9 ms·

Nope, complete propaganda by the Indian govt. I have family there so I can confirm. The Indian media is completely sold out to the govt and will only present hi

by bsan3 6y ago

Nope, complete propaganda by the Indian govt. I have family there so I can confirm. The Indian media is completely sold out to the govt and will only present highly selected and curated pictures. Social media is where they can't control the narrative. The Indian govt unleash sate sanctioned mobs on these protestors, desperate resort to break up the protest. Now they had to ensure that the truth stays under wraps. Hence, cut off internet.

actuator 6y ago
I don't think we are talking about the same thing. I was talking about the protestors attacking cops of which there are a lot of videos on social media. The video I linked above shows them jumping from a fort to save themselves.
- alex_smart 6y ago
  There is plenty of propaganda floating around from both sides. If you dislike muddy waters, I would recommend staying out of Indian politics. It is a clusterfuck. To add to your top comment, these events - protestors attacking police personnel and protestors raiding Red Fort and raising their own flags - happened on republic day, which is like a mini 4th of July for India (we have two: 15th August, which is when India became independent and 26th January, which is when India adopted its constitution). On Republic Day, India observes the president furl India's national flag from the Red Fort, so seeing these events unfold, especially seeing a flag other than the Indian flag at Red Fort on Republic Day, were of very big symbolic value.
  - davchana 6y ago
    Own flags, which Indian Army encourages, allows, & make a new recruit to Swore upon when recruited. Same flag is the flag of that Regiment, saluted by Prime Ministrr on every Jan 26 parade on Punjab state's vehicle (jhaanki, kind of vehicle is converted & decorated with things showing culture,). Same modi, whose Delhi Police tramples the Tiranga, whose party flies the Tiranga lower than party flag, whose mother party RSS has never flown that flag ever in their premises, events even in 52 years since 1947. & Bumtw, Tiranga was never touched.
    - eklavya 6y ago
      What are you talking about? Didn’t you see the national flag hoisting event in RSS headquarters live on the news like every year?
      - xrisk 6y ago
        He's talking about the fact that the RSS did not raise the Indian flag till about 2002. And that their historical opposition to the flag is well documented.
      - davchana 6y ago
        No, I want to see RSS every year as much as a True Indian want to see Pakistan Independence Day parade. Never. RSS did not hoist Tiranga till 2002. Don't you know or you conveniently ignore?
        eklavya 6y ago
        Wow, that seems to be correct. I wonder why they would do that. In my childhood I went to an RSS school and we used to hoist the national flag all the time. Strange.
        intended 6y ago
        The RSS does not want India, they want Bharat, they are for a Hindu nation. This isn't even a hidden fact, but in every basic dossier on India.
        eklavya 6y ago
        Where Hindu is a nationality/culture and not a religion. India is a name given by slavers. Bharat is a very very old concept.
        intended 6y ago
        That lovely linguistic sleight of hand means that people called a region bharat. By the criteria how come Sri Lanka is not included? Or how do you reconcile the 7 sisters being part of that? For that matter the word Europe exists - are you arguing that states should act like nations a la the EU?
- dragonsh 6y ago
  This has been shown again and again by current administration and ruling party in India that power and ideology of pure Hindu state is more important than lives and livelihood. On a grand display in 2002 incident in a province in India [1], please read the whole NYT article, before commenting on it. Later on at display in Kashmir. Subsequently during national register and citizenship act protests where religious riots were used again to suppress a year of peaceful protests. Than again during university protests in New Delhi. Here again students were attacked inside the university, police beat and shot university students. Still even one person from ruling party who participated in violence or a cop who shot is to be prosecuted. On the other hand most of those opposing are being charged with terrorist charges. India to really progress out of poverty needs to first learn to respect its diversity and be united. Current administrations and ruling party’s policy has taken India on a downhill path of economic disaster, lower HDI, more poverty and more hunger. United Nations data and research don’t lie, India constantly slipped compared to its neighbours like Bangladesh on this index. So probably it will be better instead of hardline approach things change in India, otherwise it will be too late for a divided country to progress forward. It might on the other hand will move towards authoritarian dictatorship very quickly. India needs to come out of tyranny of majority and authoritarian mindset of current government for a change. I hope this same story and violence does not repeat in Bengal, where already violence is being promoted to unseat local government which does not believe in Hindu supremacy like the central government. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/09/blood-and-soil-in-narendra-modis-india https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/09/blood-and-soil...
  - miohtama 6y ago
    India is objectively moving towards authoritarian dictatorship on many metrics: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/11/28/narendra-modi-threatens-to-turn-india-into-a-one-party-state https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/11/28/narendra-modi-... (And quickly)
    - srean 6y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5VsGdPHsz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5VsGdPHsz0 A nice documentary. Its a little long though. Fair warning, it needs a strong (metaphorical) stomach if one cares about these issues.
- davchana 6y ago
  Yes, but those are selective video shots. Many videos on tiktok & whatsapp show where Reporters are telling their cameraman, Dont Show that, when camera goes towards Police slashing the tyres, throwing the flag at ground, & attacking 1 protester by 4+ Cop goons.
  - eklavya 6y ago
    Yeah, police will control a rioting mob anyway they can. Maybe don’t brandish swords, try to run over public and police and attack people in your peaceful protest?
