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Indian Express
12-08-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
August 12, 1985, Forty Years Ago: Punjab poll decision
The government will take a political decision some time this week on the holding of elections in Punjab and whether this should be done by the end of September before the expiry of President's Rule in the state on October 5 or in early December. Indications so far are for an early poll. In the Akali Dal, a section led by Balwant Singh is in favour of an early poll while two stalwarts Parkash Singh Badal and G S Tohra want it to be delayed for some time. In the Congress (I) at the high command level, opinion is still divided, too. Hope in Assam While Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi arrived in Guwahati for the first time since he took office, a five-member joint delegation of AASU-AAGSP reached Delhi to participate in the crucial round of talks to resolve the foreign nationals problem in the state. Though the PM is in the city for the centenary celebrations of the Congress (I), the speculation is that he is going to announce a package of programmes for faster development of the state. The agitation leaders have not given a bandh call so far. Strife in Durban A peace rally attended by a handful of Indians and thousands of chanting Zulus with spears, shields and guns broke up in chaos as racial strife continued to rage in this township north of Durban. At least 65 have died in a week of bloodshed and anarchy in which Indians have been driven from their homes and rival Blackpolitical groups have dashed. Hospital officials said the death toll had risen by another 10 overnight but police said the townships around Durban were relatively calm. Union Carbide leak At least 100 people were injured when toxic fumes from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in West Virginia leaked into the atmosphere, local officials said. The officials said the fumes contained the gas methyl isocyanate (MIC), which killed more than 2,500 people in Bhopal. Kent Carper, director of emergency services at nearby Charleston said eight workers inside the plant had been the hardest hit.
Indian Express
05-08-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
As expected, paddy cultivation hits record high in Punjab, shatters state's crop diversification dreams
Punjab has set a new record in agriculture — but not the one it hoped for. The area under rice cultivation has touched an all-time high of 32.46 lakh hectares — including 6.80 lakh hectares of Basmati — marginally up from 32.43 lakh hectares last year, according to field reports from the Punjab Agriculture Department. Though the increase seems slight as compared to the last year, the area under rice is already too high and instead of decreasing area under paddy, it marks a troubling continuation of a long-standing trend: the decline of crop diversification in the state. The cultivation of paddy and Basmati is almost over in the state now. For nearly four decades, successive governments in Punjab have been striving to encourage farmers to grow alternative, less water-intensive crops such as maize, cotton, pulses, and sugarcane. Yet, paddy — heavily reliant on groundwater and backed by a guaranteed Minimum Support Price (MSP) — continues to dominate, pushing alternative crops further into the margins. Cotton belt slips further into paddy A significant shift has been recorded in Punjab's cotton belt — comprising eight districts in the Malwa region: Bathinda, Fazilka, Mansa, Muktsar, Moga, Barnala, Sangrur, and Faridkot for the past few years. These districts either have registered an increase in paddy area or no decrease, reversing efforts to maintain or expand cotton acreage. This year also the trend was no different. Bathinda saw paddy sown over 2.39 lakh hectares, up from 2.16 lakh hectares last year — an increase of 23,000 hectares. Fazilka recorded 1.30 lakh hectares under paddy, up from 1.28 lakh hectares. While Muktsar Sahib's paddy area rose to 2.03 lakh hectares from 2.01 lakh hectares, Mansa's increased to 1.46 lakh hectares from 1.44 lakh hectares last year. Barnala also recorded a small increase in the rice area from 1.14 to 1.15 lakh hectares. The remaining cotton belt districts — Sangrur, Moga, and Faridkot — maintained similar paddy acreage as last year. Meanwhile, several other districts like Tarn Taran, Nawanshahr, Ropar, Patiala, Pathankot, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Firozpur, Amritsar, and Fatehgarh Sahib reported a little decline in paddy area, but this was not enough to offset the gains elsewhere. Punjab's diversification efforts began in earnest in the early 1980s. The goal: reduce the state's dependency on water-intensive paddy and encourage cultivation of crops that are both economically viable and environmentally sustainable. In 2002, the then Congress-led government introduced contract farming in hopes of breaking the paddy-wheat cycle. However, the initiative faltered. A