-The Times of India HYDERABAD: Tomatoes might soon go off the common man's dinner plate, thanks to a steep hike in prices of the vegetable triggered by widespread destruction of farmland by unseasonal floods. The staple food item at almost every kitchen, available at Rs 15/kg in the open market in April this year, has now jumped five-fold to Rs 75-80/kg. The sudden spike, has also become a talking point on twitter,...

-The Hindu But an Assocham study has warned of an increase in prices Amid concern that the price of rice may be next to shoot up after those of pulses and onion, trade bodies put forth divergent views. V.S. Sethia, former president and currently a governing council member of the All-India Rice Export Association, told The Hindu that apprehensions of a sharp rise in rice price were baseless as ample stock of regular...

-Down to Earth Gujarat trader makes affordable sanitary napkins and develops India's first machine to hygienically dispose them of Darshan Desai SHYAM SUNDER Bedekar is a successful textile dye and chemical trader in Vadodara, Gujarat. He is also the man credited with popularising the use of sanitary napkins among the poor women in Vadodara and neighbouring areas—a commendable feat when one considers that just six per cent of women in the country...

-Economic and Political Weekly Despite favourable policy measures, growth of financial institutions and public interventions in the marketing of agricultural produce, the structure of Punjab's agricultural economy makes farmers dependent on commission agents. These agents trap the farmers in a vicious circle of indebtedness. Based on a field survey, this study locates the commission agent system in Punjab's agriculture set-up and recommends reframing it in order to extricate farmers from the...

-PTI The Agriculture Ministry has moved a proposal to create a buffer stock of 3.5 lakh tonnes of lentils during the current 2015-16 crop year through domestic purchase or imports to prevent a further price rise in pulses. “The Agriculture Ministry has sought inter-ministerial comments on a proposal to create a buffer stock of 3.5 lakh tonnes of pulses in 2015-16 crop year,” sources said. Out of the proposed 3.5 lakh tonnes, about...