, the implementation of some investments appeared to stall since Khan came to power, with no new projects announced in 2018 and very few in 2019.

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the initiative in 2013, the World Bank estimates about $575 billion worth of energy plants, railways, roads, ports and other projects have been built or are in the works across the globe. Its progress has slowed recently, dogged by accusations that China is luring poor countries into debt traps for its own political and strategic gain.

"The reality is that much of CPEC, like the Belt and Road more broadly, has been paralyzed," said Jonathan Hillman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, referring to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Pakistan "is a flagship for China's Belt and Road, so the need to show progress is even more important."

In a tweet last month, Bajwa said some detractors had given the "false impression" that CPEC had been slowed. Not only has the pace of work on projects picked up recently, but a great deal of ground work has been done to launch phase two of the project that also includes special economic zones to lure Chinese manufacturers, agriculture, science, technology and tourism, he wrote.

"The prime minister pushed very hard on this," said Abdul Razak Dawood, Khan's adviser on commerce and investments said by phone. "We feel that we have to get more and more hydro in our energy mix."

A spokesman in Bajwa's office said he was not immediately available to comment.

Little Progress

Pakistan's army is already responsible for securing every single Beijing-funded project scattered across the country, from the mountains near the Chinese border to the desert in Gwadar where the Chinese operate a port. Its role has become even more important following terrorist attacks on three Chinese-related projects in the past year.

"There is no doubt that PM Khan's arrival slowed the pace of CPEC projects," said Mosharraf Zaidi, a senior fellow at Islamabad-based think tank, Tabadlab, and a former principal advisor to the foreign ministry. "The renewed energy and approval we are now seeing is almost entirely likely due to the chairperson having settled in, and being added to Prime Minister Khan's cabinet."

Indeed there's deepening concerns over Islamabad's ability to service its debts under the program. The Center for Global Development has listed Pakistan among eight nations that face potential debt-sustainability problems because of the initiative. The country must repay China more than double the amount it owes the International Monetary Fund over the next three years, according to an IMF report last year.

For its part, Beijing says its projects in Pakistan had made major progress over the last six years. "China firmly supports the development of CPEC and stands ready to work with Pakistan," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular press briefing in Beijing on July 7, adding that future cooperation will focus on social development, livelihood, industry and agriculture in addition to infrastructure construction.

Regional Conflict

The hydro projects are both based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a region at the heart of tensions with arch-rival India. The neighbors have fought three wars — two over Kashmir — and last year a terrorist attack in the Indian-controlled portion led to the most serious military escalation in more than a decade.

The $2.4 billion Kohala hydro power project is being built on the Jhelum River in Muzaffarabad, just 100 kilometers (62 miles) from where both armies exchange gunfire. The Azad Pattan project — which will cost $1.5 billion — is being built on the same river.

"China and Pakistan may also be antagonizing India," said Hillman. Both hydro projects are in Kashmir, and the railway is part of a much longer, and still far fetched plan to connect China and Pakistan by rail, also passing through occupied territory, said Hillman.

Several countries have run into trouble with Belt and Road projects or had to rework plans after complaints over corruption, padded contracts, heavy debt loads, environmental damage and a reliance on imported Chinese labor over local hires.

Pakistan renegotiated the project to revamp its British-era legacy railway system. It was initially estimated to cost $8.2 billion but that was reduced to $6.2 billion, according to the nation's railways minister. The final amount is higher than the revised cost but still $1 billion less that initial estimate.

All three new projects have been under discussion for some time before this month's announcement.

"Though these are difficult projects to get across the line compared to low hanging fruits like coal and LNG power projects that were announced at the start of the Chinese financing projects," said Samiullah Tariq, head of research at Pakistan Kuwait Investment Company, "China is a critical ally for Pakistan to continue growing."

The Ministry of Defence has issued the formal government sanction letter for grant of Permanent Commission (PC) to Women Officers in the Indian Army, paving the way for empowering Women Officers to shoulder larger roles in the organisation, said Indian Army spokesperson.

The order specifies grant of permanent commission to Short Service Commissioned (SSC) Women Officers in all ten streams of the Indian Army i.e Army Air Defence (AAD), Signals, Engineers, Army Aviation, Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME), Army Service Corps (ASC), Army Ordnance Corps (AOC), and Intelligence Corps in addition to the existing streams of Judge and Advocate General (JAG) and Army Educational Corps (AEC).

