NOT JUST UP, OTHER STATES TOO HAVE ‘LOVE JIHAD’ LAWS

On 2 March 2010, when the Congressruled United Progressive Alliance government was in power at the Centre, the Ministry of Agriculture, which was headed by Sharad Pawar, had constituted a high-powered committee comprising agriculture and marketing ministers from 11 states to suggest agricultural reforms and look into the functioning of the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCS). One of the key findings of the committee was that the APMCS were responsible for charging excess commissions from farmers, deterring much-needed private investments in the sector, which was leading to the formation of cartels to increase revenue for their masters, rather than act as an institution to benefit the farmers and other market participants.

Among these 11 members, five were from states where Congress was in power (Maharashtra, Assam, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana), two were from Bjp-ruled states (Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh), one from JDU (Bihar), one from JDS (Karnataka) and one each from BJD (Odisha) and Shiromani Akali Dal (Punjab). The committee was headed by the then Maharashtra Agriculture Minister and Congress stalwart, Harshvardhan Patil.

For almost over two years, this committee held nine meetings in various parts of the country while interacting with all the stakeholders—from farmers to industrialists to retailers and cold storage owners—to dive deep into the problems that were plaguing the marketing of agricultural goods and keeping the farmers poor.

This Empowered Committee held nine meetings at different places including New Delhi, Mussoorie (Uttarakhand), Khajuraho (Madhya Pradesh), Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Sasan Gir (Gujarat),

The recent ordinance passed by the Uttar Pradesh government deals with unlawful religious conversions, and has come to be referred to as a law against “love jihad” by the media. This term denotes an Islamic warfare to convert unsuspecting girls into Islam by conning them by professing love.

The proposed 2020 Bill was drafted by the Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission in 2019, with the primary intention of targeting religious conversions through deceit, force or mis

A Kashmiri girl warms her feet with a Kangri, a traditional fire pot made of clay and twigs in which hot charcoal is kept, inside her house in Srinagar, on 27 November. Photograph released on Monday.