Adv.Nurup Reddy is chief guest and Farm leader Vijay Janwandhia to open Cotton growers to hold conference at Pandharkawada on Oct 26

Adv.Nurup Reddy is chief guest and Farm leader Vijay Janwandhia to open Cotton growers to hold conference at Pandharkawada on Oct 26

Pandharkawada -Oct 24,2010

Adv.Nurup Reddy leading activist of separate tenlangana movement and convenor of Telengana Vikas Kendra will be chief guest of maharashtra first ‘Kapus Parishad ('cotton Conference') And Renowned Cotton Farmer S Leaders Of The Vidarbha Region Vijay Janwandhia will the president of this function which will discuss and set the agenda for future agitation of cotton farmers who are demanding higher prices for raw cotton and relaxation and incentive in cotton export,Kishore tiwari of Vidarbha Janadolan Samiti who si the convener of cotton growers will meet on October 26 at Pandharkawda for a 'Kapus Parishad'.

In the 'cotton conference', the cotton growers together with farm activists will wok out a strategy on pricing.

The main demands of debt trapped cotton farmers are

1. Relief aid to all wet-drought hit farmers @ Rs.10,00/- per acre.

2. Procurement of raw cotton by centra Govt Agencies Like Cotton Crop. of India –C.C.I. or Nafed.

3.Export incentive and free export of cotton

4.CACP to raise MSP of cotton to @Rs.4500/- as against Rs.3000/-

Cotton is the biggest cash crop grown in Vidarbha region and some parts of Marathwada and Khandesh. The crop's price virtually decides the fate of three million families in Maharashtra, the highest cotton producing state. The Centre and the state governments have indicated that they would not be in a position to pay over Rs 3,000 a quintal as the minimum procurement price, a rate fixed two years ago. But farmers pressure groups like Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, which is organising the conference, say the price is unfair as input costs have gone up in the last two years and so is the inflation, Samiti President Kishore Tiwari has said in a release today. Open market prices are already ruling over Rs 4,000 a quintal. While there are clear indications that prices may firm up in international market mainly since Pakistan and China have been ruined by floods, the farmers could take advantage of the situation and export it to the countries like China, Bangladesh, where there is high demand for short staple cotton that we produce," Tiwari said. Demanding that MSP be hiked to Rs 4,500, he said such a step could improve the state's economy too as it depends a lot on cotton.

In the mean while vidarbha farm widows association has extended support to the cotton growers demands and announced that hundreds of vidarbha farm widows will attend 26th October 'cotton Conference' at pandharkawada and will actively joining the agitation afterward ,Arpana Malikar secretary of vidarbha farm widows association informed in statement today.

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Posted by PLEASE SAVE VIDARBHA FARMER at 10:53 AM

Cotton growers to hold conference at Pandharkawada on Oct 26-2010

Cotton growers to hold conference at Pandharkawada on Oct 26-2010

Five more vidarbha farmers in 48 hours that include the farm widow

Five more vidarbha farmers in 48 hours that include the farm widow

NAGPUR: Oct 21, 2010.

‘It was very sad day for the villagers of Pimpalkhuti in suicide hit district of Yavatmal to take part in funeral of Bebitai Pongade farm widow whose husband Nilkanthrao Pongade died in debt a year before a last was 627^th victim of on going agrarian crisis in the yaear 2010 claimed another five more farm suicides in last 48 hours as per reports reaching here and the deceased include

1.Pundpundlik Kakad of Village Mangrul in Akola

2.Santosh Belsare of Viallge Adegoan in Amaravati

3.Sanjay Suryawanshi of Village Wadegoan In Bhandara

4.Ramesh Jadhav of Viallge Marsul in Yavatmal including

5.Bebitai Pomgade of Pimpalkhutti in Yavatmal

According to Kishor Tiwari of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) which has been documenting farmers' suicide in Vidarbha, attributed the extreme step taken by the farmers to the heavy crop loss and 'failure' of Bt cotton in over six million acres. vidarbha suicide spiral is slow spreading towards paddy growing region of vidarbha from cotton growing west vidarbha as now more suicide s are paying reported from east vidarbha too .Tiwari added.