Their Selection Board will be scheduled as soon as all affected SSC women officers exercise their option and complete requisite documentation.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court had granted one more month to the Centre to implement its verdict directing that permanent commission be given to all serving SSC women officers in the Army. The top court’s direction came on an application filed by the Centre seeking six months' time for implementation of the verdict citing the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the hearing, the Centre told the bench that decision making on the issue is at a final stage and only formal orders remain to be issued.

In a landmark verdict on February 17, the top court had directed that women officers in the Army be granted permanent commission and command postings, rejecting the Centre's stand of their physiological limitations as being based on "sex stereotypes" and "gender discrimination against women".

It had earlier directed the Centre that within three months, all serving SSC women officers have to be considered for Permanent Commissions irrespective of them having crossed 14 years or, as the case may be, 20 years of service.

The top court had noted that Indian Army has sanctioned 50,266 posts for officers, while the posts currently occupied are 40,825 including 1,653 by women officers.

It had noted that there is shortage of 9,441 officers in the Indian Army.

There are total of 1,653 women officers which is a miniscule 4 % of the total strength of commissioned officers in the Army, it had said.

The total of 1,653 officers includes — 77 having above 20 years of service, 255 having service tenure between 14 and 20 years and the fate of 322 women officers was to be decided by the verdict of the apex court.

The policy aims at making “India a global knowledge superpower”.

Follow National Education Policy 2020 live updates

One of the stated aims of the policy is to instill a “deep-rooted pride” in being Indian, not only in thought, but also in spirit, intellect, and deeds, as well as to develop knowledge, skills, values, and dispositions that support responsible commitment to human rights, sustainable development and living, and global well-being.

The policy also aims at “light but tight” regulation by a single regulator for higher education as well as o increased access, equity, and inclusion.

The NEP lays down that by 2040, all higher education institutions (HE Is) shall aim to become multidisciplinary institutions, each of which will aim to have 3,000 or more students. There shall, by 2030, be at least one large multidisciplinary institution in or near every district.

The aim will be to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education including vocational education from 26.3% to 50% by 2035.

Single-stream higher education institutions will be phased out over time, and all will move towards becoming multidisciplinary. The system of ‘affiliated colleges’ will be gradually phased out in 15 years.

The present complex nomenclature of HE Is in the country such as ‘deemed to be university’, ‘affiliating university’, ‘affiliating technical university’, ‘unitary university’ shall be replaced simply by ‘university’.

A university will mean a multidisciplinary institution that offers undergraduate and graduate programmes, with high quality teaching, research, and community engagement. The definition will allow a spectrum of institutions ranging from those that place equal emphasis on teaching and research i.e., Research-intensive Universities to teaching-intensive Universities.

The present nomenclature such as ‘deemed to be university’, ‘affiliating university’, ‘affiliating technical university’, ‘unitary university’ will be done away with.

• Even engineering institutions, such as II Ts, will move towards more holistic and multidisciplinary education with more arts and humanities. Students of arts and humanities will aim to learn more science.

• Departments in Languages, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Indology, Art, Dance, Theatre, Education, Mathematics, Statistics, Pure and Applied Sciences, Sociology, Economics, Sports, Translation and Interpretation, etc. will be established and strengthened at all HE Is.

• The undergraduate degree will be of either 3 or 4-year duration, with multiple exit options. For instance a certificate after completing 1 year in a discipline or field including vocational and professional areas, or a diploma after 2 years of study, or a Bachelor’s degree after a 3-year programme. The 4-year multidisciplinary Bachelor’s programme, however, shall be the preferred option.

• An Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) shall be established which would digitally store the academic credits earned.

• The 4-year programme may also lead to a degree ‘with Research’ if the student completes a rigorous research project.

Model public universities for holistic and multidisciplinary education, at par with II Ts, II Ms, etc., called MER Us (Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities) will be set up.

• Higher education institutions shall move away from high-stakes examinations towards continuous and comprehensive evaluation.

• India will be promoted as a global study destination providing premium education at affordable costs. An International Students Office at each institution hosting foreign students will be set up.

• High performing Indian universities will be encouraged to set up campuses in other countries. Selected universities like those from among the top 100 universities in the world will be facilitated to operate in India.

• A legislative framework facilitating such entry will be put in place, and such universities will be given special dispensation regarding regulatory, governance, and content norms on par with other autonomous institutions of India.

