The Toil Which Screams For Justice

Source: Times Of India

A Bharat bandh has been called by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on 27th of September from 6 am to 4 pm. The prime reason behind the protests is pressurizing the government in repealing the three farmer laws passed in the September (monsoon session of the Parliament) of last year.
The ruling Congress in Punjab however, has shown its support to the cause of the Farmer’s Union. The national highways, link roads and railway tracks have been blocked and vehicular movement has been prohibited within the bandh’s time frame in Punjab.
In Noida, Barricades were broken by the protestors who reached the Noida Authority Office in sector-6. The farmers were protesting over their demands and the compensation for their lands which was acquired by the Noida Authority.
In Punjab, farmers have protested in 350 places and in Haryana 25 places have been blocked in the Jind district itself.
The protests led to the vehicular disruption in Jharkhand where the supporters blocked the highways.
Similar demonstrations have been witnessed in Jammu demanding the laws to be repealed. The protest was led by CPI(M) leader MY Tarigami who sat on a dharma and took out a rally. Thereby, blocking the road.
Chaos was witnessed in many parts. In Jalandhar for example, Army vehicles were stopped by the protestors and said that the jawans should support them in their protest. In Bengaluru, on the other hand, a protestor ran his car over the DCP(Deputy Commisioner of Police)and was arrested.
However, states like Arunachal Pradesh and Maharashtra remained unaffected
The BKU leader Rajesh Tikait spoke about how Yogi Adityanath had promised in the manifesto to increase the price of the of sugarcane to Rs 375-450 but ended up being increased by mere Rs 25 and therefore asked for the accountability of the losses faced. However, he also mentioned the Bandh to be successful and the main reason for the protest to talk with the government which is not happening.




Let’s Rewind



What were the farm laws of 2020?

•The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020
•The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance
• Farm Services Bill, 2020, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020


Why were they resented?

The provisions of the new farm law intends to help the marginalized farmers who lack the means to bargain or invest in technology for their farms.
The provision of the act of Agri Market is one of the key reasons for the current protests. It mentions that the farmers can sell their produce to whoever they want, outside than the APMC mandi but however it may lead the commission agents to be deprived of their mandi fees. Better prices were also promised through cost cutting on transportation and competition.

The law on contract farming seeks to help the marginal farmers by the provision which states that the farmers can enter into contract with agri business firms on pre agreed prices of their produce. This will shift the market unpredictability from the farmer to the sponsor.

Why are the farmers resenting the laws?

Firstly, they fear that the companies may change the terms of the agreement and they will have to suffer loses for the crops. The primary fear is the dismantling of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system.
Secondly, the farmers fear that selling the produce to WHOEVER they want might not provide them with an assured price. The disbanding of the mandi system and the losses of the arthiyas(commission agent who provides farmers with loans) is indeed a fact to be feared of.

What are the farmers demanding?

The farmers are demanding the withdrawal of the three laws which is putting a question on the further existence of the MSP system. The farmer unions are also ready to accept if the MSP is legally assured to stay prevalent.


What is the root of the protest?

It is the system of Minimum Support Price which is prevalent in India. MSP is the minimum price provided by the government to the farmers on buying on their produce. The MSP is decided by the the state-run Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) which consists of 23 commodities which it procures.
The Food Corporation of India on the other hand largely procures only wheat and paddy which it sells to the poor at a subsidized price.

Crisis in AFGHANISTAN

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Now that the US army has pulled out from Afghanistan after spending 20 years there, the Taliban has taken control of almost whole of the country. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF, and here history is repeating itself for the worst. Politicians have fled from the country leaving their countrymen to die and the civilians are in a state of panic. As Taliban has taken control from all the borders leaving no exit point.

What is Taliban

Taliban is the word for ‘student’ in pashto language. Ironically they have nothing to do with knowledge, at least on humanitarian basis. They emerged from the northern part of Pakistan in the early 1990s, they basically promised peace to the peope an to impose Sharia or islamic law, once in power. In September 1995, they started their rule by capturing Herat and then all the major cities one by one and by 1998, they had captured about 90% of Afghanistan.

They became popular as they finished corruption and lawlessness. They also introduced roads. But at the same time they implemented the Sharia law and gave punishments according to it, like public execution for murderers and adultration, amputating those, who were found guilty of theft. Girls were not allowed to go to school after the age of 10, women had to wear chaadri (burqa, covering whole body) when going out and they had to be accompanied by a man all the time, men too had to grow beard. Cinema, music and television were banned. women were not allowed to work even when their husbands died. Basically all their rights were taken away.

Read more about Afghanistan: https://edupub.org/2021/07/19/afghanistan-through-khaled-hosseinis-a-thousand-spendid-suns/

Major terrorist activities by Taliban

On 11 September, 2001 the world trade center was attacked and Taliban was accused of providing safety to Al Qaeda.

Malala Yousafzai was shot by the talibani terrorists as she refused to leave school and continued to study.

pic courtesy: shutterstock

Disturbing images have been coming in from airport where people were rushing as their last hope of fleeing from there. It’s very saddening to see politicians leaving their people to die on the streets. Even though talibanis have said that the people need not be scared of anything but can we trust them?? Not really. Several videos have been surfacing on the net of dead bodies littered on roads. People are being dragged out of their houses, specifically those who have in any way helped American forces.
Residents are trying any possible way to get out of there but unfortunately the only exit left at last, the airport in kabul, has been shut off, shutting their last hope for now.

Photo by Disha Sheta on Pexels.com

Well, I hope for now at least the citizens will be safe and peace will be restored soon. The Afghanistan of 1960s-70s, where women enjoyed freedom and the country was progressing will be back. Children will play with toys and not guns, knowledge will be used as weapon and not violence.

Mental Health- still a taboo?