    - davchana 6y ago
      The Godi media you are watching does not show the Delhi police trampling over Tiranga, slashing tires, shooting tear gas over a distance of less than 20 feet, blocking the route agreed upon.
      - eklavya 6y ago
        So the police should make sure not to trample on tiranga while controlling a rioting mob? Shooting tear gas is worse than shooting bullets? Let’s not get into what was agreed upon. For that just look at the list of broken promises provided by the police and it’s crystal clear what these people wanted to achieve.
        davchana 6y ago
        Pulling a tiranga from tractor, & rolling it, & then trampling it over while nothing else is going on, is I think bad. Police Brutality, as a scare tactic will always fire back on dictator's face.
      - boruto 6y ago
        Can you show me a video of slashing tires?
- 19f191ty 6y ago
  More information has come out linking the violent folks to the ruling party. The farmers have said it's not their people. Indeed the leader of the group that entered Red Fort is a known BJP. There's a video of him running away when accosted by the farmers. It's such a mess.
  - ngc248 6y ago
    Damn man the level of misinformation you guys are feeding in is at the next level. So which is it, the people who where rioting were actual farmers, sikhs or from BJP? In the same thread you guys are listing out all possible combinations. In India there are Farmer organizations, labour organizations etc of all parties. The current agitation is by farmer orgs belonging to opposition parties. This is just politics nothing else.
    - srean 6y ago
      The trick of discrediting a popular protest by putting your own hooligans to do something abhorrent is as old as the woods. That is what happened.
      - ngc248 6y ago
        It can also be a double bluff, doing it and if it backfires say it is the opposing party's hooligans.
    - 19f191ty 6y ago
      When the media fails to do its job then the people have to do it for them. Of course there will be condtradictory information coming in because the media has completely failed to provide a source of credible information. I'm not throwing out misinformation, but merely pointing out information that the OP missed and is available in reputable sources. There is A LOT of video evidence that points to BJP stooges inciting violence. The guy who hoisted the flag on Red Fort, Deep Siddhu is a known BJP supporter. Times of India , Indian Express, The Wire have all reported on this. Heck even Aj Tak had video where the BJP stooges are throwing stones at the protestors while an entire police battalion stands behind them doing nothing.
asfasfaasfas 6y ago
Complete propaganda here. The oligarchs and nationalists are pushing down the minorities (Sikhs, and Muslims and poor). A t the end of the day those funding Jio and other Oligarchs (Hi Mark, Hi Bond), will end up catching blame with a black swan event goes down. Follow the money, VCs and Facebook fund up these same oligarchs that press and kill hundreds of millions.
- LB232323 6y ago
  This forum is a product of VCs and big tech. A huge portion of Silicon Valley wealth comes from enslaving and subjugating Asia. This audience is probably the people who need to hear it most, but also the audience that it would upset the most. When did hacker culture evolve from loving technology and rebelling against the establishment into placing profits above human lives? Is a nice tech salary all it takes to purchase one's humanity? What about the promise of VC billions? The profit motive subjugates the poor, perpetuates genocide, and upholds slavery. Technology is not some humanist savior, it has been twisted to exploit the many and serve the few. Maybe one day our advanced technologies will work to serve and uplift the people rather than suppress them.
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    Does a US company contracting with say a Chinese company to produce its products help or hurt Chinese workers? I think it would help Chinese workers by increasing employment in China and generally improving the Chinese economy.
    - loopz 6y ago
      Exporting environmental waste, abusive workplace exploitation, unsafe practices and lack of self-reliance, are the counter arguments. We need a healthy mix of both, not the extremes.
      - Thorrez 6y ago
        My thought is that the more wealthy a country becomes, the more it can push back on environmental waste, and the more workplace regulations its workers can demand.
quantgenius 6y ago
I grew up in India, lived there as an adult and while I live in the US, I visit frequently and read Indian newspapers and watch Indian news channels regularly. I couldn't disagree with this more. There are lots of things wrong with Indian democracy but the absence of media freedom or widely publicised robust debate is not one of them. If anything the Indian media absolutely loves to troll and embarass the government, particularly the Central (federal in the US) government, even if they have to do this by allowing opposition or fringe figures to spread very easily debunked misinformation in the interest of creating controversy and hence ratings. I would suggest the media in India is far freer of government influence than the mainstream media in the United States. Something like the NY Times parroting the Pentagon's line regarding the justification for the Iraq war simply would not happen in India. Two recent cases in point: 1) In the current farmer protests, they are demanding that minimum price supports not be removed. The bill does not remove them. The status quo is that only certain government entities can buy directly from the farmers. They always pay the government set fixed price. The bill simply allows other entities to bid more and buy directly from farmers so long as they pay more than the price the government entities would pay. The bill doesn't harm the farmers. It harms corrupt elements in the current Punjab State government. These elements would demand bribes from companies purchasing from the government entities that were the only entities allowed to buy from the farmers. Essentially they would receive the difference between fair market value for the produce and the government minimum as a bribe. Now the buyers can simply buy directly from the farmers and the farmers get full market value unless market value drops below the minimum. The bill explicitly stipulates that the farmers have the absolute right to sell to the government at the government set price if they choose to. Half my family is Punjabi, many live in Punjab. The vast