• In every education institution, there shall be counselling systems for handling stress and emotional adjustments.

• Efforts will be made to incentivize the merit of students belonging to SC, ST, OBC, and other SED Gs..

• Vocational education will be integrated into all school and higher education institutions in a phased manner over the next decade. By 2025, at least 50% of learners through the school and higher education system shall have exposure to vocational education.

• The B.Voc. degrees introduced in 2013 will continue to exist, but vocational courses will also be available to students enrolled in all other Bachelor’s degree programmes, including the 4-year multidisciplinary Bachelor’s programmes.

• ‘Lok Vidya’, i.e., important vocational knowledge developed in India, will be made accessible to students. The HRD ministry, which could be renamed education ministry, would constitute a National Committee for the Integration of Vocational Education (NCIVE

• The policy also speaks for creating a National Research Foundation (NRF).

• The policy also mentions the creation of a Higher Education Commission of India (HECI).

Torrential rains have submerged at least a quarter of Bangladesh, washing away the few things that count as assets for some of the world’s poorest people — their goats and chickens, houses of mud and tin, sacks of rice stored for the lean season.

It is the latest calamity to strike the delta nation of 165 million people. Only two months ago, a cyclone pummeled the country’s southwest. Along the coast, a rising sea has swallowed entire villages. And while it’s too soon to ascertain what role climate change has played in these latest floods, Bangladesh is already witnessing a pattern of more severe and more frequent river flooding than in the past along the mighty Brahmaputra River, scientists say, and that is projected to worsen in the years ahead as climate change intensifies the rains.

“The suffering will go up,” said Sajedul Hasan, the humanitarian director of BRAC, an international development organization based in Bangladesh that is distributing food, cash and liquid soap to displaced people.

This is one of the most striking inequities of the modern era. Those who are least responsible for polluting Earth’s atmosphere are among those most hurt by its consequences. The average American is responsible for 33 times more planet-warming carbon dioxide than the average Bangladeshi.

This chasm has bedeviled diplomacy for a generation, and it is once again in stark relief as the coronavirus pandemic upends the global economy and threatens to push the world’s most vulnerable people deeper into ruin.

An estimated 24 to 37 percent of the country’s landmass is submerged, according to government estimates and satellite data By Tuesday, according to the most recent figures available, nearly a million homes were inundated and 4.7 million people were affected. At least 54 have died, most of them children.

The current floods, which are a result of intense rains upstream on the Brahmaputra, could last through the middle of August. Until then, Taijul Islam, a 30-year-old sharecropper whose house has washed away, will have to camp out in a makeshift bamboo shelter on slightly higher ground. At least he was able to salvage the tin sheet that was once the roof of his house. Without it, he said, his extended family of nine would be exposed to the elements.

Mr. Islam’s predicament is multiplied by the millions among those on the front lines of climate change. Vanuatu is literally sinking into the Pacific. Pastoralists in the Horn of Africa are being pushed to the edge of survival by back-to-back droughts. In the megacity of Mumbai, the rains come in terrifying cloudbursts.

The inequity is striking, no matter which way you slice it. One recent analysis found that the world’s richest 10 percent are responsible for up to 40 percent of global environmental damage, including climate change, while the poorest 10 percent account for less than 5 percent. Another estimated that warming had reduced incomes in the world’s poorest countries by between 17 percent and 30 percent.

Poor countries have long sought a kind of reparations for what they call loss and damage from climate change. Rich countries, led by the United States and European Union, have resisted, mainly out of concern that they could be saddled with liability claims for climate damage.

It doesn’t help that the rich world has failed to deliver on a $100 billion aid package to help poor countries cope, promised as part of the 2015 Paris accord.

Coronavirus recovery plans have lately begun to open the door to new discussions about debt relief linked to climate resilience.

In June, the Alliance of Small Island Developing States, led by Belize, pressed for what it called a new compact with private and bilateral creditors “to deliver debt relief and increase resilience financing.”

Caribbean countries, with their economies ravaged by hurricanes in recent years, now find themselves falling deeper into debt as the pandemic dries up tourism revenues. A study commissioned by the United Nations found that the 20 most climate-vulnerable countries have paid more than $40 billion in additional interest payments because of losses stemming from extreme weather events.

In Bangladesh, the flooding of the Brahmaputra reflects the unequal pain of extreme weather.

