The Madhya Pradesh government is struggling to restore calm after five farmers were shot in clashes yesterday in the central city of Mandsaur, about 325 km from the capital of Bhopal. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan used Twitter to appeal to farmers to end the violence that has marked the strike they began on June 1, demanding debt relief and better prices for their produce. Opposition parties including the Left and the Congress have said the deaths yesterday prove that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has no strategy to help farmers.