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26 Feb, 9 tweets, 6 min read
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is struggling to beat back his biggest political challenge in years from #FarmersProtests movement which began with disgruntled farmers traveling to New Delhi on tractors and is now gaining wider support at home and abroad reut.rs/2NFZn1w
Simmering in makeshift camps housing tens of thousands of farmers since last year, the movement has seen a dramatic growth in recent weeks, getting backing from environmental activists, opposition parties and even A-list Western celebrities
At its heart are three new farm laws passed by the government last September.

The new farm laws allow private retailers to buy farm goods directly from growers, circumventing India’s government-controlled wholesale markets
Led by farmers from India’s northern Punjab state, the movement has spread to the country’s northern and western farm belts and is now nearing its 100-day mark
Sugarcane farmers from the politically important Uttar Pradesh state, who are suffering lengthy delays in crop payments, are joining forces with rice paddy and wheat growers from other states in opposing the new farm laws
Western Uttar Pradesh’s sizeable Muslim population, whose opposition to the Modi government’s citizenship law in 2019 was quietened by heavy-handed policing, has allied with Hindu farm leaders to join the ongoing protests
For over 60 years, Indian farmers have been selling grain to the government at state-guaranteed prices through these wholesale markets, and they say the new laws leave them at the mercy of large private retailers
Pop superstar @rihanna, Swedish climate change activist @GretaThunberg and U.S. activist @meenaharris, the niece of U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, all tweeted in support of the farmers this month, drawing a rebuke from India’s foreign ministry
India’s wider civil society, which has seen its ambit steadily narrow during Modi’s term, has also thrown its weight behind the farmers’ movement alongside academics and students. Read more reut.rs/2NFZn1w by @MayankBhardwaj9 @DevjyotGhoshal

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More from @Reuters

26 Feb
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26 Feb
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The next few days will give Republicans opportunities to stand together or fight among themselves.

First, when the House votes on a $1.9 trillion coronavirus package, and again when Trump delivers a speech to the party’s most conservative members reut.rs/3bEkKbt
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24 Feb
A wild and ailing sheep found in a forest in Australia, named Baarack by rescuers, has yielded a fleece weighing more than 35 kilograms - nearly half the weight of an adult kangaroo - after being shorn for the first time in years reut.rs/3utUJnK
The sheep was found by a member of the public who contacted the Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary near Lancefield, Victoria, about 60 kilometers north of Melbourne, according to Kyle Behrend from Edgar's Mission
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E. Jean Carroll hopes she’ll sit face-to-face with the man she accuses of raping her decades ago: former President Donald Trump 1/4 reuters.com/article/us-usa…
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The wife of Mexican drug cartel boss Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman was arrested and charged in the United States with helping her husband continue to run his drug trafficking cartel while he was behind bars reut.rs/2NxbwFV 1/5
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Read 5 tweets

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