 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup with People's Dispatch where we bring you some of the top stories from across the globe. Let's take a look at today's headlines. Farmers lead nation-wide shutdown across India to mark four months of protests. US state of Georgia passes voting bill amid accusations of voter suppression. Annual peasant march in Paraguay denounces government corruption. Israeli elections end in uncertainty as no party crosses majority threshold. India to impose restrictions on vaccine exports citing domestic surge in infections. Farmers in India held a nation-wide shutdown on March 26 to mark four months of protests. The call was given by the Sanuk Kisan Mocha, which is a farmer's coalition leading the struggle at the borders of Delhi. The shutdown extended from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. as farmers blocked roads and railways in various districts. The protest action received widespread support from trade unions, transport and workers' associations and political parties. Workers gathered at the Ghazi-Pur border on Friday morning. The border leads into the capital and is also served as one of the main protest sites. According to reports, protests were held across 32 locations in the capital and the neighboring states of Punjab and Haryana. Trainings were also cancelled as farmers and workers occupied rail tracks in several places. Interstate bus services were also stopped. Protest actions were also reported in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Shops and businesses were shut down in the cities of Vishakapatnam, Vijaywada and Andhrapradesh. The government in the state of Odisha also declared that all education institutions will remain closed. Protests have continued following 11 rounds of failed negotiations between the government and the farmers. The farmers are demanding a complete repeal of three farm laws introduced by the far-right BJP government. They have stated that the laws will dismantle key safety measures for farmers while expanding corporate control. Despite widespread opposition, the government has only offered piecemeal measures, including suspending the laws for up to 18 months. The state of Georgia in the United States has passed a controversial law which many argue will restrict voting access. Called the Election Integrity Act, it was passed in the Republican-controlled House and Senate on March 25th. Governor Brian Kemp signed it into law later the same day. The controversial legislation was passed despite widespread opposition from Democrats and activists. The law will enforce mandatory voter identification criteria for absentee or mail-in ballots and cut down on the use of ballot drop boxes. The time between run-off elections will also be shortened from 9 to 4 weeks. It will also make it illegal to approach voters waiting in line with food or water. The law will also remove the Secretary of State as the Chair of the State Election Board. The chair will now be jointly elected by both houses of legislature. Both houses will also elect two members each of the five-person election board. The board will also have the power to take over local elections and dismiss officials. The law has been denounced as a voter suppression tactic which will disproportionately affect the black community. Activists have cited the impacts of discrimination in areas such as housing, employment and education on political participation. These arguments are also part of a lawsuit filed against the law on Thursday. The lawsuit also argues against the cuts to the early voting period for run-off elections. This will eliminate the guarantee of early voting on weekends, which racial minorities rely heavily on to cast their ballots. The law comes at a time when other Republican-controlled states are also pushing for reforms to limit voting access. This has been the case especially in those states, which saw significant victories for the Democrats last year, including in Georgia. For our next journey, we go to Paraguay where hundreds of farmers gathered in the capital of Asansyan on March 25th, the day marked the annual peasant march convened by the National Federation of Farmers. Protesters demanded the resignation of President Mario Abdo raising the slogan, out with the corrupt and the selloffs. The motto of this year's march was, for land, health, work and sovereignty. Agrarian workers announced the unjust distribution of land and demanded the implementation of agrarian reforms. As reported by ABC Paraguay, their demands included technical assistance for land workers and an end to evictions of peasant families. The Paraguayan government has also been widely condemned for its mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis. The healthcare system has been on the verge of collapse with shortages of medicines and beds in hospitals. At the same time, the government has been caught amid allegations of corruption. Mass protests have been held demanding the resignation of the vice president and the cabinet. People have also demanded free universal vaccinations, increase in health and education budgets and distribution of basic food items. In accordance with COVID guidelines, Thursday's march in Asansyan was limited to approximately 300 people. It was also held alongside other mobilizations, including the one led by the Indigenous and Agricultural Coordination Organization. Solidarity marches were also held across other departments, including Alto Parana, Concepcion and Ken Indio. The far-right coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to secure a majority in Israel's elections. The coalition secured 52 seats in the 120-member parliament, as per the results announced on March 26. Netanyahu's liquid party remains the largest party with 30 seats. The centre-right Yashate party has become the leading opposition with 17 seats. The Benny Gantz led Blue and White Party secured 8 seats. Gantz was Netanyahu's counterpart in the previous unity government. However, he never officially became Prime Minister because the parliament was dissolved. The Labour Party got 7 seats and the left-wing, merits and the Arab joint list each got 6 seats. The total tally of seats in the opposition is 57. This means that no party or coalition has secured the 61 seats necessary for a majority. There is also talk of a possible change in bloc with virtually