-The Business Standard Hopeful of directional change in India-China trade relations With the World Trade Organization (WTO) reconvening this month, India is hopeful its concerns on public stockholding for food security purposes will be considered this time, even as the government on Wednesday said it is not the only country is demanding an early resolution to the issue. "Today, the environment is far more in favour of India. People are able to understand...

-The Indian Express The Modi government's efforts to fight inflation by releasing additional amounts of grain to states under the targeted public distribution system (TPDS) is threatening to unravel, as states are ill-equipped to handle extra allocations. While there are few takers among the states for the extra rice allocated under TPDS, the offloading of wheat stocks with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to bulk buyers has taken off. Analysts say...

-IBNLive.in New Delhi: South Africa supports India's stance at WTO on public food stock holding issue as developing nations have responsibility to ensure that "those who are not able to feed themselves" are brought under the food security net, said South African High Commissioner to India FK Morule. "The developing countries which includes South Africa support India. We are developing countries. So, the majority of people in our countries are not able...

The Business Standard The Planning Commission has not been central to the policymaking process since the mid-1960s In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the end of the Planning Commission. There will be few mourners at its funeral, mainly old war horses like me. So this is in the nature of an obituary for an institution in which I served for a decade and a half, and where I...

-The Economic Times None of the standard explanations quite explain the rise in food prices India has seen: pronounced since 2006 and alarming after 2010. Drought and poor rains? The country has seen good aggregate rainfall in most of those years. Spike in global prices? Those were high in 2007-08, not now. Fragmented value chains that allow middlemen to grab large margins? The value chain has always been fragmented. Growth has slowed...