The Formulation of Farm Bills

The rationale behind formulation of the recent Farm Bills is the need of the time outgrowing the APMC system of sale of agricultural produce. APMC, the Agricultural Produce Market Committee, is a system under the State Government. The mandatory system of APMC currently used in the distribution and sale of agricultural produce sets a chain of middlemen for transfer of the produce from farmers to the consumers in the market. Every State has their separate APMC and the State only divides the ‘mandis’ according to the area and each area has a specific ‘mandi’. Only those traders who have license for a particular ‘mandi’ can buy from them, who later supply them to the consumers. Even the farmer of a particular area can only sell their produce in the ‘mandi’ of their area. Auction is done by government to set prices for the produce in the market. Minimum Support Price (MSP) at which government buys agricultural produce are set for only 22 crops, the value for rest of the crop are decided throu price discovery (market demand and supply.  This model was prepared by Government of India back in 1938 and applied by the States during 1960s. The rationale behind introducing APMC ( and MSP was to safeguard the interest of the farmers against the exploitation by money lenders and zamindars. Also, since it was before the Green Revolution, it gave a great motivation to farmers to remain engaged in agriculture which was important at the time because self-sufficiency in food supply was yet to be achieved.

But in all these years, the current situation has outgrown this system and it is doing more harm than protection. It has monopolized the sale of agricultural produce and is resulting in explotation. During these stages, commission is charged at every stage, thereby increasing the price of the produce. So, the produce sold at Rs. 5-7 is sold to consumers at Rs.50-70 but the benefit does not reach the producers but rather the State in name of commission and taxes, given that we assume that there is no corruption at the bureaucratic level. Also, in cases, the traders form a cartel and decide to not buy produce at price more than MSP. Since MSP is set low so as to inculcate all taxes and keep the final price from inflating too much, this coerce the farmers to sell their produce of perishable nature at price far lower than they can get if they directly sell in the consumer market. Also, MSP is decided at country level inspite of the cost of produce being different at regional level. This leads to unequal profit for the same produce, which further leads to disparities between States.

During the 1991 reform, one of the critics has been that no heed was paid to the agricultural sector and the policies focused on secondary and tertiary sector. Through the recent farm bills, government is trying to reduce its control over farming and agricultural industry and allowing to access to free market so that farmers can take direct benefit from it.

One of the major causes of protest against farm bills by State governments has been the reduction in State revenues as the taxes and commission will be removed. The distress among farmers, particularly from areas like Punjab and Haryana, is because the farmers here produce mostly wheat and paddy, in huge surplus They expect the price to fall if MSP is removed. Also, only 6% of farmers actually sell their crops at MSP. If trade is allowed tax free outside ‘mandis’ the government support might be retracted and that will take away the stability from the few farmers actually using MSP.

The farm bills has surely cased a stretched unrest, has been one of the reasons of during the monsoon session of parliament. But it is not a rash decision neither is it first time implementation. Agriculture is a State List agenda and several States allow trade outside of APMC. These bills have the potential to help more percentage of the price paid by the final consumer to reach the farmers and financially and economically stabalise more farmers.

Human Resource and Rural development:

Rural economic development needs a wide range of human resource development. The promotion of economic reforms in rural areas will only be valid when the rural human resources are developed enough to adapt them. Otherwise this will be a waste of resources as there won’t be specific data driven results.

Economic development rationally provides financial and equipped background support to Human resources.

Rural Human resource development needs to reach out to 4 objectives:

 As rural development and progress human resource plays a very decisive role for economic growth.

Rural human resource development needs to reach the four objectives:

1.Control the population size through enhancing family planning. This contributes to sustainable development of human resource.

2. Achieve optimal allocation and fully employment of human resources through adjusting irrational distribution of human resources in regions, employment and knowledge structure.

3. Enhance cultural quality, moral quality, professional skills and management Skills of rural human resource, meet rural construction need and drive economic development through strengthening technical education, adult education and basic education.

