RESEARCH

What the permission given to farmers to sell their produce outside APMC markets of Delhi means, and how much farther the capital and the rest of India must travel to ensure fair competition in the market and, thus, higher prices for the farmer but reduced prices for the consumer O n Tuesday, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung, in consultation with the Centre, approved the proposal to cease regulation of marketing of fruits and vegetables in the market area beyond the principal yard and sub-yard at three vegetable mandi s — aka APMC markets — in the city. That is, the selling has to be conducted outside the confines of the three established dalal markets at Azadpur, Keshopur and Shahdara. Azadpur mandi traders during a strike in February 2014 The amendment in the rules would also lift the bar on establishment of new markets by other players like co-operative societies, Kisan Mandi s, NAFED, Mother Dairy, Safal etc. bringing competition in the marketing of fruits and

Surajit Dasgupta , a former journalist, was Aam Aadmi Party’s founding member and was also part of its National Council. However, he quit AAP much before the Delhi Assembly polls that were held in December 2013 due to certain differences over the working of the party. In an interview with  Manisha Singh  of  Zee Media Corp , he spoke about the contradictions within the AAP, the reasons why he resigned from the party and also what he thinks of Arvind Kejriwal. Here are excerpts from the interview. The full interview: Why did you join Aam Aadmi Party in the first place? And what were some of the pertinent issues over which you disagreed with the party and due to which you subsequently left AAP?   As an individual since 2010 and as a part of the organisation Youth for Democracy (Y4D) since early 2011, I had been fighting for the cause of vyawastha parivartan (systemic change). One of the patrons of Y4D was KN Govindacharya who had come out of his RSS shell and BJP past in 2004 to

The AAP's bluff of representing the ordinary citizen must be called. In time. A rvind Kejriwal and other prominent faces of the Jan Lokpal (JLP) movement that caught the imagination of the nation in 2011 did the right thing in July-August 2012 by deciding to launch a political party of their own. First, under the present system, whatever laws a group of activists thinks the people of the country need can be made only by getting into the legislature. Second, the mistake of the Jayaprakash Narayan-led movement of the 1970s could not be repeated; those who led the movement should not have passed on the baton to older politicians. Political observers, however, began raising some valid questions right after the announcement of the intention. How could a band of people, howsoever well-meaning, who had a single-point agenda of getting rid of corruption by instituting an all-powerful lokpal (ombudsman), and who were apparently ignorant of other facets of governance, run a party that