Wholesale food inflation saw a sharp increase to 18.32 per cent for the week ended December 25, primarily due to a steep rise in onion prices. The inflation rate is a 23-week high, much above the expectations of analysts and policymakers. Food inflation, as measured by the wholesale price index (WPI), was at 14.44 per cent for the previous week ended December 18 and at 19.9 per cent in the corresponding...

India’s food inflation accelerated for the fifth straight week to the highest in more than a year, reinforcing fears it will spill over to broader prices and pile pressure on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to tighten monetary policy. Unseasonal rains have pushed up prices of vegetables such as onions and tomatoes in recent weeks, and the authorities are bracing to live with elevated price levels in the near term. Onion...

Top economic advisor in the finance ministry on Wednesday blamed cartels among traders for the skyrocketing prices of onion. “There are forms of implicit cartels working among the traders that block the movement of new entry, the appearance of new players,” chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu said while explaining the reasons behind the onion price rise. The price of the vegetable, which is ruling at Rs 60 per kg, went up...

The Food and Agricultural Organization said Wednesday that the world faces a "food price shock" after the agency's benchmark index of farm commodities prices shot up last month, exceeding the levels of the 2007-08 food crisis. The warning from the U.N. body comes as inflation is becoming an increasing economic and political challenge in developing countries, including China and India, and is starting to emerge as a potential problem in developed...

Much to the discomfiture of the Centre and in a further jolt to the common man, food inflation zoomed to almost a year's high at 18.32 per cent for the week ended December 25, 2010, owing to a spurt in the prices of vegetables, onions and milk. The sudden spurt in the wholesale price index-based food inflation from 14.44 per cent a mere week ago — and more than double...