Cement shipments from Pakistan will hit the Indian markets by the end of the month at prices that are up to a third lower than domestic prices.
Organised retail in India's rural hinterland is a very different ball game from what it is in urban centres.
The MEP has been raised from $225 a tonne in May to $495 a tonne in October. Despite this, domestic onion prices have risen sharply. They are currently available at Rs 24 -28 per kg at the retail level, compared with Rs 8-10 a kg in May.
The Indian Sugar Mills' Association, the industry lobby group, will take the proposal to Food & Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar soon, sources close to the development said.
Groaning under the burden of huge arrears to sugarcane farmers and rising losses, leading sugar producers of Uttar Pradesh have begun filing cases against a December 2006 directive of the state government on sugarcane prices.
National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation, the central government's procurement agency for non-cereal crops, is in talks with leading retail companies to serve as a back-end supply chain in agri-commodities.
When the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission shot off notices to 14 cement producers on July 25 for allegedly colluding to raise prices, it was New Delhi's latest flank against the industry.
Large retail chains like Reliance Fresh, Subhiksha and Spencer's have not been able to do sourcing of their entire farm products directly from the farmers.
Kartaar Singh, a farmer of Mokha village in Punjab's Kapurthala district, used to travel about 50 km on his scooter to Jalandhar's new sabzi mandi, or wholesale vegetable market, to sell his vegetables every day.
Bail-out package for loss-making industry awaits Cabinet clearance.
Calling the bluff of the country's sugar barons, the Centre has scrapped 98 per cent of the industrial entrepreneur memorandums obtained by them for setting up new production units.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram's efforts to bring down cement prices have finally borne fruit as cement manufacturers have introduced cuts in prices.
Prices of most commodities on which the government imposed an export ban to check inflation have risen sharply, touching an all-time high in cases.
The New York-bound fruits will be the second success story in a row for the King of Fruits. Last year, Indian mangoes were exported to Japan for the first time after a gap of 20 years.
The environment ministry has proposed to offer wasteland available with it to investors through multi-stakeholder partnership.
The country's leading steel companies were considering a price increase of Rs 1,000-2,000 per tonne from April 1, despite a partial rollback last month.
Companies offering much more for wheat than govt's Rs 850 a quintal.
The Maharashtra government has announced fiscal incentives for the state sugar mills to ensure that they continue crushing till all the sugarcane available is consumed.
To augment its storage capacity, Reliance Retail is seeking to hire capacity with the government-owned Food Corporation of India. This has been complemented by low foodgrain stocks with FCI and the surplus storage capacity.