The floods began in June. In most cases, heavy rains upstream in neighboring India swelled the river basins that flow through Bangladesh before draining into the Bay of Bengal. Those who live along the Brahmaputra are no strangers to flooding. When the river swells, work stops, land erodes, people move to higher ground and wait for the waters to recede. They rely on their savings or aid to feed themselves.

This year was different, though. By the time the river flooded, in June, people were already running out of food, said Mr. Hasan of BRAC.

Because of the lockdown, working people had all but stopped working. Remittances from relatives abroad, many of them newly unemployed, had dried up. In the countryside, people had begun to sell their goats and cattle at bargain prices. They had no food to eat.

When the river first swelled, Taijul Islam, the sharecropper from the Kurigram district in the country’s north, rushed to save his livestock — cattle, goats, chickens, ducks. A few, he rescued. Many, he lost. The river took away the small vegetable garden next to his house, then his house, where he had stashed roughly 1,300 pounds of rice. Then it washed away a small shop that he ran when he wasn’t working on other people’s land. Also the school that his 6-year-old son attended in the village.

All he can think of now is where he can go to earn a living. He is the sole breadwinner of his extended family. All nine of them had been living on rice, boiled potato and lentils. Vegetables are unaffordable, let alone fish or meat, which, he said, “are now unimaginable.”

Akkas Ali, 48, had already been through a bad flood. He moved to Mr. Islam’s village six years ago, when his old village washed into the Brahmaputra. Two weeks ago, as the river rose, breaking through its embankments, his four acres of farmland went underwater. The village mosque and market washed away. So, too, a secondary school where more than 250 children were enrolled. Mr. Ali worried where they would go to school now, if at all.

His house still stood this week, but the river, which had been a quarter mile away, had rushed dangerously close. He was sure it, too, would wash away soon.

The Brahmaputra is a fearsome, shape-shifting 2,400-mile river that erupts from the Tibetan Himalayas and spills into northeastern India before merging with the Ganges in Bangladesh and emptying into the Bay of Bengal. It irrigates vast areas of farmland but it’s also unpredictable, often swallowing the islands that form within it, like the one where Mr. Ali’s village once stood.

Climate change, too, is altering its fate — and that of the people who live along its banks. The rains are more unpredictable and the river is rising above dangerous levels far more frequently than it did before, according to 35 years of flooding data analyzed by A.K.M. Saiful Islam, a water management expert at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka.

The last five years alone have brought four major floods, eroding people’s capacity to adapt, Dr. Islam said.

More and worse floods loom.

Even if average global temperature increase modestly — by 2 degrees Celsius over the average for preindustrial times — flooding along the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh is projected to increase by 24 percent. With an increase of 4 degrees Celsius, flooding is projected to increase by over 60 percent.

No matter what, Dr. Islam said, the country will have to adapt. That requires money to dredge rivers, maintain embankments, improve drainage and offer aid to those who are repeatedly displaced and impoverished.

Advocates for the poor say Bangladesh’s predicament with disasters illustrates exactly why climate negotiations, postponed until 2021, need to deliver compensation for people who have not caused the problem.

“People are losing whatever little they have,” said Farah Kabir, the Bangladesh country director for ActionAid International. “When and how are they going to be supported? When is the global community going to take responsibility?”

The story so far: The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (Mo EF&CC) has published the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2020, with the intention of replacing the existing EIA Notification, 2006 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The government wants to incorporate modifications made to the regulations through amendments in the interim period. An EIA makes a scientific estimate of the likely impacts of a project, such as a mine, irrigation dam, industrial unit or waste treatment plant. There is also a provision for public consultation in the rules, including a public hearing at which the local community and interested persons can give opinions and raise objections, based on the draft EIA report prepared by experts for the project.

How does the draft EIA Notification differ from the one now in force?

Among the major departures from existing regulations is the removal of several activities from the purview of public consultation. A list of projects has been included under Category B2, expressly exempted from the requirement of an EIA (Clause 13, sub cl. 11).

The projects under this category include offshore and onshore oil, gas and shale exploration, hydroelectric projects up to 25 MW, irrigation projects between 2,000 and 10,000 hectares of command area, small and medium mineral beneficiation units, small foundries involving furnace units, some categories of re-rolling mills, small and medium cement plants, small clinker grinding units, acids other than phosphoric or ammonia, sulphuric acid, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSM Es) in dye and dye intermediates, bulk drugs, synthetic rubbers, medium-sized paint units, all inland waterway projects, expansion or widening of highways between 25 km and 100 km with defined parameters, aerial ropeways in ecologically sensitive areas, and specified building construction and area development projects.