The cause for the farmers' despondency is the crisis arising out of the delay in cotton procurement and forceful loan recoveries by banks and private micro finance agencies operated illegally as Govt. owned banks failed to provide fresh credit to dying distressed farmers even after intervention of administration, Tiwari alleged.

‘The news of a bumper cotton crop and skyrocketing prices was far different from the ground reality as the Central government was under pressure from textile lobby to bring down the raw cotton prices whereas the high international rates and hence was not opening cotton procurement centers in Vidarbha is adding fuel in the hardshipd of farming community of vidarbha as on an average, a cotton farmer spends about Rs 30,000 per acre and may get a maximum yield of about four quintal that doesn't even puts him in a position to break even and hence the farmers are under perennial economic strain’ Tiwari said

“Cotton farmers are demanding that C.C.I (Coton Croprn. of India) should start procurement at the rate of Rs.5000/- per quintal Open market prices are already ruling over Rs 5000 a quintal. While there are clear indications that prices may firm up in international market mainly because crops in China and Pakistan have been ruined by floods, the Indian farmer could take advantage of the situation and export to the countries like China, Bangladesh, where there is high demand for short staple cotton that we produce” said Kishore Tiwari of the VJAS

Seven Vidarbha farmers suicides on the eve of ‘Dasara’ :Cotton Crisis killing Innocent Farmers

Seven Vidarbha farmers suicides on the eve of ‘Dasara’ :

Cotton Crisis killing Innocent Farmers

Nagpur-17th October , 2010

The massive celebration of ‘Dasara festival’ in urban India has over showed the on going agrarian crisis in dying feld of vidarbha where seven more debt trapped farmers killed themselves on th e eve of this mega festival thus taking toll 622 in year 2010

Recent victims of vidarbha agrarian crisis are

1.Waman Awari of Borgoan in Yavatmal

2.Vijay Dandage of Ratnapur in Yavmal

3.Dhyaneshwar Choudhari of Eklara in Yavamal

4.Prabhakar Wakte of Kothari in Akola

5.Ladhu Madavi of Chopamguda in Chandrapur

6.Bhiagirath Pathorkar of Sadarabadi in Amravati

7.Raju Lahorkar of Pimpalkhuata in Washim

The heavy crop losses and failure of Bt.cotton in more than 6 million acres and delay in cotton procurement crisis is the main cause Despondency, despair and deep distress is the main cause of these suicides,Kishor Tiwari of Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti(VJAS )informed in press release today

As in the international market cotton bales are trading aboce Rs.42,000/- mark and domestic market demand of cotton has been all time high but central Govt. under pressure from textile lobby trying to crash the cotton prices that’s they are not opening the procurement centers in vidarbha .cotton farmers are demanding that main procurement agency of Govt. of India ,Cotton corporation of India (C.C.I) should open the procurement centers in all, places in order to stop main exploitation of farmers who are denied the market price of the raw cotton which is more than Rs.5,500/- per quintal,Tiwari said.

Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti (VJAS) has urged union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to direct CACP to consider the recent plea of Maharashtra State Co-operative Cotton Growers Marketing Federation Limited (MAHACOT) to raise cotton MSP from Rs.3000/- to Rs 4200/- per quintal as the maharashtra cotton growers are demanding to raise cotton MSP of Rs.4500/- per quintal to compensate farmers accumulated losses as

cotton crop has received fresh threats of ‘Lalya fungal attack (Redning of leaves)’ that will also reduce the total yield , Kishor Tiwari of VJAS added.

‘There are only news of bumper cotton crop and sky rocketing prices but the ground reality is totally different cotton farmers have done more than Rs.30,000/- per acre expenses and likely to get not more than 3-4 quintal cotton production maximum ,is not making the break even under big strain of economic losses and debt that’s reason such high numbers of suicides reported in festivals season .it’s high time to address the on going vidarbha agrarian crisis’ Tiwari urged.

