Morning Pulse: Centre names its cane panel as growers swap the highway for a march on Hubballi

Karnataka wakes up to a set of standoffs that have turned into processes overnight. The cane growers who held NH 48 for two days have stepped off one side of the highway and started walking to Union Minister Pralhad Joshi's house in Hubballi. The Centre has given its promised committee a chair and a brief. And the state Cabinet meets today with the High Court's quota ruling in front of it. Each of these is movement. None of them yet comes with a number or a deadline.

The blockade at Hattargi in Hukkeri taluk ended on Wednesday evening after about 28 hours, All About Belgaum reported, with one side of the Pune-Bengaluru highway reopened and both sides expected to be clear by midnight. ETV Bharat Karnataka reported that police reopened the Hattargi toll, with traffic moving towards Maharashtra while marchers used the Bengaluru-bound lane. We have not seen confirmation that every blockade point in Belagavi, Dharwad, Haveri and Vijayapura districts has lifted, so travellers should check local police advisories this morning.

The protest has not ended; it has changed shape. Members of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha and Hasiru Sene set off on a 'Hubballi Chalo' foot march, which ETV Bharat said could take three to four days. All About Belgaum reported that the marchers, led by Chunappa Pujari, planned to halt at Kakati on Wednesday night. Honorary president Shashikant Guruji, who is unwell, said he would join from Thursday evening, according to ETV Bharat. The demands are unchanged: Rs 5,500 a tonne for cane, Rs 60 a kilo as the floor price for sugar, Central purchase of the state's ethanol and the Swaminathan Commission's recommendations. The growers also want the Centre to send its decision through the district SP and Deputy Commissioner. Seers including Dingaleshwar Swamiji backed the march, and ETV Bharat reported that he urged protesters to shut railway stations, airports and government offices. No date has been set for the statewide bandh the farmers have threatened.

A loop we left open last night was in fact already closed. Our Evening Pulse said we had found no report that the Centre had named its joint committee. It had. Business Standard and Public TV reported on Wednesday that the Centre set up a committee chaired by Ramesh Chand, a former NITI Aayog member, with the Agriculture Commissioner and joint secretaries for sugar and legal metrology. According to Business Standard, it will examine the demand for higher returns to growers, whether to revise the ex-mill minimum selling price of sugar, how sugar recovery is tested, how cane is weighed at mills, and the deductions made for machine-harvested cane. It will consult farmers, mills and state governments and report "as early as possible". No deadline has been set. No price change has been announced, and we saw no farmer leader's response to the panel in the reports we read.

On the quota ruling, today is the day the Deputy Chief Minister set. G Parameshwara said on Wednesday that the Cabinet would decide whether to appeal to the Supreme Court or seek Ninth Schedule protection for the 2022 law that raised SC and ST quotas, which the High Court struck down on Monday for breaching the 50 per cent ceiling, ThePrint (PTI) reported. He also said the drought memorandum to the Centre, now covering 226 taluks, would be ready within a week.

A second correction concerns the sting row. Last night we said there was no public police update on Siddaramaiah's complaint. In fact IANS and Public TV reported on Wednesday that the city's CCB cyber crime police had registered an FIR over allegedly fake videos about him circulating on social media and detained two people for questioning. Police are tracing the accounts through IP addresses and have not said who made the videos. That FIR concerns the circulation of the videos. It is not an inquiry into who carried out the alleged sting.

That gap is where the opposition is now pressing. Leader of the Opposition R Ashoka said that if no FIR is registered, it would confirm that Congress leaders were behind the sting, TV9 Kannada and IANS reported. He was campaigning for the NDA candidate in the Bangalore Teachers' constituency. IANS reported that he claimed allegations had surfaced against 10 ministers, who deny any role. In the reports we saw, neither the government nor the Home Department had answered him, and H D Kumaraswamy had not replied to Minister N Cheluvarayaswamy's taunts.