LIVE updates: SC-appointed panel starts consultation on three farm laws

Farmers' protest LIVE updates Day 57: The Supreme Court-appointed panel on the new agri laws on Thursday started its consultation process and interacted with 10 farmer organisations from eight states, including Uttar Pradesh. 

Earlier in the day, the second round of meeting between the police and farmer unions regarding the proposed January 26 tractor rally by them remained inconclusive today as the farmers stuck to their demand of taking out the rally on Delhi's busy Outer Ring Road.

The government on Wednesday proposed to suspend the three contentious farm laws for one and half years and set up a joint committee to discuss the Acts to end the stalemate, but farmer leaders did not immediately accept the proposal and said they will revert after their internal consultations.

"The government proposed to suspend the farm laws for one and a half years. We rejected the proposal but since it has come from the government, we will meet and deliberate over it," Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) president Joginder Singh Ugrahan said.

Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, are protesting at various border points of Delhi for over a month now against the three laws -- the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act.