Targeting UPSC CSE

 Four issues De-criminalisation of stubble burning Safeguarding Power subsidy Repeal of 3 farm market laws Legal Guarantee of MSP for farm produce Government agreed to not to penalise stubble burning and to safeguard power subsidies. Government should also take in consideration that : Subsidised power and lopsided incentive structures have built cropping patterns that are no longer sustainable.  Large sections of farmers meanwhile continue to languish in debt and fear.  Farmer concerns are not uniform across India. Reforms are necessary to ensure that India has a productive, sustainable and remunerative agriculture sector. The r eports of the National Commission on Farmers , chaired by Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, and other government committees have suggested solutions.  The Centre must engage with the farmers, political parties and States on the economic and  environmental issues at stake.

  Our farmers always want a higher price for their produce, but higher food prices can also bring pains to poor consumers. The art of policymaking is to balance the interest of producers and consumers within reasonable financial resources.  In such a charged environment, rationality often becomes victim to anger and hatred, which does not serve anyone’s purpose, including the farmers’ therefore it is required to look for corrections without repealing all together. A major study at ICRIER conducted with OECD showed that over the period 2000-01 to 2016-17, Indian agriculture was implicitly taxed to the tune of almost 14% of its value, primarily due to restrictive trade and marketing policies, ranging from export controls and stocking limits to the restrictive mandi system. The way to improve farmers’ price realisation, therefore, was to liberate agriculture from these various controls. This has been a long-standing demand of one of the tallest farmer leaders, the late Sharad Jos...

 Pagri sambhal Jatta movement was a violent peasant movement in 1907. It was caused due to the farmers agitation against British Laws such as Doab Bari Act, Punjab Land Consolidation Act and Punjab Land Alienation Act.  There was a peasant Rally at Lyallpur (presently in Pakistan) organised by Bhagat Singh's Uncle Ajit Singh and others in which Pagri Sambhal Oo Jatta was sang (Song by Banke Dayal) as an anthem against the British oppression. Britishers constructed Upper bari Doab Channel in 1879 to draw water from Chenab river to Lyallpur and provided land to peasants, area which were earlier un-inhabited area was now allotted to peasants thus they became master of the land and denied land ownership rights to the peasants.