Peepli Live - Aamir Khan school of thoughtlesness-Express Buzz

By Ashley Tellis
05 Sep 2010 10:12:00 AM IST

Aamir Khan school of thoughtlesness

Peepli Live is one of the most offensive films of our times and in many ways is symptomatic of what can be called the Aamir Khan School of Thought (whether this be an Aamir Khan Productions film, as Peepli Live is, or a film with Aamir in it which, as we all know, becomes, more or less, an Aamir Khan production), one of the most dangerous schools of thought in the contemporary cinematic moment. Peepli Live came to us with the careful media orchestration that we know Aamir Khan manages for all his films and has been hailed, a little too hastily, as a great film, a dark satire, an intellectual and critical comedy and whatever else by our dumbed down cronies who pass as film critics.
A closer examination of the film will expose that it is a shallow and exploitative film and will also delineate the salient characteristics of what I have called the Aamir Khan School of Thought (henceforth AKSOT). Peepli Live opens with two farmer brothers returning from a negotiation with the state (which we do not see) over the fact that their land which had to be put on sale to pay for their mother’s medical bills is now lost as they cannot afford to buy it back. We do not ever see this farm nor, through the film, do the brothers ever work on it. We have no sense of the political economy of these men’s lives (we see only the younger brother’s wife do any work in the film) as the film takes an
improbable segue into the farmer suicide issue when the local politician/landlord asks them to commit suicide when his henchman informs him that in Tamil Nadu farmers are getting compensation for a lakh if they do so.
The film further derails into one of the most clichéd and overdone attacks on the electronic media (Dibakar Bannerjee did it so much more subtly in LSD) with them being accused of being unethical shallow, mindless yawn yawn. The critique stretches tiresomely and seemingly endlessly as does the critique of a multitude of others — the government (central and state), the opposition (indeed all political parties, including the communists), urban activists (through the much-maligned candlelight vigil), the villagers (they perform witchcraft, smoke ganja, gossip and talk nonsense to the media and do anything but work, which is as far from rural reality as possible), women (who are screaming shrews or heartless (of course) English-educated journos). Indeed almost everyone comes
under the bulldozer (with as much nuance as a bulldozer) critique.
The few heroes are an old man who digs and sells mud (based on Premchand’s Hori from Godaan), the Hindi stringer journalist from the village and, perhaps, the hapless Natha (the live suicide) but most definitely the holier-than-thou film-makers, speaking from on high, commenting on the rangrez des they are so spotlessly and miraculously above. This is the first and main characteristic of the AKSOT. It is above all politics and can make fun of Left and Right, rich and poor, urban and rural with equally (and level) deft strokes.
The second is the reinvention of rurality as chic. Peepli Live ends with a series of snapshots of urban migrant construction workers worthy of Raghu Rai. Remember Taare Zameen Par, which fetishised street labourers and vendors in Mumbai in a similar fashion shot from the eye-level of the gifted child? Poverty shot well looks good. Bronzed, perspiring, labouring, lower caste bodies make for breathtaking visuals. In Peepli Live, this is also effected by a shameful use of Habib Tanvir’s Naya Theatre, its actors, its style, with none of Tanvir’s sustained politics or engagement.
The third is the seeming ease with which the AKSOT accesses the pulse of the ‘real’ India. Conspicuously avoiding the pious sentimentality of an earlier cinematic moment (the poor are made fun of here constantly — remember the poor family in 3 Idiots, made fun of through the film), these films nevertheless claim to have their hearts in the right place, know who the heroes are. In Aamir’s own films, it is of course he himself who is the only hero. In his production house’s films, it is the disabled (Taare Zameen Par), anti-colonial, casteist cricket-playing villagers (Lagaan), teeny boppers (Jaane Tu...) and now the rural poor/suicide-level farmers (Peepli Live).
The fourth characteristic of the AKSOT is what is common between all these unlikely ‘real Indians.’ They all seem really happy with neoliberal India. Aamir has played the Hindu cop beating Muslim bad guys with aplomb for some time now, his newer avatars include an engineering school rebel who claims to think outside the box yet makes the most money in the end (3 Idiots), a school teacher whose triumph, while pontificating about how every child is special, is to mainstream a dyslexic child (Taare Zameen Par) and a college drop-out whose heart beats for poor middle-class uppercaste ‘real’ Indians (Rang De Basanti) who die in inferior Indian government aircraft (it is indicative that Rang De Basanti was corralled by the anti-reservation upper and middle castes and classes in attacking the second Arjun Singh-led Mandal reservations and that NDTV had a rightwing show on the Rang De Basanti generation).
Aamir Khan is indeed the pulse of this nation but not of any of the pseudo-progressive and ‘real’ issues he claims to be dealing with. He is the sugar coating of the sick, anti-poor, anti-farmer, anti-woman (Kareena Kapoor winning the IIFA award for Best Actress in 3 Idiots is surely the biggest joke of our time — she barely had a scene in that homosocial drama of three 40-year-olds-playing-18-year-olds who really want to get it on with each other and almost do), anti-Dalit (remember Kachra in Lagaan? S Anand did a good critique of it), anti-tribal (the racism of 3 Idiots about tribals in Leh) pill we are all made to swallow that render us immune to what’s really going on in this country. If we have slick, suave, technically savvy, superbly marketed, booming images to lull us into the belief that we can plunder these marginalised groups, laugh at them and assuage our conscience while we are at it, why do we need anything more? And Aamir Khan can go to Leh and pronounce that ‘All Izz Not Well,’ sit with Medha Patkar in dharnas (which no doubt Anusha Rizvi and Mahmood Farooqui can airbrush into what they think is humour and satire), do Coke, Samsung and a million other ads and laugh all the way to the bank. All izz definitely very well.
— The author is an academic.
failedsubjectivity@gmail.com