4. More effectively carry out human resource development without any worry through establishing rural guarantee system.

Benefits of human resource development:-

1. Resources are utilized in an optimum manner.

2.  Makes people more competent, it develops new skills, knowledge and attitude of the people.

3.Increases the awareness of the importance of change management

4. Helps in developing a sense of belongingness among the employees

5. Human resources development policies promote openness in the overall growth of employees.

Human resource basically work to make the best out of the skills of a person.

Rural men women and even children are very efficient at manual labour and cam be used as a great asset in manual work in machinery sectors. The women can become a great asset to the cooking industry as well as home based works. They can also be made known about the internet and how they can use technology to get their best potential.

Imported products have replaced a lot of Made in India products since a lot of time. But these rural people who need more opportunities and better living can always be trusted with home made brands as well as good work when given the right information.

Even a farmer requires the knowledge of the crop to be a good farmer.

Accumulation of human resource capital will become an economic growth point of rural areas

Digitalization of rural areas

According to a survey with more than 600 million internets users ,india is one of the largets and fastest growing digital markets in the world for digital consumers. however most of the users are from urban area hence we can say that urban india is the reason behind this substantial growth.
But with government’s push towards financial inclusion rural india have also started embracing digital economy.

It is estimated that about 66% of India’s population is rural which contributes 46 percent of the total income of the nation.
As per the recent TRAI reports internet user account of rural india has increased from 32 percent in 2017 to 38 percent in 2020.
Despite the growing number of users ,there is still a wide Digital gap between urban and rural area.
This gap mainly stems from two factors –

1. Lack of infrastructure
2. Lack of awareness

To reduce the gap between urban and rural india and to improve digital infrastructure in country especially in rural india “Digital India” programme was launched by the indian government.
Under this programme many initiatives were taken to boost rural digital infrastructure.some of them are listed as follows :-

1.Bharatnet :-
Aims to provide broadband acces to iver 250,000 gram panchayat with help of a network of optical fibre

2.Common Service Centres :-
Centres through which e- governance and other related services will be made available in villages

3.Universal access to mobile :-
Aims to provide mobile coverage to more than 55600 villages which do not have network coverage

4. Digitization of post offices :-
   As the name suggests it aims to digitise poat office along with setting up of network centres, networking of all post offices and enabling digital payments

Steps taken to spread awareness :-

Under the ” digital india ” , ” Pradhan mantri gramin digital saksharta abhiyan ” was launced to spread digital awareness among the rural people.

The main aim of this abhiyan was to make 6 crores of people residing in rural villages digitally literate.These steps are supposed to have a positive impact on the society.

With digitization many sectors started developing and earning more profits.two of the sectors which were stated to benefit from digitization are
1.Agriculture sector
2.Financial sector

Agriculture sector :- Being one of the major sectors of this nation, agriculture accounts for almost 50 percent of the tital workforce and 18 percent of the GDP.Despite significant contribution ,indian agriculture is mostly dependent on human labour and rainfall unlike developed countries that rely on highly mechanized farming techniques.
Realising the need of the hour,Indian government has launched the ‘Kisan Suvidha’ app whichassists farmers with relevant information on the weather of the current day and next five days, market prices, dealers, agro advisories, and plant protection.
Start-ups like SatSure, CropIn, Niruthi, AgRisk etcetra aling with the digital government programmes help the farmers in sowing and crop monitoring, capturing and analyzing various data points, including crop, soil, and weather data which assist in decision making and easy acces to crop insurance other facilities.

Financial sector :-
Just like the agriculture sector ,the rural financial sector is also on the cusp of digital revolution.over last few years many financial initiatives have been rolled out.
Few of them are :-

1. Aadhaar :-
   A unique biometric identification
2. Jan dhan savings bank accounts

3.direct transfer of social benefit payments

4.BHIM :-
the digital payment infrastructure

These initiatives taken by the indian government has resulted in increase of banking penetration from 54 percent in 2014 to 80 percent in 2018.

