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Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 10:20:16 am

Tearful Harvest

Despair once again prevails in Maharashtra’s onion belt as angry farmers have launched protests across Nashik, Sambhaji Nagar and Solapur in wake of onion prices crashing to absurdly low levels. For cultivators who spent months battling erratic weather, rising fertiliser costs and mounting debt, the arithmetic is devastating. At such prices, farmers are unable even to recover transportation costs, let alone repay loans or sustain their households. In the past, Governments in Delhi have risen...

Tearful Harvest

Despair once again prevails in Maharashtra’s onion belt as angry farmers have launched protests across Nashik, Sambhaji Nagar and Solapur in wake of onion prices crashing to absurdly low levels. For cultivators who spent months battling erratic weather, rising fertiliser costs and mounting debt, the arithmetic is devastating. At such prices, farmers are unable even to recover transportation costs, let alone repay loans or sustain their households. In the past, Governments in Delhi have risen and fallen over onion prices. In 1980, soaring onion prices contributed to public anger against the Janata Party government. In 1998, the BJP lost the Delhi Assembly elections amid voter fury over onions becoming prohibitively expensive. Few commodities possess such emotional resonance in Indian politics. Yet there is a cruel irony in India’s onion economy, namely that while consumers revolt when prices rise, farmers suffer when prices crash. Farmers in Maharashtra are demanding procurement at Rs. 32 per kg, while the state government has announced an assured procurement price of Rs. 1,580 per quintal. Leaders of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi have openly challenged the Mahayuti government to show where procurement at those rates was actually taking place. Yet the crisis illustrates a larger structural failure that no emergency meeting can fully conceal. India’s onion economy remains trapped in a cycle of volatility. When production dips, governments rush to ban exports, impose stock limits and flood markets with imports to calm urban consumers. But when production surges, farmers are abandoned to market collapses. The result is a deeply distorted agricultural ecosystem where cultivators bear the risks while political actors chase short-term electoral optics. Maharashtra, which accounts for a substantial share of India’s onion production, has witnessed such turmoil repeatedly. The protests of 2018, when farmers dumped onions on roads in Nashik after prices crashed below cultivation costs, should have served as a warning. They did not. Nor did earlier agitations led by the Shetkari Sanghatana in the 1980s and 1990s, which highlighted the asymmetry between urban-centric policymaking and agrarian realities. The present crisis is especially troubling because it strikes at a moment of already fragile rural sentiment. Farmer indebtedness remains acute. Climate variability has made cultivation increasingly precarious while input costs have risen steadily. Against this backdrop, a market collapse becomes a social issue, feeding anger, migration and, in the worst cases, suicides. The answer lies not in episodic procurement announcements or reactive subsidies, but in deeper reforms. India requires better agricultural storage infrastructure, predictable export policies and decentralised food-processing networks that can absorb production gluts. Most importantly, policymakers must stop treating farmers merely as electoral constituencies to be placated during crises. The onion has often moved governments because it affects the urban middle class. But a republic that ignores the tears of those who grow it risks a far deeper reckoning.

People praise Army for protecting

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah interacts with displaced border residents at a shelter camp.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah interacts with displaced border residents at a shelter camp.

Garkhal (J&K): Men and machines of the armed forces worked meticulously to ensure the interception of Kamikaze drones and missiles fired by Pakistani troops targeting Jammu, drawing widespread appreciation from people.


India on Thursday night swiftly thwarted Pakistan's fresh attempts to strike military sites with drones and missiles, including in Jammu and Pathankot, after foiling similar bids at 15 locations across the country's northern and western regions, amid a military conflict between the two neighbours.


Looking after the operational area of Jammu under the command of the 9 Corps, the 26 Infantry Division, nicknamed the "Tiger Division", had put in place a robust air-defence system, virtually carving out an Israel-type Iron Dome to protect Jammu from a Hamas-style attack by Pakistan.


An official who was privy to the developments said it was a meticulous combination of men and machines in defence that thwarted such a massive Pakistani attack.


In the dead of night, Pakistan unleashed its most audacious assault on Jammu since the 1971 war, deploying a swarm of more than a hundred Kamikaze drones and missiles in a sinister attempt to devastate the city. But what followed was a show of unmatched precision, courage and resilience.


"We are indebted to our armed forces who have saved Jammu from a major attack by Pakistan. We appreciate them for their missionary work. We never thought these bombs could be neutralised in the air," Garkhal resident Sikender Singh said.


Singh, whose family, along with more than 500 villagers, has shifted to safer camps set up by the government in Mishriwala on the Jammu outskirts, said had the bombs not been intercepted, they could have caused massive deaths and destruction.


Finest system

The Army, backed by one of the world's finest air-defence systems, intercepted the aerial barrage with astonishing accuracy -- virtually every hostile object was destroyed mid-air. Not a single vital installation was touched. Not a single civilian life was lost.


"Eight missiles from Pakistan were directed at Satwari, Samba, R S Pura and Arnia. All were intercepted and blocked by air-defence units. Visuals over Jammu reminded exactly of a Hamas-style attack on Israel, like multiple cheap rockets," an Army official said.


He said the Pakistan Army is operating and behaving like Hamas. "Drones were sighted at multiple places along the western front -- confirmed to be hostile. They are being effectively engaged by our air-defence systems. Pakistani drone attacks have been reported at various locations along the western borders and are being effectively countered by the Indian armed forces," he added.


The multi-tier air-defence system, with a twin technological security architecture of Russian and Israeli surface-to-air missile setups and the indigenous Akash, was a game changer against such attacks.


Former Jammu and Kashmir director general of police S P Vaid appreciated the armed forces and their technological security systems for effectively dealing with the Pakistani attacks.


He said 50 to 60 air attacks by Pakistan over Jammu and other places were neutralised on Thursday night by the impregnable air-defence system of the country.


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