-The Hindu Business Line Seeks extension in window for duty-free import shipments till December 31, 2022 Ahmedabad, June 18: Lower yield, unseasonal rains during the initial months of harvest coupled with the reduced acreage has led the cotton trade body, Cotton Association of India (CAI) to reduce its crop estimate to 315.32 lakh bales (each of 170 kg) for the season 2021-22. The latest crop estimate is about 12 per cent lower...

-The Hindu With government yet to begin procurement, many are forced to destroy their yield unable to meet even the transport cost Exactly five years after a police firing claimed the lives of six garlic farmers in Madhya Pradesh’s Mandsaur who were protesting demanding minimum support price for their produce, farmers in the districts bordering Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are up in arms against the State and Union governments for price as...

-The Hindu It is ad hoc, hurts farmers’ incomes, and may not impact inflation much  Over the last month, the government has banned the export of wheat and imposed quantitative restrictions on outbound sugar shipments. The wheat export ban came within days of a push to enhance India’s wheat supplies to the rest of the world after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is a time of persistently high inflation, spurred by rising...

-The Hindu Business Line Pesticide residues in India’s agri exports calls for a multi-pronged policy response As reported recently by this newspaper, India’s cumin exports have suffered a setback in recent months, with China claiming that pesticide residues exceeded the maximum residue limits (MRLs) spelt out by it about six months back. Chinese authorities have said that consignments must be accompanied by a pesticide residue report. India has been through all this...

-The Tribune The prices of essential food items have increased by 50% in seven years, whereas the real wage rate has risen by 22%. These figures show that inflation has outsmarted the real income of the poor, making their lives miserable as the food basket constitutes a substantial proportion of the total expenditure on the poor. The net effect is that the poor earn less and take loans to maintain the...