more ambitious push came in 2012-13, when the SAD-BJP government under late chief minister Parkash Singh Badal unveiled a new agriculture policy aimed at shifting 12 lakh hectares away from paddy to crops like maize, cotton, and high-value vegetables. Yet the ground reality remained largely unchanged. But the data paints a sobering picture. In the past decade, the combined area under paddy and Basmati accounts for 88 to 90 per cent and alternative kharif crops like cotton, maize, and sugarcane, rarely crossed 6 lakh hectares in most years and off late the area under these three crops has come down to merely around 3 lakh hectares. Cotton, grown over 3.35 lakh hectares in 2015, has shrunk to just 1.13 lakh hectares this year — a nearly 66 per cent drop — largely due to repeated pest (whitefly and pink bollworm) attacks and volatile market prices. Maize, expected to be a pillar of diversification, has shown little progress with 1.26 lakh hectares in 2015-16 to just 95,560 hectares this season. Sugarcane has hovered between 90,000 to 95,000 hectares since 2015-16, without significant expansion. Basmati, though still a rice crop, is considered as an alternative to paddy due to its shorter growing cycle. It too has declined — from 7.63 lakh hectares in 2015-16 to 6.80 lakh hectares this year against 6.78 lakh hectares last year. This shift toward paddy has profound implications for Punjab's fragile groundwater resources. According to a 2017-18 report by the Central Ground Water Board, the state could face an agricultural crisis by 2039, when farmers may need to dig as deep as 1,000 feet to access water. Renowned economist and agriculture expert Dr Sardara Singh Johal, who has long advocated for crop diversification, has been calling for the urgent need for a policy overhaul. He expressed several times that Punjab is facing a water emergency because of over-extraction of groundwater to support paddy. With the upper aquifers drying up, this small state, which feeds the entire country, is getting trapped in a self-destructive cycle. Experts said it will be difficult to reduce the area under paddy as long as free power is provided to the agricultural sector, and alternative crops are not supported with high-yielding seeds and assured MSP. Jaswant Singh, director, Agriculture Department, Punjab, said that the department is trying its best to enhance areas under other crops and has seen an increase under cotton, maize and Basmati as compared to last year but at the same time the area under rice has also increased.
Indian Express
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
In eye of a fresh storm, how Bikram Majithia became a lightning rod for Punjab drug rows
The drug menace has been one of the most dominant political issues in Punjab for more than one-and-a-half decades. The most high-profile drug smuggling case, involving an alleged Rs 6,000 crore synthetic drug racket, came to light in 2012 when an FIR was registered over it in Fatehgarh Sahib. This drug scandal set off a political storm in 2014 when Punjab Police's dismissed deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Jagdish Bhola, one of the accused in the case, named Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia during a court appearance. Bhola alleged that Majithia had links to a drug trafficking network. At the time, Majithia was the revenue minister in the SAD-BJP coalition government headed by Parkash Singh Badal. He was considered one of the most powerful ministers because of his close ties with the Badal family. Majithia, who is the brother-in-law of SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, was booked in a drug case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in December 2021 during the tenure of the chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi-led Congress government. On Wednesday, the Vigilance Bureau of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Punjab government arrested 50-year-old Majithia after conducting raids at multiple premises linked to him, including his homes, across Punjab. The Vigilance Bureau registered a disproportionate assets (DA)-related FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act against Majithia that stems from the 2021 NDPS case, accusing the Akali Dal leader of having allegedly accumulated wealth while he was a minister from 2007 to 2017. In March 2016, a former SAD MLA and Majithia confidant, Bony Ajnala, wrote to then CM Parkash Singh Badal to allege that one of his friends, Maninder Singh Bittu Aulakh, had been 'wrongly implicated' in the 2012 drug smuggling case 'under pressure' from Sukhbir Badal and Majithia. Ajnala was then also the chief parliamentary secretary in the SAD-BJP government. Although such allegations were not proved in the courts, they provided ammunition to both the Congress and the AAP, who used it to target the Akali Dal and Badals while projecting Majithia as a symbol of the drug problem in Punjab. The two parties used it as part of their campaigns in the 2017 and 2022 