Bloomberg News
@Bloomberg-News·2.8M subscribers·40.1K videos
LIVE: National Strike Intensifies Protests Against New India Farm Laws | December 8
Posted
December 8, 2020
Views
247,539
Likes
1,055
Comments
5
Engagement
December 8, 2020
247,539
1,055
5
0.43%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
You’re on December 8, 2020. Earlier episodes are to the left, later ones to the right — the row keeps loading as you go. Click any card to open it.
Dec 8, 2020Now Playing(Dec. 8) Tens of thousands of farmers across India took to the streets Tuesday during a nationwide strike demanding the scrapping of new agricultural laws, intensifying an almost fortnight long standoff with the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The daylong shutdown, called by several farm groups, impacted traffic and movement in some parts of the country. Wholesale agricultural markets in Mumbai and Delhi were shut, while highways were blocked in some states such as Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, according to news reports.
Borders connecting capital New Delhi with the northern Uttar Pradesh and Haryana states remained closed causing traffic snarls. Farmers have been camping out at these border points for a 13th day Tuesday and thousands of police and paramilitary troops have been mobilized to prevent the protesters from entering the Indian capital.
Farmers’ representatives and senior federal ministers are slated to meet again Wednesday to break the deadlock that has become a significant problem confronting Modi’s government. About 800 million of the country’s over 1.3 billion people depend directly or indirectly on agriculture, giving the group considerable political clout.
Several rounds of talks between the two sides have remained inconclusive so far. About a dozen opposition parties are supporting the nationwide shutdown.
“There has been support and solidarity from a lot of sections of the society,” said Avik Saha, organizing secretary of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, adding about 2.5 million people across the country are on the road to make the shutdown successful. “It’s small versus big. It’s widespread.”
The three new laws seek to remove restrictions on marketing farm products and allow cultivators to engage with private companies to sell their crops, which farmers fear will prompt the government to stop making direct purchases at minimum state-set prices. Farmers argue the laws will hurt their incomes and make farming in India harder, while the government says the reforms will lead to prosperity.
---
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world.
To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app.
Connect with us on…
Breaking News on YouTube
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