majority, including the vast majority of farmers, strongly support the bill. 2) Recent protests around the Citizenship Amendment Act. The Act only codifies into law commitments the Indian Government made when India split into India and Pakistan. The Supreme Court has ruled that those commitments are binding. However, before the act actually getting the paperwork through the bureaucracy meant lots of bribes, for bureaucrats, for politicians and whoever could get on the gravy train. Just like in the case of these protests, the protests against that Act were against things the Act actually did not do. I was born in Kashmir. Half my family is Kashmiri. I lived there until I was 7 when our family moved due to increasing terrorism. I have friends and family there. Cutting off the Internet in Kashmir has nothing to do with keeping the truth out. Mobile communications can be used to get the truth. They can also be used to coordinate terrorism. If Russia decided to send Eskimo infiltrators into Alaska routinely with the goal of creating an insurrection, b) these infiltrators and certain brainwashed local individuals had killed 50,000 people over 20 years, c) Russia was determined to recover Alaska at virtually any cost, d) there was clear information that a few thousand infiltrators had already entered and were using VPNs running over mobile phones to coordinate, and e) if the US government had been unable to crack the encryption in real-time, I suspect mobile internet would be cut off in Alaska. Only 3000 people died in 9-11 and the US government did far more to restrict freedom that the Indian government has ever done. As far as the current protests are concerned, it wasn't that long ago some of the same groups who are currently involved in the "farmer" protests were coordinating with Pakistan to try to create an independent Punjab. This eventually led to the Indian government having to execute Operation Blue Star, after it became clear that Pakistan intended to start a war within 24 hours in hopes of a local insurrection helping them. I was in Amritsar during Operation Blue Star. We found spent bullets (likely fired into the air miles away) in our back yard after it was all over. According to army officers who were involved in the operation, who our family has known for years, and who came over to our house for a meal after it was all over, there was enough ammunition stored at the Golden Temple to supply an infantry battalion for a month. The same elements in the Punjab government who receive bribes due to price controls on agriculture have also been turning a blind eye to the massive drug influx into Punjab, drugs which originate in Taliban controlled Afghanistan and fund the ISI. The reality is that in India these groups were allowed to rehabilitate themselves, and these individuals actually hold positions in state government. If the same had happened in the US, they would have been locked up in Supermax prisons and the keys thrown away. Don't read this as whataboutism. I frankly think the Indian government has been far too soft in handling this sort of thing. Democracy and the fundamental rights embedded in a free country's constitution are not a suicide pact.
webmobdev 6y ago
Very true. The current political party in power in India now is the political arm of the right-wing religious fundamentalist organization called the RSS. The RSS was inspired, and is modelled, after the Nazi party of Hitler in Germany. And like the Nazis, their goal is to take over complete control of our country and make it a theocratic-corporate-state under one party controlled by them. To this end, the government now abuses its powers to effectively use the corporate run media to discredit and attack any opposition against it, along with even physical threats and attacks using the RSS goons against any vocal activist or protestor.
- eklavya 6y ago
  Can you provide some sources on how RSS is the nazi model. Or is this all based on just one paragraph from 1938 (before it all happened) in one of the books? Subhash chandra Bose met hitler and asked for help against the British rule, is he a nazi now? Would love some sources for RSS goons beating up a protester or activist. Mind you RSS and not some random goony org off the street.
  - webmobdev 6y ago
    No, thanks. I am not interested in helping you whitewash their history. It is common public knowledge that the founders of RSS were an admirer of Hitler and his party. (And they still continue to admire and glorify Hitler). The RSS is also a thrice banned terrorist organization whose members are involved in various communal riots and also assassinated Gandhi. And no, Subhash Chandra Bose is not a Nazi because he didn't embrace their ideology. He was a secular and left-leaning revolutionary who believed that the British could only be overthrown by violence and revolution, and thus relied on the opportunist political maxim that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"to ally with Germany and Japan. While an inspiring figure in indian politics and its freedom movement, his politics was ultimately foolish, as the Japanese occupation of some parts of India, with his army's support, highlighted - the imperial army of Japan considered us as second-class citizens, as did the Nazis, and showed it with the brutality against the indian citizens in the occupied territories.
    - 6y ago
oliv__ 6y ago
"The Indian media is completely sold out to the govt and will only present highly selected and curated pictures." Sounds familiar...
- legolas2412 6y ago
  It may sound similar to how china or russia control media, or how trump supporters think the liberal media is controlled.
sbmthakur 6y ago
There have been multiple reports of cops suffering injuries. https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/86-cops-injured-4-cases-filed-over-tractor-rally-violence-say-police-2358510 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/86-cops-injured-4-cases-file...
quantummkv 6y ago
> Nope, complete propaganda by the Indian govt. So you are claiming that the video in the comment above is fake? That the sword was photoshopped in as part of a misinformation exercise? If you are claiming this, then it sounds something straight out of an Indian QAnon conspiracy theory. > I have family there so I can confirm. I happen to live there myself. So I can confirm that these sword wielding protesters were attacking policemen armed with sticks (Indian policemen are not armed with lethal weapons). I saw this happening from my own window with my own eyes.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by bsan3 6y ago

