Driven by spiralling prices of essential items, inflation surged into double digits at 10.16 per cent in May, the highest in the last 19 months, adding to the woes of the common man. Soaring inflation, according to analysts, may prompt the Reserve Bank to tighten liquidity at its quarterly monetary policy review scheduled next month. The essential items which have become expensive, directly hitting the pocket of the common man, include pulses,...

Ram Prasad Ghosal, a potato farmer from Bamunpara (Dist Burdwan) in West Bengal, owns 10 acres of land. Just two months earlier, though, his ilk faced a major scare. The region witnessed a bumper potato crop of 9.5 million tonnes — 73 per cent higher than last year’s production. Wholesale prices in Kolkata crashed to Rs 300 a quintal. Retail prices, too, dropped to Rs 6-8 a kg. Farmers were...

Amitabh Bachchan says that if ever asked about his caste by Census enumerators, his answer would be: Caste – Indian. That, of course, would do little more than stoke the media's bollywood feeding frenzy yet again. Shyam Maharaj is no Bachchan. Nor is his brother, Chaitanya Prabhu. But they and the followers of their fraternity will likely throw up far more complex answers — and questions — if Census enumerators...

"India lives in several centuries at the same time. Somehow we manage to progress and regress simultaneously." Arundhati Roy Controversies, protests and violence have marred land acquisition for projects in India. Protests against acquiring agricultural land, inappropriate compensation or environmental impact have been the main reasons for these protests. In most cases, the protests are by farmers who are hardly compensated after their fertile agricultural land is taken over in for...

Not so long ago, the prospect of a global sugar shortage gave food manufacturers a panic attack. Poor weather conditions hitting crops in the world's two biggest sugar-producing nations, Brazil and India, sent the price of the sweet stuff soaring on international markets. In August last year, US firms such as Kraft Food, General Mills and chocolate-maker Hershey were so worried that they wrote a joint letter to the country's...