With deep pockets and international sourcing capabilities, global retail chains will outcompete domestic players, displace jobs, and undermine livelihoods. In predictable fashion, the Manmohan Singh government chose to ignore voices of opposition and implement its agenda of permitting foreign investment in the retail trade. While Parliament was in session, the Cabinet met to approve the hitherto prohibited foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, with a cap of 51 per cent on...

-The Economic Times   With the entry of foreign supermarket players, farmers across India's six lakh villages stand to gain from greater market access, higher profits, better technology and direct linkage with consumers.  "Direct purchase from farms has hugely benefited small farmers like us who were not getting good returns by selling in the local mandi," said Abdul Majid, from Malerkotla in Punjab, who has been selling vegetables from his one-acre farm to...

Indian suppliers must be units with investment up to Rs 1.25 cr, says draft before cabinet. Multinational retailers such as Walmart, Tesco and Carrefour looking to open stores in the country may have to source almost a third of their merchandise from small Indian manufacturers as the government tries to make the opening of multi-brand retail to foreign players more politically palatable. The draft cabinet note for permitting 51 per cent foreign...

A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court against the June 26, 2010, Orissa High Court decision to refrain from acting on a PIL drawing attention to the multi-crore coal mining scam in the state. The PIL, filed by Cuttack-based lawyer and activist Nishikanta Mishra, had demanded a probe by an independent agency, such as the CBI, into the scam involving high-ranking bureaucrats and politicians in Orissa. The scam, the petition...

IN preparing the approach paper to the Twelfth Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission engaged “all interested persons” in the country in a wide, web-based consultative exercise and also involved a varied group of “stakeholders”. The resulting document clearly indicates some awareness of the complex problems likely to be faced by the economy in the coming period. But it falls short of expectations because it does not provide a cohesive...