actuator 6y ago

I don't think we are talking about the same thing. I was talking about the protestors attacking cops of which there are a lot of videos on social media. The video I linked above shows them jumping from a fort to save themselves.

alex_smart 6y ago
There is plenty of propaganda floating around from both sides. If you dislike muddy waters, I would recommend staying out of Indian politics. It is a clusterfuck. To add to your top comment, these events - protestors attacking police personnel and protestors raiding Red Fort and raising their own flags - happened on republic day, which is like a mini 4th of July for India (we have two: 15th August, which is when India became independent and 26th January, which is when India adopted its constitution). On Republic Day, India observes the president furl India's national flag from the Red Fort, so seeing these events unfold, especially seeing a flag other than the Indian flag at Red Fort on Republic Day, were of very big symbolic value.
- davchana 6y ago
  Own flags, which Indian Army encourages, allows, & make a new recruit to Swore upon when recruited. Same flag is the flag of that Regiment, saluted by Prime Ministrr on every Jan 26 parade on Punjab state's vehicle (jhaanki, kind of vehicle is converted & decorated with things showing culture,). Same modi, whose Delhi Police tramples the Tiranga, whose party flies the Tiranga lower than party flag, whose mother party RSS has never flown that flag ever in their premises, events even in 52 years since 1947. & Bumtw, Tiranga was never touched.
  - eklavya 6y ago
    What are you talking about? Didn’t you see the national flag hoisting event in RSS headquarters live on the news like every year?
    - xrisk 6y ago
      He's talking about the fact that the RSS did not raise the Indian flag till about 2002. And that their historical opposition to the flag is well documented.
    - davchana 6y ago
      No, I want to see RSS every year as much as a True Indian want to see Pakistan Independence Day parade. Never. RSS did not hoist Tiranga till 2002. Don't you know or you conveniently ignore?
      - eklavya 6y ago
        Wow, that seems to be correct. I wonder why they would do that. In my childhood I went to an RSS school and we used to hoist the national flag all the time. Strange.
        intended 6y ago
        The RSS does not want India, they want Bharat, they are for a Hindu nation. This isn't even a hidden fact, but in every basic dossier on India.
        eklavya 6y ago
        Where Hindu is a nationality/culture and not a religion. India is a name given by slavers. Bharat is a very very old concept.
        intended 6y ago
        That lovely linguistic sleight of hand means that people called a region bharat. By the criteria how come Sri Lanka is not included? Or how do you reconcile the 7 sisters being part of that? For that matter the word Europe exists - are you arguing that states should act like nations a la the EU?
dragonsh 6y ago
This has been shown again and again by current administration and ruling party in India that power and ideology of pure Hindu state is more important than lives and livelihood. On a grand display in 2002 incident in a province in India [1], please read the whole NYT article, before commenting on it. Later on at display in Kashmir. Subsequently during national register and citizenship act protests where religious riots were used again to suppress a year of peaceful protests. Than again during university protests in New Delhi. Here again students were attacked inside the university, police beat and shot university students. Still even one person from ruling party who participated in violence or a cop who shot is to be prosecuted. On the other hand most of those opposing are being charged with terrorist charges. India to really progress out of poverty needs to first learn to respect its diversity and be united. Current administrations and ruling party’s policy has taken India on a downhill path of economic disaster, lower HDI, more poverty and more hunger. United Nations data and research don’t lie, India constantly slipped compared to its neighbours like Bangladesh on this index. So probably it will be better instead of hardline approach things change in India, otherwise it will be too late for a divided country to progress forward. It might on the other hand will move towards authoritarian dictatorship very quickly. India needs to come out of tyranny of majority and authoritarian mindset of current government for a change. I hope this same story and violence does not repeat in Bengal, where already violence is being promoted to unseat local government which does not believe in Hindu supremacy like the central government. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/09/blood-and-soil-in-narendra-modis-india https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/09/blood-and-soil...