Increase in banking penetration presents a significant opportunity for the start-ups , financial product space etc.
For Example,Start-ups like Jai Kisan and FIA technology are bridging the digital gap in rural India by offering financial products and services.
These initiatives by the government and the effort from the private sector l

Necessity of Communication :

“If at the time of purported acceptance , the offeror has changed his mind ,no meeting of the minds is possible and the formation of the contract cannot take place . This indeed was the theory of an english case of 1790 Cooke v Oxley in which D offered to sell some tobacco at a certain price should P accept the proposal before 4’o clock the same day. P gave D a notice of acceptance before the deadline but D having changed his mind regused to enter the transaction. It was therefore held that no contract was made .

Problems Of Revocation:

Formation of a contract lies within giving the power of acceptance to the offreerather than in a meeting of the minds, A different principle has been definitely established . Admittedly even today Freedom of contracting and making the offers permits the offeror to reserve for himself the possibility of revoking his offer without any notice. Thus in Tartoria v Mankoa real estate broker having a listing of Ds property was held to be entitled to his comissionwhen he procured a customer after the property had been sold since the seller had concealed the sale from the broker.”

Today revocation is generally so strictly connected with the offerees notice  about it has also been defined as the communication of change in the offererspurpose. Its justified that communication is essential for revocation purpose.

Revocation of Public Offers:

On this point the restatement lays down the following rule:

An offer made by advertisement in a newspaper or by a feneral notification to public or to a no. Of persons whole identity is known to the offerer, is revoked by an advertisement or general notice given publicity equal to that given to an offer before a contract has been created by acceptance of offer.

Direct notice of Revocation:

As revocation is ineffective soo long as the offeree does not know about it the best method of revoking is to dirr3ctly notify the offereethat the offerer has changed his mind in the course of dealings between the two parties. As to there are formal requirements as to making of certain types of contracts , there are no similar requirements as to the validity of a revocation. Any means of communicating with the offeree is acceptable. The rule is expressed in section 41 of  Restatement of contracts entitled “Revocation by commucationfrom offererrecieved by offree”.

Revocation of Acceptance:

According to english law an acceptance once made is irrevocable. In the words of Anson : “Acceptance is to offer what a lighted match is to a train obviously confined in its operation only to postal acceptance. It is suggested in Anson that in other cases “an acceptance can be revoked any time before acceptance is complete provided of the course that the revocation itself is communicated before the acceptance arrives. In india on the other hand acceptance is generally revocable. An acceptoe may cancel his acceptance by a speedier mode of communication which will reach earlier than the acceptance itself. Section 5 is the relant provisio

Revocation generally in terms mean to withdraw something. It can be anything of a good , offer, task, deal anything. It may also stand for cancellation. So revocation in the law of contracts can be defines as a remedy given to buyers if not satisfied with goods of the sellers. The buyers here are termed as offerers and revocation must be communicated to offree before acceptance. This is also the general common rule on revocation.

 Section 2(e) says that an agreement is defined as a set of promises. This happens when an offer is placed by the offererand accepted by the offree. Revocation can only be done before the acceptance of a particular agreement.According to section 2e All agreements are not contracts but all contracts are agreements.

What is Acceptance:“Section 2(b) defines accpetances as :When the person to whom the proposal is made signifies his assent there to the proposal is said to be accepted. A proposal when accepted becomes a promise.Thus acceptance is the assent given to a proposal and it has the effect of covering the proposal into promise. 

Communication of Acceptance: One of the good examples of actof acceptance is when the hammer falls in an auction. According to the words of Shah J  An agreement does not result from a mere state of mind :intent to accept an offer or even a mental ressolveto accept an offer does not give rise to a contract.

