On the anniversary of Gandhi's birthday, October 2nd, tens of thousands of farmers gathered in Bombay to declare their opposition to the Indian government entering into agricultural agreements with the WTO. About 70% of the population consists of peasants and current WTO conditions already devastate the village economies.

(The following are excerpts from an article submitted by john_browns_army on March 17, 2005 - A&S News Wire)

The worst impacts of free trade regime in the agricultural sector is the universal problem. Dumping of subsidized food and agricultural products will drastically hit the ability of Indian Peasant Community.

Farmers' suicides will increase considerably if India goes ahead and agrees to the stipulations of the WTO in the next ministerial meeting scheduled to be held in Hong Kong in December.

Government will remove Quantitative Restrictions(QRs) on most of agricultural produce and open the market completely for the dumping of agricultural produce which they said, are in line with the prevailing economic policies of the government.

The central government move towards this issue fraught with danger as India will be reduced to a dumping ground for agriculture produce of the developed world.

This will ruin Indian farmers' who are already under duress from the new economic policies being followed by the government.

Government seems to be in favor of removing subsidies on fertilizers and abolishing minimum support price for agriculture produce.

"India has imposed 65 percent import duty on agriculture produce in the past and this has been gradually reduced to 35%.