-The Hindu Business Line   Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (The more things change the more they remain the same ): A French proverb. In its earnest to tackle rising food inflation the new Government has taken a welcome initiative to delist fruits/ vegetables including Onions (FVO) from the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act, while all other measures are as usual - short term of political expediency, repeated several...

-The Business Standard   The government needs counter cyclical policies to tackle vegflation, which has become a recurrent problem Somebody help. Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley are held hostage, not by jihadists, recalcitrant opposition, international capital or the ever-erratic monsoon, but by faceless, nameless manipulators of Nasik, Navi Mumbai and Azadpur markets. The "raw" terror they have let loose resounds in the corridors of government as well as media power. Cutting to the chase,...

-PTI   NEW DELHI: The first consignment of Onions procured from Maharashtra by government cooperative NAFED reached the city on Monday. These Onions will be sold through 380 Safal outlets, said SS Yadav, commissioner, food and supplies department. In order to keep onion prices in check, LG Najeeb Jung had last week instructed National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NAFED) to purchase Onions to build stocks. Jung had also told...

-The Business Standard   How a law to conserve groundwater led to a better paid and better organised migrant workforce Ludhiana: For some years now, Punjab's fields have lain fallow through the searing dry heat of May; but come June's steamy humidity, small bands of lithe, slender men from Bihar fan out across the waterlogged paddy fields, transplanting rice saplings with fluid efficiency. Bihar's paddy planters have frequented Punjab since the 1960s when rice...

-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: There has to be something drastically wrong somewhere when onion prices start rising just after the largest ever harvest of Onions. In 2013-14, India harvested 19.3 million metric tons of Onions. That's 15% more than the previous year. This is not the final figure: it is the latest estimates put out by the agriculture ministry and may go up or down by a couple of...