- miohtama 6y ago
  India is objectively moving towards authoritarian dictatorship on many metrics: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/11/28/narendra-modi-threatens-to-turn-india-into-a-one-party-state https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/11/28/narendra-modi-... (And quickly)
  - srean 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5VsGdPHsz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5VsGdPHsz0 A nice documentary. Its a little long though. Fair warning, it needs a strong (metaphorical) stomach if one cares about these issues.
davchana 6y ago
Yes, but those are selective video shots. Many videos on tiktok & whatsapp show where Reporters are telling their cameraman, Dont Show that, when camera goes towards Police slashing the tyres, throwing the flag at ground, & attacking 1 protester by 4+ Cop goons.
- eklavya 6y ago
  Yeah, police will control a rioting mob anyway they can. Maybe don’t brandish swords, try to run over public and police and attack people in your peaceful protest?
  - davchana 6y ago
    The Godi media you are watching does not show the Delhi police trampling over Tiranga, slashing tires, shooting tear gas over a distance of less than 20 feet, blocking the route agreed upon.
    - eklavya 6y ago
      So the police should make sure not to trample on tiranga while controlling a rioting mob? Shooting tear gas is worse than shooting bullets? Let’s not get into what was agreed upon. For that just look at the list of broken promises provided by the police and it’s crystal clear what these people wanted to achieve.
      - davchana 6y ago
        Pulling a tiranga from tractor, & rolling it, & then trampling it over while nothing else is going on, is I think bad. Police Brutality, as a scare tactic will always fire back on dictator's face.
    - boruto 6y ago
      Can you show me a video of slashing tires?
19f191ty 6y ago
More information has come out linking the violent folks to the ruling party. The farmers have said it's not their people. Indeed the leader of the group that entered Red Fort is a known BJP. There's a video of him running away when accosted by the farmers. It's such a mess.
- ngc248 6y ago
  Damn man the level of misinformation you guys are feeding in is at the next level. So which is it, the people who where rioting were actual farmers, sikhs or from BJP? In the same thread you guys are listing out all possible combinations. In India there are Farmer organizations, labour organizations etc of all parties. The current agitation is by farmer orgs belonging to opposition parties. This is just politics nothing else.
  - srean 6y ago
    The trick of discrediting a popular protest by putting your own hooligans to do something abhorrent is as old as the woods. That is what happened.
    - ngc248 6y ago
      It can also be a double bluff, doing it and if it backfires say it is the opposing party's hooligans.
  - 19f191ty 6y ago
    When the media fails to do its job then the people have to do it for them. Of course there will be condtradictory information coming in because the media has completely failed to provide a source of credible information. I'm not throwing out misinformation, but merely pointing out information that the OP missed and is available in reputable sources. There is A LOT of video evidence that points to BJP stooges inciting violence. The guy who hoisted the flag on Red Fort, Deep Siddhu is a known BJP supporter. Times of India , Indian Express, The Wire have all reported on this. Heck even Aj Tak had video where the BJP stooges are throwing stones at the protestors while an entire police battalion stands behind them doing nothing.

