Spanning aloo tikkis and cut roses...

Anand Sharma

In Nov 2001, the GoM constituted by BJP on FDI in retail met (quotes from GoM papers).

I congratulate my friends from the BJP that back then they remembered to take Haldiram and Bikanerwala into consideration.

McDonald's came to India and started making aloo tikki – after all Indians would not let go of their palate.

But equally important is the fact that Haldiram's now has 38 stores worldwide, including three in London. Bikarnerwala is a Rs 1,000-crore company with 85 stores across the world.

Praful Patel

Why do we doubt our capability? The largest exporter of cut roses in the world is in Bangalore, not Holland. We must acknowledge the losses in agricultural produce — almost Rs 50,000 crore each year.

We had sent back Coca Cola. But it was allowed back in; the company acquired Parle's Thums Up and tried to replace it with Coke. But Thums Up is still more popular in India than Coca Cola.

Readymade furniture from China is being sold in my area. Even idols are being imported because of liberalisation.

Basudeb Acharia

A report from ICAR says post-harvest losses not more that 1%... you are exaggerating the losses. Who is responsible if there are no cold storage facilities in this country? Will WalMart make cold storages, rural roads linking villages? They will not invest in infrastructure that benefits Indian farmers.

Murli Manohar Joshi

(Rebutting Kapil Sibal) You had said that PepsiCo has an agreement to procure potatoes from 10,000 farmers now as opposed to 1,800 when they started off in 2010. Cultivation is happening in 7,000 acres now compared to 5,500 acres in 2010. You call this beneficial? It is far from that. This is what we call 'monopoly farming', where a foreign company monopolises even agriculture in our country.

... contd.

ALSO READ

Inflation-linked bonds to debut soon

Kelkar panel on natural gas pricing likely to endorse Rangarajan formula

DGCA scrutiny likely for airlines' levy on services

After lull, highway projects see aggressive bid offers