After three days of hectic consultations with Cabinet colleagues and experts, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday set up an inter-ministerial group under the Chief Economic Adviser to the Finance Ministry to review the inflation situation with particular reference to primary food articles. It will also assess international tariff trends and recommend action on the fiscal, monetary, production, marketing, distribution and infrastructure fronts to prevent “price spikes.” As an immediate measure to...

India could face serious problems in providing food security, if the present gap between the consumption and production of pulses is not filled, according to a report by industry body Assocham. "If the production of pulses in the largest producing nation dips, it becomes difficult for the global markets to fill up the gap," Assocham said in a statement today. India is world's largest producer and consumer of pulses. However, still there...

Since 1947, successive governments have missed innumerable opportunities to put the country on the path of sustained, inclusive growth. Time and again, quixotic ideology has led to meaningless debates, antediluvian policy and inexplicable strangulation of capacity buildup in both physical and social infrastructure. Even today, while the gap between current and projected national demand and supply is well acknowledged, the government continues to drag its feet in creating the policy...

If dal roti went out of reach for the aam admi in 2009, vegetables and onion prices brought tears towards the end of 2010 and with food inflation touching a high of 14.44 per cent for the week ending December 18, the New Year did not ring in any respite from high food prices. The sudden increase of Rs.3 per litre in the price of petrol in December — the sixth...

On the National Conference on Oil Palm at Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh (the largest producer in the country), Mr. M.C. Rao, palm oil farmer, Gajapati district, Orissa, stated, “Just like several Government agricultural departments, officials at the conference painted a false, bright, and positive picture about the prospects of the oil palm plantation for farmers taking up this cultivation.” “As usual the policy makers miserably failed to read the pulse of...