India's food inflation rose for the fourth straight week in early February, heightening worries that it was driving up headline inflation past official forecasts and increasing the chance of the central bank pushing up rates. The food price index rose 17.97 percent in the 12 months to February 6, higher than an annual rise of 17.94 percent in the previous week, data released on Thursday showed. The fuel price index rose...

Galloping food prices have shattered family budgets across the country, with latest inflation data showing that prices rose at nearly 18% in the week ending February 6. Many essentials of Indian kitchens are almost beyond reach; sugar is up by nearly 60%, pulses by 46% and potatoes by 53% over a year. In a country already suffering from chronic malnutrition and low incomes, this trend is a killer. President Pratibha...

Issues today have to be dressed up in ways certified by the corporate media. They have to be justified not by their importance to the public but by their acceptability to the media, their owners and sponsors.  That the terrible tragedy in Pune demands serious, sober coverage is a truism. One of the side-effects of the ghastly blast has been unintended, though. The orgy of self-congratulation that marked the media...

Ban forward trading of wheat and rice and undertake de-hoarding measures urgently Make higher budgetary allocations for Primary Health Centres which need to be strengthened Worst hit by the prices of essentials, women groups on Tuesday presented their wish-list for the budget to the Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.“The spiralling rise in prices of essential commodities and inflation have had a particularly adverse impact on women, and on families from the more...

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday urged agricultural scientists to double their efforts to remove all misgivings on genetically modified (GM) crops from the minds of policy makers and the public. Inaugurating a two-day conference of Vice Chancellors of agricultural universities and meeting of Directors of Indian Council of Agriculture Research here, he said, “The recent decision on Bt. brinjal should not be seen as a setback to our...