The projects in this list are, under existing norms, identified on the basis of screening by Expert Appraisal Committees, rather than being exempted through listing in the Schedule. Also, coal and non-coal mineral prospecting and solar photovoltaic projects do not need prior environmental clearance or permission in the new scheme.

What are the apprehensions?

There is apprehension that the exemption from EIA and public consultation for listed B2 category activity and expansion and modernisation projects will seriously affect the environment, since these will be carried out without oversight. Combined with a new provision for post-facto environmental clearance (of projects executed without prior clearance), this would further weaken protections. Moreover, the notice period for public hearing has been cut from 30 days to 20 days. This will make it difficult to study the draft EIA report, more so when it is not widely available or provided in the regional language.

Similarly, for project modernisation and expansion, the norms in Notification 2020 are liberal, with only those involving more than 25% increase requiring EIA, and over 50% attracting public consultation.

Under the proposed changes, project proponents need to submit only one annual report on compliance with conditions, compared to the existing two. The move is seen as retrograde, because the CAG found in 2016 that the deficiency in semi-annual compliance reporting was between 43% and 78%, while failure to comply with conditions ranged from 5% to 57%. Non-compliance was encountered particularly in river valley and hydroelectric power projects and thermal power projects. After the gas leak at LG Polymers in Visakhapatnam on May 7, the Environment Ministry told the National Green Tribunal that the unit lacked environment clearance, exposing the low effectiveness of rules.

How would the new rules enable post-facto approval of violations?

The Mo EF&CC cites its own order of March 14, 2017 enabling appraisal of projects involving violations — where construction had begun or expansion or modernisation was carried out without clearance — and an order of the Jharkhand High Court asking for consideration of a case on merits, independent of penal action for violation, to introduce a beneficial scheme for violators.

The EIA Notification 2020 excludes reporting by the public of violations and non-compliance. Instead, the government will take cognisance of reports only from the violator-promoter, government authority, Appraisal Committee or Regulatory Authority. Such projects can then be approved with conditions, including remediation of ecological damage, which, again, will be assessed and reported by the violator (and not an unconnected agency), although Central Pollution Control Board guidelines must be used.

How does the draft notification compare with global norms?

EIA rules must meet the requirements of the precautionary principle of avoiding harm, and intergenerational equity. The European Union, as an evolving example, has modified its processes in accordance with the Aarhus Convention, 1998, which stipulates that environmental rights and human rights are linked, the present generation owes an obligation to future generations, sustainable development can be achieved only through the involvement of all stakeholders, government accountability and environmental protection are connected, and interactions between the public and public authorities must take place in a democratic context. The EU Directive on EIA includes climate change and biodiversity concerns.

The rules in India, including EIA 2006, it can be argued, privileged the interests of the project proponent by whittling down public consultations, accepting flawed and faulty EIA reports resulting from external influences, and ignoring the non-renewable nature of resources. Notification 2020 deepens the impact of that paradigm.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India’s parliament on Sunday passed new bills the government says will make it easier for farmers to sell their produce directly to big buyers, despite growing protest from opposition parties and a long-time ally of the ruling party.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the new laws will reform antiquated laws and remove middlemen from agriculture trade, allowing farmers to sell to institutional buyers and large retailers like Walmart WMT.N.

The bills also make contract farming easier by providing a new set of rules.

But Modi’s food processing minister from an alliance party resigned on Thursday in protest calling the bills “anti-farmer”, and the opposition parties have said farmers’ bargaining power will be diminished by allowing retailers to have tighter control over them.

On Sunday, some opposition lawmakers raised slogans, tore documents and tried to grab the speaker’s microphone in Rajya Sabha, before two controversial bills were passed by a voice vote.

“The passage of both the bills in parliament is indeed a landmark day for Indian agriculture,” one of Modi’s senior cabinet ministers, Rajnath Singh, said on Twitter.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Modi’s former food processing minister, is from a regional party which has a strong base in the northern state of Punjab and believes the bills will increase farmer suffering in the breadbasket state.

Her party believes the laws will destroy wholesale markets which ensure fair and timely payments to farmers, weaken the state’s farmers and the overall state economy.