An illustration of acceptance by consuct is the decisionof the House of Lords in Brogden v Metropolitan Railway Co. Facts: B had been supplying coal to a railway company without any formal agreement. B suggested that a formal agreement should be drawn up. The agents of both the parties met and drew up a draft agreement. It had some blanks when it was sent to B for his approval. He filled up the blanks including the name of an arbitrator and then returned it to the company. The agent of the company put the draft in his drawer and it remained there without final approval having been signified. B kept up his supply of coals but on the new terms and also recieved payment on the new terms. A dispute having risen B refused to be bound by the agreement.”

Tehmina Durrani, born in Lahore, Pakistan, debuted with her autobiography, ‘My Feudal Lord’. Her mother was a light-skinned beauty and a dominant person who controlled everything and everyone in her household without even raising a hand. She faced a lot of discrimination from her mother during her childhood because she was darker than her other siblings. The stigma in society at that time regarding dark complexion and her mother’s behavior towards her rendered her with inferiority complex. She only received love from her father and maternal grandmother who loved her dearly and did not discriminate her from other siblings.

When she was in school, she fell in love with Anees Khan. Anees wrote letter to her which she found to be really affectionate. She tried to convince her mother for marriage as well as Anees’ mother came with a marriage proposal several times but her mother was reluctant to it because Anees did not come from an influencial or high class family. The reason behind her agreeing for the marriage was when she talked to her friend, got suggested that she should get Tehmina married because, of her dark complexion, it will be difficult to find a man for her and it is good if a man is ready to marry her, just do away with her before it’s late. Her family was finally convinced but few days before marriage, she got cold feet and tried to stop it saying that she was in love with the idea of love and didn’t really loved Anees. Her father and Anees, calling this a sign of stress due to preparation of marriage and grief of leaving her home, brushed away this argument of hers and she married Anees knowing she didn’t love him. Two and a half years later, her marriage reached a saturation point birth of her daughter, Tanya, was a breath of fresh air for her. She dearly loved and cared about her and devoted her life to her because the marriage she had with anees held nothing else for her. Inspite of this, she was bewildered and puzzled at having become a mother, understanding little of the woman into which she was developing. Initially, she was hopelessly immature.

Tehmina leaving Anees for Mustafa Khar inspite of having a child with him is a controversial and debatable topic.

We can argue that Tehmina was right in leaving her husband and kid for Mustafa because, initially, the image of Mustafa that she had in her mind was that of a misunderstood gentleman. She thought she can see the real Mustafa beneath the strong front he puts. She believed Anees to be a nice and kind man who trusted and loved her greatly but it wasn’t the case for her. She did not love him. When she saw Mustafa, she realized what was it that she was missing. She had legacy of her mother without even realizing it and Anees feel short of it. Anees was inconsequential and she did not hold any faith in his abilities or respect for his intellect. She did not wanted a marriage like his parents in which her mother dominated every decision of her father’s.She wanted a strong man. Not only for her personal self but she also thought that her mother’s eyes that screamed how inadequate she was would then be more acceptable of her or rather, not affect her because she was with a strong man like Mustafa.

But her leaving of her husband and child for another man, a married man, invite a lot of criticism on a lot of aspects. She claimed to be a loving mother, yet she was ready to let her child go through something as disturbing as divorce just because, as she claimed, she was falling into an abyss called Mustafa Khar. At a number of places, she even blames Anees for not being a vigilant husband and stop the advances of Mustafa and lead her back to a virtuous life and thoughts that did not point to her infidelity. She says at one part in the book that, “Common sense vanished along with caution, morality and decency: my emotions overwhelmed me”. She herself was very aware of her act being indecent and how immoral it was to pry and want a married man. She did not care for her child, she did not care for the emotions of a fellow woman and instead blamed her for not being understanding of Mustafa. She did not care for her loving husband and supportive in-laws who gave her a family environment that wasn’t toxic and dominating on her. She left the place she was respected at, cherished at, blinded by emotion, inflicting pain and hurt to numerous person in the wake of it. She was at that time young and immature, but the way she handled her situation is still too much too be covered up by that.

