Photo source: Al Jazeera By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront In August 2020, a movement erupted in India of around three hundred thousand protestors. It was led by farmers, who were multi- generational, multi-faith, and multi caste. Concentrated in north India, the central theme of protests was their discontent against three laws passed by BJP led federal government that the farmers saw as an exploitation of India’s agricultural sector by the private corporations. It emerged as one of the largest protest movements in South Asia. At the same time, the movement also reflected global issues of worker rights, and labour regulations. For their retaliation, farmers were met with water cannons, barbed wire, and Internet shutdowns. In the first initial months, these protests didn’t get worldwide attention. This, however, changed on India’s republic day, the following year, when farmers drove their tractors into Delhi’s city centre, and stormed New Delhi’s Red Fort, where they had clashed wi...

Photo Source: Wall Street Journal By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Up Front In the fertile Middle Belt of Nigeria, Benue State has long been celebrated as the nation’s food basket, yet it has also become the epicentre of one of Africa’s most troubling internal conflicts. Within the village of Aya Mbalom, Christian farmers and Muslim Fulani herdsmen once lived in relative harmony, their livelihoods tied to the land and its rhythms. That fragile coexistence has unravelled in recent years, replaced by violence, displacement, and destruction. The April 2018 attack on St Ignatius Catholic Church, where gunmen killed two priests and at least seventeen worshippers, marked a grim turning point. Reuters and Premium Times reported the incident as part of a wider wave of assaults across Benue, underscoring the vulnerability of rural communities. Joe Parkinson of the Wall Street Journal later described Nigeria’s farmer–herder clashes as cumulatively more lethal than Boko Haram’s insurgency, ...