-The Hindu Business Line   Economic Survey says Parliament can pass laws to override States' powers to create such a thing The Budget has proposed the setting up of a national agriculture market. Agriculture in the country is a State subject and thus all the States have set up Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMC) to regulate the marketing of agricultural commodities. Thus, APMCs have been considered an inhibiting factor for establishment of a national...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The Economic Survey emphasizes on the need for a national common agricultural market and identifies un-integrated and distortion ridden agricultural market as the one of the most striking problems in agriculture growth. The Economic Survey suggests 3 incremental steps as possible solution, building on the Budget 2014 recognition for setting up a national market, farmers' markets and need for the Central Government and the State Government...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance Economic Outlook, Prospects and Policy Challenges Macroeconomic fundamentals in 2014-15 have dramatically improved. Highlights are: * Inflation has declined by over 6 percentage points since late 2013. * The current account deficit has declined from a peak of 6.7 percent of GDP (in Q3, 2012-13) to an estimated 1.0 percent in the coming fiscal year. * Foreign portfolio flows have stabilized the rupee, exerting downward pressure on long-term interest...

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...

-The Economic Times None of the standard explanations quite explain the rise in food prices India has seen: pronounced since 2006 and alarming after 2010. Drought and poor rains? The country has seen good aggregate rainfall in most of those years. Spike in global prices? Those were high in 2007-08, not now. Fragmented value chains that allow middlemen to grab large margins? The value chain has always been fragmented. Growth has slowed...