-Livemint.com * The retail prices of onions spiked to Rs.70- Rs.80 earlier this week * Floods in key onion-producing states of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and others have hurt supplies New Delhi: The government has banned export of onions with immediate effect to check spiraling prices which touched Rs.70- Rs.80 per kg in the open market. The ban covers all varieties of onions. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Commerce...

-The Indian Express The steep MEP will, in a way, stop all outbound shipment of onions from India. THE UNION government on Friday slapped a steep Minimum Export Price (MEP) of $ 850 per tonne on onions, virtually putting brakes on the export of the produce. This is the first time that a MEP has been imposed on onions this year. Simply put, henceforth exports will not be allowed if the consignments...

-The Indian Express Agrarian crisis is an opportunity, for the government that assumes office after elections, to enact a law giving farmers the right to sell any quantity of their produce to anybody, anywhere and at any time. The German obsession with sound currency has been conditioned by the collective memory of the Great Hyperinflation of 1922-23, just as American intolerance to double-digit unemployment and stock market crashes is traceable to...

-The Indian Express Demonetisation, coupled with daily limits on cash transactions and fear of being tracked by revenue authorities post the Goods and Services Tax regime, have made traders less inclined to purchasing and stocking up produce during the harvest season. The defining feature of Indian agriculture in the last five years — much of it under the Narendra Modi government’s tenure — has been low prices for farm produce. The accompanying...

-News18.com Acclaimed journalist and Founder-Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, P Sainath attributes the existential crisis confronting India’s agrarian society to macro-economic policies set in motion 25 years ago. Talking to Anuradha SenGupta, Sainath makes a case for state intervention in agriculture and says the Modi government, with its shifting positions and policies like demonetisation has only aggravated the assault on agrarian livelihoods. Dismissing the buzz about imminent new initiatives...