After 19 days of protests on a row, India's farmers on Monday intensified their mobilizations with new roadblocks and hunger strikes to show their rejection of three laws that place the agricultural sector in the hands of big corporations.
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"These laws not only negatively affect farmers. They will also jeopardize the nation's food security," the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) said and stressed that "repeal of these laws is the only way to suspend the protests."
Prime Minister Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reforms seek to deregulate the prices and quantity of certain crops, which were sold in wholesale markets controlled by public authorities.
His administration also seeks that companies can negotiate directly with producers, a possibility that would leave small farmers at the mercy of large entrepreneurs.
Despite the forcefulness of the social rejection of its economic policies, the Indian government remains stubborn in defending the liberalization of markets as something positive for farmers.
"The government's intentions are good... We have tried to explain it to the farmers' unions... We want to have a clause-by-clause discussion with them. If they express their opinions on our proposals, then we can move forward," the Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said.
On Dec. 11, a convoy of 1,200 tractors and 50,000 farmers advanced to New Delhi on Friday to join the agrarian protest that is taking place on the border with the states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, as reported by Prensa Latina.
The largest protests were repeated this Monday in several of the entrances to New Delhi, where the peasants have been camped for 19 days.