Fast-growing emerging nations are taking increasingly aggressive actions to beat back rising food prices as they grow more worried of threats to stability if prices don't start to retreat. Developing-market governments have unveiled a laundry list of measures—including price caps, export bans and rules to counter commodity speculation—to keep food costs from disrupting their economies as price spikes that some had hoped were temporary have stretched into the new year. Some...

As many as 9.063 lakh Manav Divas under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) have been created for the job card holders, since April in Dehradun district, said a department officers while talking to The Pioneer on Tuesday. He said that the department has spent `15.11 crore for providing employment to the job card holders under the MNREGA since April in the district. While talking to The Pioneer Doiwala Block...

What’s Going Wrong?     * Market intelligence remains a weak link; farm policies rarely reflect correct scenario     * Extensive damage to crop in Maharashtra not factored in promoting onion, tomato exports     * Middlemen make capital while farmers realise 10-15% margin, not enough to recoup losses     * Government market intervention capacity limited to foodgrains and pulses **** India’s worst-kept secret was finally revealed when the government threw up its hands in despair in the...

India is understood to have told Pakistan that it is ready to lift the ban on cotton exports if the latter resumes its onion exports through rail and land routes. Official sources in the Commerce Ministry said this was conveyed to Islamabad by the External Affairs Ministry. “The Indian side has conveyed to the Pakistani counterparts that it was ready to revisit the cotton export ban and ceiling issues, if the...

The spectre of rising onion prices is haunting Indian politics again. As prices trebled over a period of three weeks, touching Rs.90 a kg in some parts of the country, the liliaceous plant, whose bulb is the mainstay of many Indian staple recipes, became a topic of debate and discussion not only for ordinary consumers, but for economists and policymakers as well. India is the world's second largest producer of...