The Centre today sought to justify the export ban on onion by saying that the wholesale price of onion in Nashik, the country’s largest wholesale hub for the bulb crop, had declined by 33 per cent to Rs 2,500 per 100kg or Rs 25 a kg. The impact will not be felt immediately on kitchen budgets as it will take some time – “two to three weeks”, according to Sharad Pawar...

Lobbyist Niira Radia , who’s in the eye of major storm over her taped telephonic conversations with a wide variety of people, including politicians, corporates and journalists, was on Tuesday grilled by the CBI over her alleged involvement in swinging commercial deals which smacked of a quid pro quo. A three-member CBI team subjected Radia to an intense questioning at her Chhatarpur farmhouse in south Delhi this morning. The interrogation, which...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offered Monday to appear before a committee investigating a telecommunications scandal that has rocked India’s political establishment. He rejected claims by opposition parties that he had been trying to avoid any questioning. “I wish to state categorically that I have nothing to hide from the public at large,” Mr. Singh said on the final day of a plenary session of the Indian National Congress Party. “As proof...

The Chhattisgarh model offers some key lessons on how to make the public distribution system deliverProbably the only thing extraordinary about Manglu is that he is the perfect example of an ordinary tribal. The 60-year-old belongs to the Pahadi Korba tribe and lives in Govindpur village of Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh. He best represents what modern India calls a below poverty line (BPL) beneficiary of various government schemes. Manglu earns...

The Economic Offences Wing of the Central Bureau of Investigation has unearthed a multimillion-rupee bribery scam and arrested top officials of public sector banks and financial institutions, including the Chief Executive Officer of the Life Insurance Corporation Housing Finance Limited. On Tuesday, the CBI conducted raids in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata and Jalandhar and seized some documents. “Five separate cases have been registered,” Joint Director P. Kandaswamy told a press...