© Copyright 2008 ExpressBuzz

Vidarbha farmers widows protest ‘Peepli Live’ –Burnt Effigy of Super Star Amir Khan

Vidarbha farmers widows protest ‘Peepli Live’ –Burnt Effigy of Super Star Amir Khan

Nagpur-15^th august 2010

The protest to superstar Aamir Khan's home production Peepli Live has taken the ugly turn when thousand of vidarbha farm widows joined the protest at epicenter of vidarbha farm suicides in yavatmal district 150 k.m. from Nagpur demanding urgent ban on the screening of the movie ‘Peepli Live’ Objecting to the way the issue of farmer suicide has been depicted in the film.

‘Today vidarbha farm widows have started the protest to superstar Aamir Khan's

home production Peepli Live by burning the effigy tomoraw we will stop the screening of the movie in vidarbha if Maharashtra Government fail to ban the movie immediately.’ Bebitai Bais president of vidarbha farm widows association announced in the rally attened by more than five thousand farm widows and debt trapped farmers in small township Pandharkawada in Yavatmal district.

‘Earlier too TV serial Bairi Piya has shown that debt-trapped Vidarbha farmers are selling daughters to clear their debt. While 'Peepli Live' is far from reality and an insult to poor farmers of Vidarbha who have been victims of globalisation and wrong policies of the state, we will not tolerate further as this movie revolves around a debt ridden farmer committing suicide for the sake of compensation, trivializes the issue and is "far from reality. we will intensify the stir further " Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti (VJAS) president Kishor Tiwari said in the rally .

‘Producer Aamir Khan should have consulted experts before finalizing the script, adding the movie has put a question mark on the farmers' widows who are demanding compensation as it is a wrong representation of the misery of the family members of farmers who committed suicide’ Tiwari said.

"The farmers in any region of India commit suicide due to the wrong policies of the government, not because family members can live off the compensation they would get," Tiwari added.

Vidarbha farmer's organisation demands ban on 'Peepli Live'

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Vidarbha farmer's organisation demands ban on 'Peepli Live' 14 Aug 2010, 1650 hrs IST,PTI

Topics: vidarbha janandolan samiti peepli live farmer suicide aamir khan

MUMBAI: Objecting to the way the issue of farmer suicide has been depicted in superstar Aamir Khan's home production 'Peepli Live', Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti (VJAS) has urged the Maharashtra Government to ban the movie immediately. The Nagpur-based farmer's advocacy group said that the movie which revolves around a debt ridden farmer committing suicide for the sake of compensation, trivialises the issue and is "far from reality." Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti (VJAS) president Kishor Tiwari in a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said, "TV serial 'Bairi Piya' has shown that debt-trapped Vidarbha farmers are selling daughters to clear their debt. While 'Peepli Live' is far from reality and an insult to poor farmers of Vidarbha who have been victims of globalisation and wrong policies of the state,". VJAS said producer Aamir Khan should have consulted experts before finalising the script, adding the movie has put a question mark on the farmers' widows who are demanding compensation. Khan on his part has maintained that the movie is not about farmers' suicide. The low-budget film, a satire on the farmers' suicides and subsequent media and political response, is directed by Anusha Rizvi who has also written the story