India's reported willingness to relax its ceiling on cotton exports to accommodate the Pakistani demand for the commodity if Pakistan will permit the overland export of onions is a welcome development. The floods in Pakistan affected some portion of its cotton crop, and the country is now short of the commodity for its domestic textile and yarn industry, the mainstay of its fragile economy; heavy and unseasonal rains have caused...

Managing high agriculture Commodity Prices is becoming a concern for policy makers in India as well as globally. While Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has already warned of a ‘food price shock’, concerns are raised that this situation could worsen as various exporting countries could consider restrictions which will further create supply bottlenecks. As global food prices hit a record high, India just trails behind with food inflation touching a 23-week...

Not used to anyone inspecting their books, onion traders have not taken lightly to the govt's efforts to find the hoarders and others indulging in mass-scale wrongdoing and launched a strike that will hit consumers' pockets even more. However, they have said that they are being forced to sell under even the production cost. Understandably, but there were not many takers for that view. Traders in Nashik and adjoining areas today went...

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...

Wholesale food inflation saw a sharp increase to 18.32 per cent for the week ended December 25, primarily due to a steep rise in onion prices. The inflation rate is a 23-week high, much above the expectations of analysts and policymakers. Food inflation, as measured by the wholesale price index (WPI), was at 14.44 per cent for the previous week ended December 18 and at 19.9 per cent in the corresponding...