{"id":4420,"date":"2021-02-03T15:54:12","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T15:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/?p=4420"},"modified":"2021-02-03T15:54:12","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T15:54:12","slug":"rihanna-greta-thunberg-anger-india-by-supporting-farmer-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/2021\/02\/03\/rihanna-greta-thunberg-anger-india-by-supporting-farmer-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"Rihanna, Greta Thunberg anger India by supporting farmer protests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Link to article: https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2021\/2\/3\/rihanna-greta-thunberg-anger-india-by-supporting-farmer-protests<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pop superstar Rihanna and climate activist Greta Thunberg have angered the Indian government after tweeting in favor of the huge protests against the new farm laws. The farmers’ protests are one of the biggest challenges to Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he took power in 2014. Tens of thousands of farmers have been camped out outside of New Delhi since November, protesting for a repeal of laws they fear will allow large corporations to crush them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rihanna and Thunberg were joined by several other international celebrities expressing their solidarity with the protesting farmers, as well as the niece of US Vice President Kamala Harris, whose mother was born in India. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The celebrity tweets triggered even more online chaos in India. Although a democracy, the country regularly uses internet shutdowns to limit the distribution of information. A group of farmers’ unions reported that the government had disconnected electricity and water and suspended social media accounts; Twitter also temporarily blocked accounts tweeting about the protests at the demand of the Indian government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is important because it demonstrates how a well-known celebrity such as Rihanna has the power to help solve such a huge problem as the farmer protests in India. By using her fame on Twitter, she’s causing her millions of followers to be aware of something that they previously may have had no clue about. This article is also important because the topic deserves more attention. The laws directly impact the farmers in India, but they could also have a huge impact on global consumers who rely on India for many key items. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new laws help big companies drive down prices, causing farmers to struggle to meet the minimum price while there is too much supply in the market. Even without a personal connection to India, the entire world should be informed about this issue; everything from turmeric to Basmati rice comes from Indian farmers. Even above material items, everyone should care about this exploitation solely because as a society, we should value human beings over corporations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This relates to what we’ve learned in class because it’s an example of looking at different levels of analysis. On an individual level, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi says the new laws give farmers a chance to decide their own prices and sell directly to private businesses, like grocery chains, cutting the middleman, who in this case, is the state’s Agricultural Produce Market Committee. However, from a broader perspective, it is obvious that the government cannot guarantee that prices will not tumble and that private corporate bodies and traders will not form a cartel and demolish the farmers. If the Prime Minister was so concerned about giving farmers higher prices, then a more perceptive way to do this is making it a law that prices cannot be lower than the Minimum Support Price determined by the government. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link to article: https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2021\/2\/3\/rihanna-greta-thunberg-anger-india-by-supporting-farmer-protests Pop superstar Rihanna and climate activist Greta Thunberg have angered the Indian government after tweeting in favor of the huge protests against the new farm laws. The farmers’ protests are one of the biggest challenges to Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he took power in 2014. Tens of thousands of farmers have been camped… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4421,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4420\/revisions\/4421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}