all anti-Netanyahu parties except Ram. Legislators in this group are also contemplating a bill which would bar anyone with an ongoing criminal investigation from holding office as Prime Minister, incumbent Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing trial on charges of corruption. This is Israel's fourth election in two years. The final results will be submitted to President Rubin Rivlin on March 31. The president will have the authority to determine which party will get the first chance to form the government. And for a final story, we go to India, where the government is reportedly planning to restrict exports of the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine. News Agency Reuters reported two sources stating that the restrictions will be put in place to meet domestic demands. India is currently facing a surge in infections and the government has also expanded the immunization campaign. According to the Foreign Ministry, India has exported over 60 million doses of the vaccine which is produced by the Serum Institute of India. The restrictions will also affect the Global Covax Initiative which provides doses to poorer countries. Here is Prabhupur Kaya said to talk more about this issue. Countries which have vaccinated a large number of its population in percentage terms are not the ones manufacturing or exporting vaccines for others. They are the ones who are really only producing for themselves. And this is the United States, UK, parts of European Union. These are the countries who have actually produced vaccine for themselves. You look at India, for instance, you will see it has not vaccinated very many of its people. In fact, the number of percentage terms, the number of percentage of people vaccinated are quite low, as you can see from the chart. Similarly, for China, it seems to have reserved most of its vaccine export for other countries. Russia has vaccinated. Some people again has been a large supplier. So if you look at which countries have supplied the vaccines and if you look at, for instance, the three countries will supply the bulk of the vaccines. And you have a chart here, which shows that it is really only three countries which have supplied vaccines. But when you come to the vaccines which are being exported, then you see, of course, that the AstraZeneca vaccine is the one which is going to different parts of the world. We have exported roughly about 60 million vaccines from India. And that has gone to a number of countries and also earmarked for the co-vaccine program of WHO. This is the largest supply of vaccines that co-vaccine is going to receive. It's going to be from India. And up to about July or up to September, this is what the WHO has said that it was supposed to receive 237 million vaccine doses from the setup institute, while only 1.2 million vaccines were supposed to have come from Pfizer. It's supposed to have been secured from Pfizer. Now, that is the ratio at which it is operating. But the problem that we have is given the fact that only India, apart from Russia and China, are exporting vaccines to others. If India drops out of producing vaccines to others, this is going to give a huge gap. And this is something that the World Health Organization Director General said a few days back, that what is happening is morally reprehensible. It's grotesque that countries which are sitting on vaccines or vaccinating their own people or refusing to share a vaccine with others, that we have not only seen the rise of vaccine nationalism at the world level, we are seeing a degree of vaccine selfishness that we have never seen before. Particularly at a time when the global scenario is such that unless we inoculate, vaccinate the population of the world, the bulk of the population in the world, we're not going to stop the pandemic. It's not going to stop at national boundaries. And if we do not successfully fight the pandemic at the global level, then the global economy is not going to recover. And as we have discussed earlier as well, that you have the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Monetary Fund, two organizations who have no sympathy with what's called socialized public health medicine or what Ronald Reagan had once termed as socialist medicine. That unless we do that, that the world economy is not only not going to recover, but the hit to the developed countries, those who are actually leading the vaccine nationalism drive in the world today, they are also going to lose up to five trillion dollars by the next three, four years because a global economy, if it does not recover, is going to hit their export as well as hit the raw materials or the finished goods it requires for its own consumption. So this is the situation that we have a scenario if we all work together. And that's a real possibility. We can fight the pandemic much better. We are refusing to do that. And the second plank in that fight would be that there is a huge amount of vaccine capability, production capability idling in the world because not everybody's vaccines have been successful. But there is no interest in sharing the technology with countries or with production facilities or with companies who don't have their own vaccine, utilizing it for immediately producing more vaccine the world needs. This is not being done because profit motive trumps everything else and therefore intellectual property and this is not patents, it's intellectual property. You know how what you do to need to scale up production. Those are the things which are not being accepted. If you take the WTO platform, the rich countries basically because of their pharmaceutical companies have opposed it, opposed it to the name. Therefore, this proposal by India and South Africa has failed. It's not getting any traction. So we have on one hand that as a scenario that is standing in front of us of extreme selfishness coupled with looking at the vaccine producing profits for some countries, companies, Pfizer and Moderna looking at tens of millions of dollars of profit for the next one, two years. So that is what is standing in the way of really fighting pandemic globally together. And that's all the time we have in this episode of The International Daily Roundup. For more such stories and videos visit our website peoples.spice.org, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thank you for watching.