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Hailing from an agrarian family in Sonipat, Haryana, Mohit Dahiya wasn’t new to the challenges faced by the farming community. Having faced labour shortage during paddy transplanting season, he could personally relate to farmers’ woes, and these issues spurred Mohit to research on ways to alleviate problems for the sector.
While completing his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering at Lovely Professional University (LPU), the now 23-year-old Mohit got a chance to get an outside view, and research on solutions.
“In a few months’ time, I came up with the idea to innovate an automatic machine that can substitute the work of 8-10 farmers on the field,” says Mohit. It led to the founding of Jai Bharat Agritech in Punjab in October 2020., but the team had started the prototyping and research back in 2017.
Serial entrepreneur
Madhusudhan Reddy Salla realised that all developed countries were adopting newer cutting-edge technologies to modernise their agri supply chains, however, India, despite having the largest farming community in the world, was lagging behind.
He realised that there was a need for a solution, and that would come from technology. Madhusudhan had been a big believer in technology, having founded Aizyc Semiconductor in 2008 that licensed its intellectual property to Intel, Wolfson, Microchip, Broadcom, and many more. He later went on to start Klickh, a home automation product company that currently is an OEM to Schneider Electric.
He discussed India’s farming needs with an acquaintance,
by Tushar G. - Mar 1, 2021 06:50 AM
Farmersâ Occupy The Red Fort During January 26 Violence
Snapshot
The role of the private sector has only been measured from the lens of pricing and procurement.
The tantrums of a few MSP-spoiled farmers, willing to burn their agricultural future to the ground and unwilling to reform themselves, must not be passed off as a verdict on the role of private corporations in the farming sector.
Amongst the shifting goalposts on the farm laws, what has been prevalent is the constant apprehension against the private sector.
Critics of the new farm laws have attributed the protestersâ staged misery to corporate threat to farmersâ livelihoods across India. The entire anti-corporate narrative has been fixated on the new contract farming law.
Long Read: For the Love Of Environment, Punjab Needs The Farm Laws
by Tushar G. - Feb 16, 2021 09:40 AM
Farmers near Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab (Flickr)
Snapshot
Greta or Disha may have several toolkits up their sleeves, but no toolkit can stop the imminent doom of the wheat-paddy agri-economy of Punjab.
The unraveling of the Greta Thunberg endorsed toolkit and the noise around the arrest of a 21-year-old self-proclaimed environment activist, Disha Ravi, last week from Bengaluru, has shifted the goal post in the farm laws debate yet another time.
This time, the focus is on the environmental aspect of the farm laws.
by Tushar G. - Dec 21, 2020 01:03 PM
Private sector participation in Indian agricultural sector needs to be encouraged, not opposed
Snapshot
The anti-private sector rhetoric, emanating from Instagram and the Singhu Border, must be ignored.
The author, humbly, begs thy pardon, but there is no easy way and perhaps a no more respectable way of putting this, but the contempt that has been witnessed, propagated, and even celebrated in the protests against private sector at the Singhu border is stupid.
The protests were about MSP (Minimum Support Price), to begin with. Once it was confirmed and verified that the MSP is not going anywhere, it became about the participation of the private sector in Indiaâs agriculture.