Modi misleading nation on MSP, allege farmers
New Delhi, Aug 9: A large number of farmers, ex-serviceman and representatives of Left-affiliated organisations on Thursday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of misleading and providing wrong information to the nation on MSP and other policies of his government.
Converging at Parliament Street here to protest on "Quit India Day", farmers demanded that the Central government write off crop loans taken from banks and implement the M.S. Swaminathan Commission report which recommends that minimum support price (MSP) be raised to 1.5 times the input cost.
All major farmer outfits from Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh participated in the protest.
All India Kisan Sabha general secretary Hannan Mollah said: "He (Modi) is a 100 per cent liar. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is misleading and providing wrong information to farmers saying they have raised the MSP for the Kharif crops by 50 per cent. It's not true."
Mollah said the present hike only factors in the cost of farm labour and investment on fertiliser and seeds.
"Effective hike is only 13 per cent and PM Modi has failed to honour his promise," he said.
The general secretary said around 20 lakh people in 400 districts of 25 states in the country are protesting against "false promises" made by the Narendra Modi government.
United Front of Ex-Servicemen also protested against what they called faulty implementation of the One Rank-One Pension (OROP) scheme, saying continuous degradation and ill-treatment to the defence forces is taking place in the country.
Colonel R.D. Sharma (retd) said: "After the BJP came to power, it promised to implement the OROP within 100 days. But now it is ignoring our cause and has changed the actual definition of OROP."
Sharma said now he receives less pension compared to his juniors and urged the government to pay uniform pension to all armed forces personnel.
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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.
