In India, people are upset about onions. Expensive cooking oil is causing hoarding in China, a practice banned by the government. Meanwhile, flour and bread are the main source of riots in Algeria and now Jordan. Worries over food prices are gathering pace and triggering alarm among politicians across the world. For there is nothing more likely to bring down a government than ignoring starving citizens, as Marie Antoinette found to...

Even as the price of onions remained high in domestic retail markets, the National Cooperative Consumers Federation of India (NCCF) on Monday urged the government to suspend the import of the vegetable for 10 days, by when the prices are expected to fall due to better arrivals. “The recent import of onions from China and Pakistan has created panic among our farmers, and many of them have started harvesting the crop...

Beleaguered by rising prices, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on Saturday termed sky-high onion prices a seasonal phenomenon and hoped that the picture will change in the coming months. “Onion prices have shot up as over 70% of crop from Nashik, which would have been ready for sale in December-January, was destroyed due to unseasonal rains. This has disturbed the cycle of supply in the country. It will be restored after...

The first consignment of about 200 tonnes of onion imported by the government from Pakistan landed at the Mundra port in Gujarat today and is likely to reach Delhi on Tuesday. The government had asked state-owned trading agencies PEC and State Trading Corporation (STC) to import onion to boost domestic supply and rein in the soaring prices of the kitchen staple. Since Pakistan had banned trade of onion to India through land...

The Manmohan Singh government is digging an even bigger hole for itself by claiming there was no loss of revenue from the sweetheart sale of 2G spectrum to favoured corporate houses. “Milord,” cunning lawyers have argued in countless Hindi movies, “how can there have been a murder when there is no dead body?” I was reminded of this line when I heard Kapil Sibal — who has been performing as an...