asfasfaasfas 6y ago

Complete propaganda here. The oligarchs and nationalists are pushing down the minorities (Sikhs, and Muslims and poor). A t the end of the day those funding Jio and other Oligarchs (Hi Mark, Hi Bond), will end up catching blame with a black swan event goes down. Follow the money, VCs and Facebook fund up these same oligarchs that press and kill hundreds of millions.

LB232323 6y ago
This forum is a product of VCs and big tech. A huge portion of Silicon Valley wealth comes from enslaving and subjugating Asia. This audience is probably the people who need to hear it most, but also the audience that it would upset the most. When did hacker culture evolve from loving technology and rebelling against the establishment into placing profits above human lives? Is a nice tech salary all it takes to purchase one's humanity? What about the promise of VC billions? The profit motive subjugates the poor, perpetuates genocide, and upholds slavery. Technology is not some humanist savior, it has been twisted to exploit the many and serve the few. Maybe one day our advanced technologies will work to serve and uplift the people rather than suppress them.
- Thorrez 6y ago
  Does a US company contracting with say a Chinese company to produce its products help or hurt Chinese workers? I think it would help Chinese workers by increasing employment in China and generally improving the Chinese economy.
  - loopz 6y ago
    Exporting environmental waste, abusive workplace exploitation, unsafe practices and lack of self-reliance, are the counter arguments. We need a healthy mix of both, not the extremes.
    - Thorrez 6y ago
      My thought is that the more wealthy a country becomes, the more it can push back on environmental waste, and the more workplace regulations its workers can demand.

quantgenius 6y ago

I grew up in India, lived there as an adult and while I live in the US, I visit frequently and read Indian newspapers and watch Indian news channels regularly. I couldn't disagree with this more. There are lots of things wrong with Indian democracy but the absence of media freedom or widely publicised robust debate is not one of them. If anything the Indian media absolutely loves to troll and embarass the government, particularly the Central (federal in the US) government, even if they have to do this by allowing opposition or fringe figures to spread very easily debunked misinformation in the interest of creating controversy and hence ratings. I would suggest the media in India is far freer of government influence than the mainstream media in the United States. Something like the NY Times parroting the Pentagon's line regarding the justification for the Iraq war simply would not happen in India. Two recent cases in point: 1) In the current farmer protests, they are demanding that minimum price supports not be removed. The bill does not remove them. The status quo is that only certain government entities can buy directly from the farmers. They always pay the government set fixed price. The bill simply allows other entities to bid more and buy directly from farmers so long as they pay more than the price the government entities would pay. The bill doesn't harm the farmers. It harms corrupt elements in the current Punjab State government. These elements would demand bribes from companies purchasing from the government entities that were the only entities allowed to buy from the farmers. Essentially they would receive the difference between fair market value for the produce and the government minimum as a bribe. Now the buyers can simply buy directly from the farmers and the farmers get full market value unless market value drops below the minimum. The bill explicitly stipulates that the farmers have the absolute right to sell to the government at the government set price if they choose to. Half my family is Punjabi, many live in Punjab. The vast majority, including the vast majority of farmers, strongly support the bill. 2) Recent protests around the Citizenship Amendment Act. The Act only codifies into law commitments the Indian Government made when India split into India and Pakistan. The Supreme Court has ruled that those commitments are binding. However, before the act actually getting the paperwork through the bureaucracy meant lots of bribes, for bureaucrats, for politicians and whoever could get on the gravy train. Just like in the case of these protests, the protests against that Act were against things the Act actually did not do. I was born in Kashmir. Half my family is Kashmiri. I lived there until I was 7 when our family moved due to increasing terrorism. I have friends and family there. Cutting off the Internet in Kashmir has nothing to do with keeping the truth out. Mobile communications can be used to get the truth. They can also be used to coordinate terrorism. If Russia decided to send Eskimo infiltrators into Alaska routinely with the goal of creating an insurrection, b) these infiltrators and certain brainwashed local individuals had killed 50,000 people over 20 years, c) Russia was determined to recover Alaska at virtually any cost, d) there was clear information that a few thousand infiltrators had already entered and were using VPNs running over mobile phones to coordinate, and e) if the US government had been unable to crack the encryption in real-time, I suspect mobile internet would be cut off in Alaska. Only 3000 people died in 9-11 and the US government did far more to restrict freedom that the Indian government has ever done. As far as the current protests are concerned, it wasn't that long ago some of the same groups who are currently involved in the "farmer" protests were coordinating with Pakistan to try to create an independent Punjab. This eventually led to the Indian government having to execute Operation Blue Star, after it became clear that Pakistan intended to start a war within 24 hours in hopes of a local insurrection helping them. I was in Amritsar during Operation Blue Star. We found spent bullets (likely fired into the air miles away) in our back yard after it was all over. According to army officers who were involved in the operation, who our family has known for years, and who came over to our house for a meal after it was all over, there was enough ammunition stored at the Golden Temple to supply an infantry battalion for a month. The same elements in the Punjab government who receive bribes due to price controls on agriculture have also been turning a blind eye to the massive drug influx into Punjab, drugs which originate in Taliban controlled Afghanistan and fund the ISI. The reality is that in India these groups were allowed to rehabilitate themselves, and these individuals actually hold positions in state government. If the same had happened in the US, they would have been locked up in Supermax prisons and the keys thrown away. Don't read this as whataboutism. I frankly think the Indian government has been far too soft in handling this sort of thing. Democracy and the fundamental rights embedded in a free country's constitution are not a suicide pact.

