UPDATED: January 17, 2021 08:49 IST
New dawn: Farmers burn copies of the new farm laws while celebrating Lohri at the Ghazipur border protest site in Delhi (Photo: ANI)
As the national capital settled in for its coldest winter in the past 15 years, it did little to thaw the tensions between the government and the protesting farm unions. However, in a 'dramatic' intervention on January 12, the Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramaniam suspended the implementation of the new farm laws and set up a four-member expert committee to hear the farm unions. But if they thought this would placate the agitating farmers, they were mistaken, as the farmers refused to appear before the expert committee, saying they would rather continue the dialogue with the Centre. They are also sticking to their demand of a complete rollback of the new Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 ,and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020.