Thousands of Farmers Lay Siege to India’s Capital Protesting New Farm Laws (Video by Danish Pandit, Aquib Siddiqui, Nikita Jai

Thousands of Farmers Lay Siege to India’s Capital Protesting New Farm Laws (Video by Danish Pandit, Aquib Siddiqui, Nikita Jai

New Delhi — For the eighth day, tens of thousands of Indian farmers continued their protests against new agriculture laws, disrupting traffic and threatening to block all entry points to the nation’s capital of New Delhi.The protests began Nov.

26 against three farm laws passed by the government introduced in September 2020, which purportedly aim to break the monopoly of state government-run market places (mandis), allowing farmers to sell directly to private entities.

The farmers believe the move will reduce the authority of state governments as their revenues from the mandis will dwindle.A meeting chaired by India's agricultural minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Nov.

1 to discuss the three farm laws and the proposed Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2020 to regulate the tariffs to boost India’s ailing power sector was inconclusive.

(Video by Danish Pandit, Aquib Siddiqui, Nikita Jain, Anand Mangnale and Gaurab Dasgupta)