Just because no one else can heal or do your inner work for you, doesn’t mean you can, should or need to do it alone.

Lisa Olivero

Have you ever felt the stark desire to inevitably scream in a room full of people, hoping they just care enough to notice the signs you have been leaving regarding your deteriorating mental state and how desperately you need help? But instead, you just accept your solitude in an empty chair and try to repress your bottled-up emotions deep within the realms of your consciousness.

A lot of us might have gone through the same situation at a certain point in our lives. The primary reason behind this subconscious aversion to the expression of thoughts is the mere fact that humans have been conditioned to do so throughout their lives. Men are typically the most vulnerable victims of this detrimental mindset. From an early age, they are frequently instructed to not cry like a girl. According to a survey, a significant percentage of men in the nation are currently depressed, and they themselves admitted that they lack a support system.

Mental health is still a deeply rooted stigma that people aren’t ready to accept. In order to understand the concept one needs to broaden the perspective of understanding humans and follow certain ways like-

  1. Instead of asking,”How are you?” ask,” How are you, really?”
  2. Look for obvious signs in a person- whether they feeling low from abnormal no. of days.
  3. Asking your closed ones to describe their day in detail and be a good listener.
  4. Do not mistreat someone who is already going through some sort of trauma.
  5. Treat people with kindness, you never know what someone is going through.

Additionally, in India, therapists continue to be overlooked as a useful resource for treating a person’s mental health. A person is called a “lunatic” if they see a therapist. In light of the increased public awareness during the pandemic’s lockdown time, these issues are being explored on social media, and many people now see psychology as a crucial component of the educational system. People have now started considering mental health as being equally essential as physical health as because of an alarming spike in suicide incidents during this period.
Still, awareness needs to be assured at ground level and there is still a long way to go to see the day when all of us are not reluctant to lend a helping hand to our fellow humans.

A fundamental aspect of any society should be understanding, accepting, and embracing each and every emotion one feels which makes them human.

SERVANT- HORROR AND THRILLER AT IT’S BEST

There’s much to admire in “Servant” — for instance, the show’s painterly compositions, if at times underlit, isolate Free’s character in the far background, as if to say that her soft-spoken, perhaps malignant caretaker character has the ability to literally blend into the background. Ambrose, a welcome presence underseen on big-ticket television since the “Six Feet Under” finale in 2005, makes big and risky choices in constructing her character. She combines brittleness with a bitter sense of humor such that our understanding of Dorothy evolves over the series’s run. As we learn more about her and Sean’s marriage (one in which he, a chef, is often physically absent and yet more frequently disengaged), we shift, eventually, from seeing her as the source of tension to someone bearing its brunt.

And yet for all this, and for all that “Servant” is the most watchable show yet in Apple’s vexed rollout, the series’ somewhat loopy pacing is punishing. Leanne seems as the show runs on to represent far less than meets the eye; episode after episode unfolds without her doing much of anything but seeming threatening in her inaction. (We know she’s going to have to do something eventually, but the wait grows less tantalizing than stultifying.) And to get to a new understanding of Dorothy, one has to trudge fairly deep into the series’s run, long after some viewers may have written her off. And Sean’s willingness to keep her in the dark comes to read less as benevolence than a somewhat uninteresting, uncomplicated sort of villainy. Their behavior raises the question of whether these two can have credibly loved one another in the first place — a twist this story can’t bear. If they are content to torment each other and themselves unremittingly — if, in other words, they truly do not care about each other — then why should we? “Servant” is fascinating to look at and, at first, contemplate. But its slithering, reversing structure elides the fact that it must move the plot forward only infinitesimally each episode in order to conserve it, and that this is a shortish feature in the costume of a ten-episode drama. That’s its biggest, and least welcome, twist of all.

Fashion Forecasting…

Fashion trends are influenced by several factors including political, economical, social and technological. There are aristocratic fashions, film-style fashions, peasant class fashions and a kind of fashion known as maverick fashion. Naturally, fashion is related to dress and manners. Fashion changes with winds of time very fast. This can be seen from vast difference between how people used to dress before and now. In earlier days, it used to be very different in metros and small towns due to the growth of social media, online shopping facilities, mall culture etc. We have adopted fashion in each step of our life. It is our nature to adopt new and beautiful things because old things have lost their importance. Just like this, we adopt new fashion with the change of time.

WGSN (World Global Style Network) is a trend forecasting company. Its trend forecasting service includes what’s new and next in apparel, beauty, colour, marketing, retail and wearables.

https://www.wgsn.com/en/

Fashion Forecasting

This is the important part of fashion scenario because when any new garment is designed by the designer and worn, it will not create fashion by itself. It needs the media to spread fashion and this media which spread fashion and gets the fame and name to the designers is Fashion Forecasting. Fashion Forecasting is done through many communicating media such as cinema, fashion shows, press, magazines, newspapers and window display.

It includes following

•Gather cultural and social insights

Fashion Forecasting relies on a wealth of social and cultural information to make to make predictions about where consumer tastes will head. To cover all the bases, fashion forecasters often bring together groups of professionals from various backgrounds for brainstorming sessions.

•Market surveys and consumer research

By asking consumers directly what they would buy, how much they would pay and where they look to find fashion direction, forecasters can better gauge the marketplace for fashion buyers.

•Track social media and internet action Forecasters spend a considerable amount of time tracking what’s being looked at online and who’s doing the looking.

•Fast fashion to satisfy consumer desires

Fashion shows and the latest trends are widely available yo the public via multiple mass media platforms. That’s why consumers demand the latest runway designs immediately after viewing them.

In response to this desire for instant gratification, fashion manufacturers have developed a strategy called ‘fast fashion’. Fashion Forecasting is done where crowd is formed on such occasion, so that it can create fashion.

Thank you for reading. Have a nice day!