Buoyed by bumper production estimates this year, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today favoured export of certain commodities like non-basmati rice, sugar and onion to protect the interests of the farming community. “Generally we feel, we should take a total liberalised approach on export of certain items...Farmers are raising concern that prices of some commodities are going down,” Pawar told reporters here. Citing onion case as an example, Pawar said farmers, who were...

Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram is the nation's domestic security chief, overseeing a broad portfolio that includes battling a homegrown Maoist insurgency and routing out terrorists. The 65-year-old, a veteran of the ruling Congress Party who previously held senior economic posts and played a key role in the country's post-1991 liberalization, is considered a future contender for the post of prime minister. Recently, he spoke to The Wall Street Journal. Here...

The forthcoming budget is unlikely to propose a steep hike in allocation of funds for the government's flagship rural welfare scheme despite a sharp increase in the wage rates under it. The finance ministry is likely to allocate only 42,000-45,000 crore for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), a government official told ET. The scheme will have an opening balance of about 10,000 crore, the official said. This precludes...

EU is pushing India and Canada to sign free trade agreements that will hurt their generic drugs—and the outrage is global After months of prevarication, the European Union has stated publicly that the free trade agreement (FTA) it signs with India will include provisions for data exclusivity because “it is extremely important for research and innovation’’. That’s what European Union ambassador Daniele Smadja told journalists in Delhi on January 21. Smadja’s...

As food prices rose for the seventh month in a row in January, contributing to recent popular unrest in the Middle East and a spike in commodities purchases by developing countries last week, some analysts are quick to make comparisons to the dry years of 2007-2008. But others warn against panic and oversimplified predictions of an impending food crisis, which contribute to price volatility. "It is important to underline – and we've...