Indian farmers said on Monday they would continue with their protests demanding minimum support prices for all produce, despite the government’s announcement that it would repeal three contentious farming laws that first triggered the movement over a year ago.
Farmers from the states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, where the country’s agriculture is concentrated and yields are high, have been protesting since September 2020 against laws that deregulate the agricultural sector and, as they say, leave them at the mercy of private players.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi caved to their demands, announcing on Friday that the three laws would be withdrawn, thousands of farmers gathered in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, on Monday.
They said protests will continue until the government introduces a law to guarantee minimum support prices, or MSPs, for all produce. The government mainly buys rice and wheat at guaranteed prices, but farmers say it benefits only a small portion of those employed in agriculture — a sector that employs some 50 percent of India’s workforce.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of 40 farmer unions, said in a letter addressed to Modi on Sunday that guaranteed prices should be made a “legal entitlement of all farmers” for all agricultural produce.
“We will continue with our protest,” said Rakesh Tikait, president of the Indian Farmers’ Union, while addressing the rally in Lucknow. “There should be guaranteed law on the MSP.”
Other demands put forward by farmers include dropping over 100 police cases registered against them with charges of vandalism and causing public disorder during protests.
“A set of demands have been placed before the government, and the government should hold dialogues with farm unions and discuss their demands,” Ashutosh Mishra, spokesman of All India Farmers’ Struggle Coordination Committee, told Arab News.
He added that farmers are aware the government had decided to withdraw the laws keeping in mind upcoming regional elections. Sunil Pradhan, another farming leader from Uttar Pradesh, said: “Had there been no election this government would not have backed down.”
Farmers are the most influential voting bloc in India, and winning Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, where local polls are slated for early next year, is seen as crucial for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in the general election in 2024.
Lucknow-based political analyst Ram Dutt Tripathi sees the continuing rallies as a display of a “trust deficit” between farmers and the government.
“Farmer leaders don’t trust the Modi government, so they will wait for the actual repeal (of the laws) by parliament,” he told Arab News. “Politically the movement has upset the BJP’s (electoral) prospects.”
Indian farmers continue protest despite repeal of controversial agricultural laws
https://arab.news/5nhv4
Indian farmers continue protest despite repeal of controversial agricultural laws
Trump invites Colombia’s Petro to White House after earlier threat of military action
- Relations between Trump and Petro have been frosty since the Republican returned to the White House in January 2025
WASHINGTON/BOGOTA: Days after threatening Colombia with military action, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said arrangements were being made for the country’s President Gustavo Petro to visit the White House, following a call between the two leaders. Trump and Petro said they discussed relations between the two countries in their first call since the US president on Sunday said that a US military operation focused on Colombia’s government “sounds good” to him. That threat followed Trump ordering the US capture of the president of neighboring Venezuela, who was flown to the US to face drug and weapons charges.
“It was a great honor to speak with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had. I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump added “arrangements are being made” for a meeting in Washington between himself and Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, but gave no specific date for a meeting.
“We have spoken by phone for the first time since he became president,” Petro told supporters gathered at a rally in Bogota meant to celebrate Colombia’s sovereignty, adding he had requested a restart of dialogue between the two countries.
A source in Petro’s office told Reuters the call was “cordial” and “respectful.”
Relations between Trump and Petro have been frosty since the Republican returned to the White House in January 2025.
Trump has repeatedly accused the administration of Petro, without evidence, of enabling a steady flow of cocaine into the US, imposing sanctions on the Colombian leader in October.
On Sunday Trump referred to Petro as “a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”
The US in September had revoked Petro’s visa after he joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York following a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and called on US soldiers to “disobey the orders of Trump.”
Petro, who has been a vocal opponent of Israel’s war in Gaza, had accused Trump of being “complicit in genocide” in Gaza and called for “criminal proceedings” over US missile attacks on suspected drug-running boats in Caribbean waters.
The Trump administration has carried out more than 30 strikes against suspected drug boats since September, in a campaign that has killed at least 110 people.
