-Business Standard Bitter gourd leads decline as green veggies nosedive up to 50% on Maharashtra's move to delist them from spot mandis Mumbai: Vegetables price have plunged in Mumbai over the past two weeks, on a sudden increase in direct supply from farmers to retailers and bulk consumers, following the state government’s removal of the legal compulsion for farmers to sell only at regulated wholesale markets (mandis). Prices of green Vegetables have...

-Livemint.com Economic reforms have diversified Indian diets, but there is still not enough on the plate It has been 25 years since economic reforms in India. What has been liberalisation’s effect on the average Indian’s diet? Is it any different today than what it was in 1991? Which of the periods saw more changes in our food plates: Independence to economic reforms or the post-reform period? Food Balance Sheet prepared by FAOSTAT,...

-Down to Earth Severe dry spells in Indian forests have hit the livelihood of more than 100 million people. But India simply does not acknowledge this drought For more than five months, residents of Jabarra village have been foraging the forests for minor forest produce (MFP). The forest in Chhattisgarh’s Dhamtari district is abundant with more than 200 types of forest produce and the district is known as Asia’s biggest trading...

-Frontline The inability to resolve pressing problems with respect to the production, distribution and availability of food is one of the important failures of the entire economic reform process. IN the fateful month of July 1991, when the devaluation of the Indian rupee presaged the introduction of a whole series of liberalising economic reforms, agriculture was very far from the minds of most policymakers and commentators. The immediate focus was on...

-TheGuardian.com Hardworking women in India care for family members, cook, clean, garden, sew and farm without getting paid. When will official statistics recognise this? Women’s participation in work is an indicator of their status in a society. Paid work offers more opportunities for women’s agency, mobility and empowerment, and it usually leads to greater social recognition of the work that women do, whether paid or unpaid. Where women’s work participation rates are relatively...