Lauding the farmers for showing “tremendous resilience” during the Coronavirus pandemic and their contribution to ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that they would benefit from the new agriculture-related Bills once these become laws. He also spoke about the rich Indian tradition of story-telling which, he said, was needed to rejuvenate the family system.
Addressing the 69th edition of his monthly radio address ‘Mann Ki Baat’ , Modi pointed out that farm growers had benefited when fruits and vegetables were taken off the ambit of the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee Act in 2014 and now other farmers would benefit too.
The Prime Minister noted that in the recent past, the agriculture sector has been liberated from many restrictions and has tried to break free from many myths. He shared the example of Kanwar Chauhan, a farmer from Haryana, who used to face “great difficulties” in marketing his fruits and vegetables outside the mandi, but in 2014, fruits and vegetables were excluded from the APMC Act, which “ benefited him”.
Farmers would be able to send their produce wherever they want without old restrictions and get a good price, said the prime minister .
He also talked about Tamil Nadu Banana farmers’ company, a collective of farmers, which purchased hundreds of metric tons of vegetables, fruits and bananas from nearby villages during the lockdown, and supplied a vegetable combo kit to Chennai. He mentioned the ‘Irada Farmer Producer’ group from Lucknow who, during the lockdown, procured fruits and vegetables directly from the cultivators’ fields, and sold directly in the markets of Lucknow, free from the middlemen.
Talking about India’s rich tradition of storytelling, PM Modi said that ‘our stories are gaining popularity again.’
“We have had a tradition of storytelling. This is an ancient method of narrating stories. Kathakali Shebam has also been part of this. Different types of folklore are prevalent in our country,” he said.
“But there are issues with some of the families. Some families have lost touch with their values,” he said, adding that stories can help reinvigorate such families.
“There has been a thriving tradition of telling stories in India. There is an important tradition of storytelling in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It is called Villu Pattu,” said PM Modi, talking about the various forms of storytelling prevalent in India.
Modi spoke to people involved in this field. It included a group of women who run Bengaluru Storytelling Society and even asked them to narrate a story.
“I urge all storytellers to include all inspirational stories from the period of foreign rule as we are going to celebrate 75 years of independence, especially between 1857 and 1947. We can introduce our new generation to them in form of stories,” he further said.