To feed a need: Bihar's small farmers chance to obtain a fair price on national or global electronic markets

Financial Times October 1 2009

The village of Maheshkhunt lies on the banks of the Ganges, just one of thousands of settlements supported by the great river as it winds lazily through India's northern plains.

Far from the glittering economic miracle of India's metropolises, Maheshkhunt and much of the surrounding state of Bihar are mired in medieval poverty - a condition dubbed in The White Tiger, the Booker Prize-winning novel by Aravind Adiga, as the "Darkness".

"India is two countries in one: an India of Light, and an India of Darkness," says the book's main character, Balram, a downtrodden Ganges villager who murders and robs a rich man to escape poverty's clutches.

But in Maheshkhunt, there are glimmers of a new age. In one corner of the town, India's National Spot Exchange has opened a warehouse draped with a banner that reads "The Farmers' Friend". It offers Bihar's small farmers, for centuries beholden to traditional traders who buy their goods at a discount and sell them on at sometimes steep profits, the chance to obtain a fair price on the national or global electronic markets.

Full article at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f9d61a3a-aebf-11de-96d7-00144feabdc0.html