Vijay Tendulkar was a famous Indian playwright of contemporary times, during the third phase of threatre. He could be called a complete playwright in tradition of Shakespeare because how he reflected on the society in his plays and the way her brought the characters to life.

Not many playwrights can claim such an achievement. He took on themes that were not spoken on in those times, various taboo themes of sexuality, violence within the family and outside, treatment of women in the Indian society.

One such play he wrote that brought him to spotlight was ‘Silence! The Court Is In Session’. The play takes on the plight of a single Indian woman, the stigma attached to her in the society at that times and how she held more accountable for wanting to live her life her way, unlike a man ever would be. A play within a play, it centers around the mock trial aimed at showing the Samant what a court proceeding looks like and prosecuted the protagonist, Ms. Benare, for a fake crime that was turned into a contempt against her and her personal life and she felt as if she was on a real trial for her “crime” – Being an unwed mother.

Ms. Leela Benare, the protagonist, is written as a modern young woman in the middle class society today she is cheerful, lively and seeks to live life on her own terms. She is a dedicated and devoted teacher and believes that one should live their life to the fullest. He character suffers in the play because the way she lived her life defied the established social norms and her private life was dissected for the evil pleasure of the males of the group and to satisfy the jealous of the only woman present there apart from Ms. Benare.

The highlighted character represents a modern day free-minded women who are out there in the field doing what they love and living the life on their own terms. The times have changed since the play was first written but the plight of such women still exists and is in effect more than we would like it to be. A woman, even today is questioned for the clothes she wear, working late night, hanging out with male friends and having fun and living their life. The stigma still continues that a woman needs to be reserved, should marry as soon as possible and live her life as far as the permission of her husband allows. And this is the top most layer of it all. The things turn worse if a woman is romantically involved with a man she is not married. She becomes an object of scrutiny for the entire society n the pall-bearers of the “purity of society” treat them as an anomaly and possible threat to the “sancity” of the society. For some reason, the affair of a married man is not as big an issue for the people as a romantic involvement of a woman is. A man can follow his desires, even sexual, run away from his responsibility of upholding the sanctity of society and still live his life in peace. The private life of a man never comes in question when his professional competency is concerned unless it’s something as grave as committing a crime, which still form a crucial part for professional area, the background of an employee. A woman on the other hand, needs to maintain a “society-approved” speckless record of personal life to prove her professional competency.

All this gets far much worse if you are an unmarried single woman who’s pregnant or a divorcee. Male divorcees are still treated with more pity than a female divorcee. In the case of the play, how Miss Benare was treated for having a flirtatious nature and living a life full of fun and enthusiasm won’t come as big surprise for the readers. Also, how Prof. Damle was not at all held at contempt, neither was her maternal uncle, for getting involved with her. But Ms. Benare alone faced the blunt of it all, because she’s a woman who wanted nothing more than love from a man and was betrayed. In the game, skeletons tumbled out of the closet and her suicidal tendencies as well as seducing every male member in the troupe and proposal of marriage to everyone is revealed. The institution of a inquiry in her school for her moral conduct which will dismiss her from service (her sole means of sustenance) was also ordered. The hypocrite society calls motherhood divine, higher than heaven and infanticide a great sin will not take any kind of motherhood other than the what they suppose is correct, which is, a married woman. Other elements such as inter-caste marriage is not included in the play but that as well decides the level of divinity of one’s mother hood

She does not want to abandon his child as she has enjoyed some blissful moment. She talks about her genuine love for her maternal uncle and Prof. Damle and how she left her both the time. Even in the current time, a woman will be treated with quite a bit of harsh contempt for her romantic and , especially, sexual involvement with any person she is not married to. Whereas men and their love for only the flesh of a person, their lust, will always be justified or overlooked, or both. Society might have changed, women a more free than they ever were before, but shaking off of a long set stigma and the utter lack of respect for the personal life of a woman will take a long long time.