RESEARCH

W hen you get into something but end up not getting what you wanted from it, you use a euphemism to describe your stint: Experience. An optimist, I wouldn’t say I have wasted the last three years of my life chasing a chimera of vyawastha parivartan (systemic change). First Baba Ramdev and then KN Govindacharya promised India would change under their pressure, sharing with me kind of revised versions of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s prescriptions for change. Then a senior journalist and close associate literally dragged me into the Aam Aadmi Party, forcing me to dump my ideological reservations against socialists Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav. The virtual, non-committal and vocal socialists I have dealt with I came out of each of the three groups, following experiences of serious discomfiture in the company of those who dream of bringing back the glory of Gupta-Maurya epochs to India and those who are simply control freaks, trying to impose the state on

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