Eighth round of talks between protesting farmers, government set to take place
New Delhi: The eighth round of talks between protesting farmer unions and the government is scheduled to be held on Friday afternoon as both sides look for a resolution to the over one-month-long deadlock on the issue of the three new farm laws.
Both sides have stuck to their respective positions, with agitating farmers taking out tractor rallies on Thursday to press their demand for rollback of the laws, and the Centre asserting it is ready to consider any proposal other than their repeal.
The latest round of talks to be held at Vigyan Bhavan at 2 pm on Friday is crucial as the previous meeting on January 4 remained inconclusive. There was some breakthrough in the sixth round of talks on December 30 when the government conceded to two demands of the agitating farmers pertaining to power subsidy and stubble burning. The previous rounds of talks had failed to make any headway.
Thursday's tractor rallies were taken out from protest sites near the Singhu, Tikri, and the Ghazipur borders and also from Haryana's Rewasan as the unions asserted they would not accept the Centre's offer of amendments to the farm laws.
According to them, these marches were a "rehearsal" for their proposed January 26 "Kisan Parade" to the national capital from different parts of Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
Owing to the farmers' protest since late November last year, several routes connecting Delhi with its neighbouring states have been closed for traffic movement.
According to Delhi Traffic Police, Singhu, Auchandi, Piau Maniyari, Saboli, and Mangesh borders were closed on Friday as well.
It advised commuters to take alternative routes via Lampur Safiabad, Palla, and Singhu school toll tax borders. Traffic has been diverted from Mukarba and GTK Road, the traffic police force said, asking commuters to avoid Outer Ring Road, GTK Road, and NH-44.
It said Chilla and Ghazipur borders were closed for traffic coming from Noida and Ghaziabad to Delhi and advised people to take alternative routes via Anand Vihar, DND, Bhopra, and Loni borders instead.
The traffic police said Tikri and Dhansa borders were also closed for traffic movement.
Enacted in September, the three farm laws have been projected by the Centre as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove the middlemen and allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country.
However, protesting farmers have expressed apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of the MSP and do away with the "mandi" (wholesale market) system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