webmobdev 6y ago

Very true. The current political party in power in India now is the political arm of the right-wing religious fundamentalist organization called the RSS. The RSS was inspired, and is modelled, after the Nazi party of Hitler in Germany. And like the Nazis, their goal is to take over complete control of our country and make it a theocratic-corporate-state under one party controlled by them. To this end, the government now abuses its powers to effectively use the corporate run media to discredit and attack any opposition against it, along with even physical threats and attacks using the RSS goons against any vocal activist or protestor.

eklavya 6y ago
Can you provide some sources on how RSS is the nazi model. Or is this all based on just one paragraph from 1938 (before it all happened) in one of the books? Subhash chandra Bose met hitler and asked for help against the British rule, is he a nazi now? Would love some sources for RSS goons beating up a protester or activist. Mind you RSS and not some random goony org off the street.
- webmobdev 6y ago
  No, thanks. I am not interested in helping you whitewash their history. It is common public knowledge that the founders of RSS were an admirer of Hitler and his party. (And they still continue to admire and glorify Hitler). The RSS is also a thrice banned terrorist organization whose members are involved in various communal riots and also assassinated Gandhi. And no, Subhash Chandra Bose is not a Nazi because he didn't embrace their ideology. He was a secular and left-leaning revolutionary who believed that the British could only be overthrown by violence and revolution, and thus relied on the opportunist political maxim that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"to ally with Germany and Japan. While an inspiring figure in indian politics and its freedom movement, his politics was ultimately foolish, as the Japanese occupation of some parts of India, with his army's support, highlighted - the imperial army of Japan considered us as second-class citizens, as did the Nazis, and showed it with the brutality against the indian citizens in the occupied territories.
  - 6y ago

oliv__ 6y ago

"The Indian media is completely sold out to the govt and will only present highly selected and curated pictures." Sounds familiar...

legolas2412 6y ago
It may sound similar to how china or russia control media, or how trump supporters think the liberal media is controlled.

sbmthakur 6y ago

There have been multiple reports of cops suffering injuries. https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/86-cops-injured-4-cases-filed-over-tractor-rally-violence-say-police-2358510 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/86-cops-injured-4-cases-file...

quantummkv 6y ago

> Nope, complete propaganda by the Indian govt. So you are claiming that the video in the comment above is fake? That the sword was photoshopped in as part of a misinformation exercise? If you are claiming this, then it sounds something straight out of an Indian QAnon conspiracy theory. > I have family there so I can confirm. I happen to live there myself. So I can confirm that these sword wielding protesters were attacking policemen armed with sticks (Indian policemen are not armed with lethal weapons). I saw this happening from my own window with my own eyes.

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