‘Those who give dough can also have pizza,’ say friends who organised ‘pizza langar’ for farmers
''Pizza langar' was to change the public perception about farmers'
New Delhi, Dec 13: A group of five friends set out from Amritsar on a cold Saturday morning. They didn't have much time to organise a regular langar, so they collected 'regular-sized' pizzas from a Haryana mall and set up a stall at the Singhu border.
Around 400 pizzas were distributed within minutes as a huge crowd, including the protesting peasants and residents from nearby areas, queued up.
The 'pizza langar' has since hogged headlines and garnered compliments from different quarters, and also brickbats from a certain section.
"The farmers who gave the dough for pizzas can also afford to have one themselves," says Shanbir Singh Sandhu, who organised the 'pizza langar' with his four friends for the peasants protesting at the Delhi-Haryana border against the contentious agri-marketing laws.
"We didn't have much time to organise a regular lentils-chapatti langar.... So we came up with this idea," says Sandhu, who is himself a farmer and an economics student at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar.
The farmers have been protesting at several border points into Delhi for over two weeks over their demands to repeal the new legislations, which they claim would benefit the corporates, and end the traditional wholesale markets and the minimum support price regime.
Sandhu's friend, Shahnaz Gill, underscored that people get bored eating the same thing everyday. "We thought we should bring them (farmers) something else to keep their spirits up," he said.
The 21-year-old student of agriculture says this is first time they have organised a 'pizza langar', expressing happiness that people have appreciated their efforts.
However, Sandhu says it is unfortunate and totally unacceptable that some people were ridiculing farmers having pizzas.
"Few people just cannot digest that a farmer can have a car, wear good clothes and have a pizza. The farmer has moved on from dhoti-kurta to jeans and T-shirt," the 25-year-old student says. "It's about time these people grew up."
One of the reasons for organising a 'pizza langar' was to change the public perception about farmers, he adds.
Gill says no one has the right to comment on what a farmer should eat or wear.
"People have been calling us 'so-called farmers'. Before making any such comment, they should come and meet us first, he says. "They will get to know that our thinking is much better than theirs."
The five friends have decided to organise another such langar, which they say will be better and bigger.
It can be pizza or burger or something else, too, Sandhu says.
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Austrian police detain suspect in case of rat poison found in baby food jars on supermarket shelves
Vienna (AP): Police in eastern Austria say a 39-year-old suspect has been arrested after rat poison turned up in some HiPP baby food jars on supermarket shelves in central Europe.
HiPP, which recalled some of its baby food jars in Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic after the case came to light last month, said in a statement Saturday it was “greatly relieved” by the arrest, and would provide further updates as verified details come in.
The Burgenland State Criminal Police Office, under the direction of prosecutors, said a probe was launched after poison turned up in a baby food jar purchased at a supermarket in the city of Eisenstadt on April 18.
It said the suspect was being questioned, and that no further details would be immediately provided. The Burgenland public prosecutor's office has announced an investigation into suspected “intentional endangerment of the public.”
The Austrian Press Agency reported that an expert report on the toxicity of the poison was pending. A total of five tampered baby food jars were seized before they could be consumed, APA reported.
Authorities said previously they believe the tampering occurred in 190-gram (6.7-ounce) jars of baby food made with carrots and potatoes for 5-month-olds that were sold from SPAR supermarkets in Austria.
HiPP responded by recalling all of its baby food jars sold at SPAR supermarkets — which include SPAR, EUROSPAR, INTERSPAR and Maximarkt stores — in Austria as a precaution. Vendors in Slovakia and the Czech Republic also removed all of the brand's baby jars from sale.
The company said the recall was not due to any product or quality defect on its part, and said the jars left its facility in “perfect condition.”
Police said a customer at the time of the discovery had reported that a jar appeared to have been tampered with, but no one had consumed the baby food.
