While farmers play an important role in contributing to our day to day livelihood mainstream media is completely ignoring what’s happening with farmers in Haryana. The recently central government has introduced three ordinances to improve the market status for the farmers. The three ordinances according to Firstpost:
“The first among them is the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance 2020, which allows farmers to sell products outside the markets notified under the various state agricultural produce market laws (state APMC Acts).
The second ordinance, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance 2020 overrides all state APMC laws with reference to the sale and purchase of farm products, and bring uniformity into contractual farming rules (and state APMC Acts) across India. It also amends the role of APMCs in the case of contract farming.
The third ordinances, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance 2020, has brought changes into a list of essential items whose prices are regulated by the government.”
While the central government failed to communicate these properly, the opposition took a chance to raise a point where they believe it will destroy the existing mandi system of farmers. Farmer’s community in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh are in uncertainty with this farmers have been protesting and they have blocked the Delhi-Chandigarh highway in Kurukshetra, Haryana for some hours as a result of which Police used force in order to clear the way. There has been violence and stone-pelting by the protesters as per the authorities.
Where all the attention is going for what’s been happening surrounding the arrest of Rhea Chakraborty on drug charges and what’s been happening in Maharastra due to the autocratic behavior of Shiv Sena, media has ignored the police brutality on farmers who were protesting on their own right even if it was a case of opportunism by the opposition. Due to social media and it’s power this story is reaching to some but still until it is picked up by the mainstream media it won’t get enough attention needed. There is no point denying that due to the covering of late superstar Sushant Singh Rajput’s story the case been moved drastically forward in order to find justice for his family and his millions of fans. As the mainstream media picked up the late actor’s story they have seen the engagement of viewers increased, the main focus for that movement was to get CBI and Supreme court’s attention to the irregularities in the case but in the process, the media is clinging to the case for too long and other important matters like the story of the farmers are being ignored.
We need serious reforms in our media where news stories should be news focusing rather than TRP or clickbait focused. We understand that the news channels also have to run businesses in order to sustain but they should make sure that the important matters are not being ignored in the process. Also, it is our moral duty as well to make sure we listen to the people who put food in our plates.
