<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Indian security forces fired tear gas today to stop thousands of farmers demanding minimum crop prices from marching on the capital New Delhi after talks with the government failed.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>Local broadcasters showed thick clouds of tear gas fired to disperse protesters near Ambala, some 200km north of the capital.</div><div><br></div><div>Police have set up a fearsome blockade of metal spikes, cement, and steel barricades on the highways from three surrounding states leading to the capital.</div><div><br></div><div>“Maximum numbers have been deployed”, Ranjay Atrishya, assistant commissioner of Delhi Police, told AFP.</div><div><br></div><div>Public gatherings of more than five people have been banned in the capital.</div><div><br></div><div>Farmers in India have political heft due to their sheer numbers, and the threat of renewed protests comes ahead of national elections likely to begin in April.</div><div><br></div><div>Two-thirds of India’s 1.4 billion people draw their livelihood from agriculture, accounting for nearly a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product,, according to government figures.</div><div><br></div><div>Indian broadcasters showed columns of hundreds of tractors moving toward the capital from the surrounding states of Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.</div><div><br></div><div>The farmers are demanding a law to fix a minimum price for their crops, besides a clutch of other concessions including waiving off loans.</div><div><br></div><div>Farmers have called for a “Delhi Chalo”, or “March to Delhi”, echoing protests in January 2021 when farmers breached barricades and marched into the city on Republic Day.</div><div><br></div><div>Protests by farmers against agricultural reform bills in November 2020 lasted for more than a year, forming the biggest challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government since it came to power in 2014.</div><div><br></div><div>Tens of thousands of farmers then set up makeshift camps, with at least 700 people killed during the protests.</div><div><br></div><div>In November 2021, a year after protests began, Modi pushed through parliament the repeal of three contentious laws that farmers claimed would let private companies control the country’s agriculture sector.</div><div><br></div><div>Thousands of Indian farmers die by suicide every year because of poverty, debt, and crops affected by ever more erratic weather patterns caused by climate change. - AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>