Many farmer organizations have in recent days held street protests in Punjab and the neighboring Haryana state near New Delhi. On Sunday, India’s main opposition Congress party criticized the government.

“We will make sure that the government will have to step down on its knees before the farming community of this country,” said Randeep Surjewala, a party spokesman.

“It will be farmers one side and big businesses on the other side, how will they fight?,” he added.

Three Bills on agriculture reforms – The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020 – were introduced in the Parliament on September 14 to replace the ordinances issued during the lockdown.

Opposition members in the Lok Sabha plan to move a resolution against the Trade and Commerce ordinance and the Price Assurance ordinance on September 16, following which Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar will move that both the Bills replacing those ordinances be passed.

Farmers and farmer associations across the country have protested against the ordinances. The tractor protest by farmers of Punjab and Haryana in July was in opposition to these. The Punjab Assembly on August 28 passed a resolution rejecting the Centre’s ordinances.

What do the ordinances – provisions of which will override all State APMC laws – entail? Why are they being opposed?

• Cooperative federalism

Since agriculture and markets are State subjects – entry 14 and 28 respectively in List II – the ordinances are being seen as a direct encroachment upon the functions of the States and against the spirit of cooperative federalism enshrined in the Constitution. The Centre, however, argued that trade and commerce in food items is part of the concurrent list, thus giving it constitutional propriety.

• End to MSP?

The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance aims at opening up agricultural sale and marketing outside the notified Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis for farmers, removes barriers to inter-State trade and provides a framework for electronic trading of agricultural produce. It prohibits State governments from collecting market fee, cess or levy for trade outside the APMC markets.

According to PRS Legislative Research, APM Cs were set up with the objective of ensuring fair trade between buyers and sellers for effective price discovery of farmers’ produce. APM Cs can regulate the trade of farmers’ produce by providing licences to buyers, commission agents, and private markets; levy market fees or any other charges on such trade; and provide necessary infrastructure within their markets to facilitate the trade.

Critics view the dismantling of the monopoly of the APM Cs as a sign of ending the assured procurement of food grains at minimum support prices (MSP). To the Centre’s ‘one nation, one market’ call, critics have sought ‘one nation, one MSP’.

Critics argue that ensuring a larger number of farmers get the MSP for their produce and straightening kinks in the APM Cs, instead of making these State mechanisms redundant is the need of the hour.

• Framework for contract farming

The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance relates to contract farming, providing a framework on trade agreements for the sale and purchase of farm produce. The mutually agreed remunerative price framework envisaged in the legislation is touted as one that would protect and empower farmers.

The written farming agreement, entered into prior to the production or rearing of any farm produce, lists the terms and conditions for supply, quality, grade, standards and price of farm produce and services.

The price to be paid for the purchase is to be mentioned in the agreement. In case of prices subjected to variations, the agreement must include a guaranteed price to be paid for such produce, and a clear reference – linked to the prevailing prices or any other suitable benchmark prices – for any additional amount over and above the guaranteed price, including bonus or premium. The method of determining such price, including guaranteed price and additional amount, will be provided in the agreement as annexures.

No mechanism for price fixation The Price Assurance Bill, while offering protection to farmers against price exploitation, does not prescribe the mechanism for price fixation. There is apprehension that the free hand given to private corporate houses could lead to farmer exploitation.

Contract farming is not a new concept to the country’s farmers – informal contracts for food grains, formal contracts in sugarcane and poultry sectors are common. Critics are apprehensive about formal contractual obligations owing to the unorganised nature of the farm sector and lack of resources for a legal battle with private corporate entities.

• Deregulation of food items

The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance removes cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from the list of essential commodities. The amendment will deregulate the production, storage, movement and distribution of these food commodities. The central government is allowed regulation of supply during war, famine, extraordinary price rise and natural calamity, while providing exemptions for exporters and processors at such times as well.

The ordinance requires that imposition of any stock limit on agricultural produce must be based on price rise. A stock limit may be imposed only if there is a 100% increase in retail price of horticultural produce; and a 50% increase in the retail price of non-perishable agricultural food items, according to PRS.

• Food security undermined?

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, on the easing of regulation of food items said, it would lead to exporters, processors and traders hoarding farm produce during the harvest season, when prices are generally lower, and releasing it later when prices increase. He said it could undermine food security since the States would have no information about the availability of stocks within the State.

Critics anticipate irrational volatility in the prices of essentials and increased black marketing.