With the agitation against the contentious farm laws refusing to abate, and even intensifying further, the prime minister has once again tried to allay the apprehensions of the farmers reiterating that the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system for their produce will continue. “MSP tha, MSP hai aur MSP rahega (MSP was there, MSP is there, MSP will remain in the future),” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Rajya Sabha on Monday amid the ongoing farmers’ protests.
“Affordable ration for the poor will continue. Mandis will be modernised,” PM Modi said adding that for the welfare of the farmers, we need to rise above political calculations.
PM Modi also said that the need of the hour is to improve the lives of the country’s small farmers. “Since 2014 the Government has initiated changes in the agriculture sector aimed at empowering the farmer. The crop insurance scheme was changed to make it more farmer-friendly. The PM-KISAN scheme was also brought in. Farmers have received insurance claims worth over Rs 90,000 crore under PMFBY. Farmers also benefitted from Kisan Credit Card, Soil Health Card and Samman Nidhi,” said the Prime Minister while replying to the motion of thanks on the President’s address in the Rajya Sabha.
PM Modi appealed to the agitating farmers to end their protest and said talks should be held to resolve the issue. Thousands of farmers have camped outside Delhi over the past two months and more, demanding repeal of the three farm laws.
The Prime Minister addressed the criticism of Indian democracy and said that “Indian democracy is not a western institution but a human institution. It is imperative to alert the countrymen about the all-round attack on Indian Nationalism.” Quoting Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the Prime Minister asserted, Indian nationalism is neither narrow nor selfish or aggressive, It is based on the notion of Satyam, Shivam Sundaram. “India is not merely the world’s largest democracy. India is the ‘Mother of Democracy’ and this is our ethos. Our nation’s temperament is democratic”, said the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Modi on Monday said the country needs to be cautioned against the influences from abroad that he referred to as “foreign destructive ideology”.
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“The nation is making progress and we are talking about FDI but I see that a new FDI has come to the fore. We have to protect the nation from this new FDI. We need Foreign Direct Investment but the new FDI is ‘foreign destructive ideology’. We have to protect ourselves from it,” said PM Modi.
“A new entity has come up in the country- ‘Andolan Jivi’. They can be spotted wherever there is a protest, be it agitation by lawyers, students, or labourers, explicitly or implicitly. They cannot live without ‘andolan’, we have to identify them and protect the nation from them,” he added.
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