Letter to BS: Don't just preach 'vocal for local', bring it to practice

Why did we have high import duties in the first place? To be 'vocal for local'

The Centre’s notification to allow import of 500,000 million tonnes (MT) of maize and 10,000 MT of milk by reducing duties on them may disturb our path towards an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. The local prices of both these products are already crashing and maize farmers are even forced to sell their crops for less than the minimum support price. India is the world’s seventh biggest producer of maize; we are supposed to export it and not import. We have got a bumper harvest of maize during rabi (May-June) season and the same is ex­pec­ted during kharif (October-November) season. But since we