-The Hindu Providing people with a modest basic income instead of subsidies would save public revenue With oil prices falling, it was perhaps a good time to fade out fuel subsidies. All subsidies are inefficient and distortionary, and most are regressive. The same could be said of costly public works schemes as well. By contrast, the debate on direct benefit transfers has moved into a more sensible phase, with the posturing criticism of...

-Business Standard A monsoon deficit is likely to affect the agriculture output, which could have an impact on the food inflation The sharp fall in inflation over the past few months has raised the clamour for interest rate cuts. With the Consumer Price Index (CPI) falling to 5.5 per cent in October from 6.5 per cent a month ago, which is below the central bank's target of six per cent by January...

-The Indian Express * Have global agri-Commodity Prices fallen? By how much? They have. The Food and Agricultural Organisation's latest Food Price Index (base: 2002-04 = 100) of 192.3 for October is down 6.9 per cent compared to a year ago, and 19.1% below the all-time high of 237.7 reached in February 2011. Prices of commodities such as corn, wheat, soybean, sugar and palm oil traded in international futures exchanges are today...

-The Business Standard Wholesale prices of edible oils have risen 40% since Oct 15; pulses and wheat have surged 4.62% and 8.33%, respectively These could still be early signs, but it appears the breather on food inflation that India has been enjoying for some time is going to end. Following a sharp reduction in production estimates, prices of key agricultural commodities have risen over the past three weeks. According to data from the...

Despite high prices of fruits and vegetables, India's area under horticultural crops - mainly fruits, vegetables, spices and flowers - has doubled in around twenty years (between 1991-92 and 2012-13). This has resulted in increase in production of horticultural crops nearly threefold (2.8 times). A new report from the Ministry of Agriculture says that the area under horticultural crops during this period rose from 12.77 million hectares to 23.69 million...