Assembly polls, which were clinched by the Congress and the AAP respectively. Stung by the AAP's campaign, Majithia filed criminal defamation cases in 2016 against AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Sanjay Singh, and Ashish Khetan over their allegations linking him to the drug trade in the state. In March 2018, both Kejriwal and Khetan issued written apologies, admitting that their accusations were unfounded. However, Sanjay Singh refused to apologise and continues to face trial in the defamation matter. During his stint as the Congress CM, Captain Amarinder Singh did not take action against Majithia, which caused discontent within the party. One of the key aides of Captain Amarinder, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, the current Gurdaspur MP, developed differences with him over the issue. Accusing Amarinder of 'going soft' on the SAD leader, the then minister Randhawa mobilised 40 Congress MLAs to demand action against Majithia over his alleged drug smuggling links. Capt Amarinder's successor Channi oversaw the registration of a drug-related FIR against Majithia in December 2021. However, the case was seen to have focused on alleged drug networks in Canada, not Punjab, and did not apparently establish Majithia's involvement in drug smuggling in the state. Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu had then also questioned the 'seriousness' of the FIR and the government's 'intent'. The case was filed just before the February 2022 Punjab Assembly elections, allowing Majithia to campaign before his arrest. He spent over five months in Patiala jail and was granted bail in August 2022 by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Soon after coming out of jail, Majithia emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government. Days before the Vigilance Bureau's action, Majithia had intensified his criticism of the AAP government over the drug issue. The Akali Dal leader had uploaded videos on social media showing 'drug addicts' on the streets of Amritsar, even as he questioned the effectiveness of the government's anti-drug campaign 'Yudh Nashian Virudh'. He also raised concerns about reported drug-related deaths in the state, alleging failures of the administration and law enforcement agencies. Leading the AAP's campaign in the 2022 elections, Bhagwant Mann had in his trademark satirical style used Punjabi folk rhymes to take aim at Majithia, questioning his shift from a drug case accused to anti-drugs campaigner. In the polls, Majithia contested from Amritsar East against Navjot Singh Sidhu, but both lost to the AAP candidate. His wife, Ganieve Kaur, entered politics and won her debut election from the Majitha seat. It was one of only three seats won by the SAD in 2022, and with the other two party MLAs having turned rebel later, Kaur currently remains the party's sole legislator in the 117-member Assembly. However, despite having been at the centre of the AAP and the Congress's attacks for years, especially on the drug issue, Majithia has been a vocal Opposition leader during the regimes of both the parties. Both the governments also struggled to make any notable progress in curbing drug smuggling, which continues to remain a major public concern in the state. Majithia's targeting of their governments' alleged 'failures' in curbing the drug menace has been more 'embarrassing' for the AAP and the Congress, given their 'inability' to prove their drug-related allegations against him so far.
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa: SAD's longest-serving secretary general and No. 2 who rebelled near the end
Jalandhar: Known for his sobriety across the political spectrum of Punjab, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, who passed away at the age of 89 on Wednesday, was the second senior-most leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal after Parkash Singh Badal for close to a decade and a half. He was its longest-serving secretary general, a post created for him to make his place clear. After Surjit Singh Barnala in 1998-99, Dhindsa was the only Akali Dal MP who could be a Union minister outside the Badal family when SAD shared power in the Union govt with BJP for around 12 years, until it left the NDA in 2020 in the wake of the farm movement. He remained the chemical and fertilisers minister in the Vajpayee Cabinet. His seniority in the party, as well as his proximity to Badal senior, could be a qualitative measure to understand the crisis and level of restlessness within the Akali Dal when he parted ways with the Badals in 2019, which continues to brew. Dhindsa took his own time to say publicly what he was saying in internal meetings after Akali Dal's drubbing in the 2017 assembly polls. After the parliamentary elections in 2019, when only Sukhbir Singh Badal and Harsimrat Kaur Badal could win their seats, he first showed dissent subtly and then openly. He said his biggest concern was to save the last forts of the community — Akal Takht and Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee — and restore their prestige by freeing them from political control. As he formed SAD (Democratic), several leaders from different districts started joining him, and he appeared to be becoming a serious challenge, as in the party ranks it was understood that he had proximity with senior BJP leaders on his own. However, the farm movement changed everything. It forced the Badals to sever ties with BJP, walk out of the Union govt, and BJP started being seen as the primary adversary to Sikh/Akali voters. Though the SAD faction headed by him failed to perform in the 2022 assembly polls, as it contested in alliance with BJP, the biggest story of routing was Parkash Singh Badal senior and Sukhbir Singh Badal losing their own seats and the SAD getting just three seats. Ahead of the 2024 parliamentary polls, it was dawning on Akali leaders that remaining separate could lead to further shrinking of their space. At the time, Dhindsa was welcomed back by Sukhbir Singh Badal as patron of SAD. However, after 10 out of the 13 party candidates lost security deposits, a bigger rebellion took place and the matter reached Akal Takht. Though, for once, it appeared that the Dec 2 pronouncement would lead to reconciliation within Akali Dal, the Akali crisis rather pulled the Sikh high priests into a vortex. Dhindsa could unburden himself at the fag end of his political career as well as life, as he appeared at Akal Takht along with other Akali leaders and underwent Tankhah (religious punishment). Meanwhile, his former leader, the late Parkash Singh Badal's legacy, suffered ignominy when the Akal Takht announced the withdrawal of the title of 'Panth Ratan – Fakhr E Qaum' bestowed upon him.
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
From student leader to power centre in Sangrur
Bathinda: Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, long regarded as the de facto chief minister of the Sangrur region whenever the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) formed the govt post-1997, carved a towering presence in Punjab's political landscape, rising from the grassroots of student politics. A native of Ubhawal village in Sangrur, Dhindsa began his political journey during his college years at Government Ranbir College, Sangrur, in the late 1950s. He was first elected as secretary and later president of the student council. He quickly advanced, becoming the youngest sarpanch in the district at the time. Dhindsa made his electoral debut in 1972, contesting independently from the Dhanaula assembly constituency (now in Barnala district), where he defeated Rajinder Kaur Bhattal of the Congress. His rise continued uninterrupted. In 1977, he shifted to the Sunam assembly seat and was inducted as transport minister in Parkash Singh Badal's cabinet during his first term as CM. Following the 1985 elections, which came in the aftermath of the assassination of SAD president Sant Harchand Singh Longowal following the inking of the Punjab accord, Dhindsa found himself at odds with then CM Surjit Singh Barnala, particularly over the handling of Operation Black Thunder. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum – No Wallet Needed! IC Markets Start Now Undo He sided with Parkash Singh Badal, and the episode marked the genesis of a prolonged intra-party feud. The rivalry between the Barnala and Dhindsa factions played out prominently across the Sangrur region, encompassing present-day Barnala and Malerkotla districts. Dhindsa faced a setback in 1997 when he lost the Sunam seat to Congress' Bhagwan Dass Arora, and two years later, Barnala too was unseated by Simranjit Singh Mann in the Sangrur parliamentary constituency. While Barnala exited active politics to take up gubernatorial roles, Dhindsa continued his upward trajectory, serving as Union minister for sports and for chemicals and fertilisers in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government. Factionalism, however, lingered. After Barnala's retirement, his wife Surjit Kaur Barnala floated the SAD (Longowal), while Dhindsa entrenched his own family's political legacy. In 2000, he launched his son, Parminder Singh Dhindsa, in a bypoll from Sunam following the death of Bhagwan Dass Arora. Parminder, backed strongly by then CM Parkash Singh Badal, secured a thumping victory and retained the seat in subsequent elections in 2002, 2007, and 2012. In later years, Dhindsa developed differences with Parkash Singh Badal, leading to the formation of SAD (Sanyukt). BOX Returned Padma Bhushan Backing Farmers | Taking a stand during the farmers' agitation, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa returned his Padma Bhushan in protest against the Centre's now-repealed farm laws. Sports lover | Apart from being a shrewd politician, Dhindsa was an avid sports lover and had a long stint spanning over four decades with the Punjab Olympics Association in various capacities, including its president. He also remained Union sports minister. MSID:: 121467570 413 |
