Punjab student travels from US to stand with farmers
New Delhi: Had it not been for the farmers' protest against the new Agri laws that began over a month ago, 22-year-old Navpal Singh would have never planned a trip home at this time from Texas in the US, where he is a student.
"This protest forced me to come here," said the mechanical engineering student whose father and grandfather are farmers.
"The last time I had come home was less than a year ago...in March, so I had no plans whatsoever to visit again, but the way this protest has taken over this country and also the world, I couldn't stay away," he said.
Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab and Haryana, have been protesting at multiple Delhi borders against the new agri laws.
Singh arrived in India on Monday and has been traveling between Singhu and his ancestral village in Punjab's Jalandhar every day since.
Even though he is not a farmer himself, Singh felt the need to be part of the protest because of his farming roots that have provided for his education.
"People might think I have no direct connection with farming...that I am studying in the US, I will also work and get married there, but my father and grandfather are farmers.
"I wouldn't have been able to have my life in the US without the farmers. And now it is my responsibility to come forward and stand with them in their fight for their rights," he said.
Several rounds of talks with the government have failed to break the deadlock with the government pushing the new legislations as important reforms in the agricultural sector.
The next round of talks is scheduled for Friday.
The farmers on the other hand have maintained that they want the three laws to be repealed.
They have also threatened to enter Delhi on January 26 if their demands are not met.
About the stalemate between the government and the farmers, Singh said it was the former's way of "breaking their spirit".
"By scheduling talks after talks, the government is trying to simply drag the protest as long as it can, and hoping that it would eventually break our spirits, but they are mistaken.
"A movement like this does not happen every now and then. Today's rally alone has shown our strength and numbers," said Singh, who will return to Texas on January 18.
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, the 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.
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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.
