The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) today cautioned on rampant speculations in the global commodity markets which is fuelling unprecedented price hikes around the world, with worst effects on poor countries such as India. "Financial speculation in global commodities trade is a source for concern as it contributed to steep price hikes," UNCTAD's Secretary General Supachai Panitchpakdi said on the sidelines of a special meeting convened by UNCTAD...

Senior United Nations officials today called for urgent steps to rein in the rising prices for basic farm produce, petroleum and raw industrial materials whose volatility hits the world’s poorest people the hardest.     “Such volatility has huge negative impacts on vulnerable groups, such as low-income households in developing countries, for whom food expenditure can account for up to 80 per cent of household budgets,” UN Conference on Trade and Development...

Billions of dollars are being made by investors in a speculative "food bubble" that's created record food prices, starving millions and destabilising countries, experts now conclude. Wall Street investment firms and banks, along with their kin in London and Europe, were responsible for the technology dot-com bubble, the stock market bubble, and the recent U.S. and UK housing bubbles. They extracted enormous profits and their bonuses before the inevitable collapse of...

Prices across the three segments food, industrial goods and oil that determine inflation rising, the year-end inflation targets have been revised. The government had earlier estimated end-March inflation at 6% but RBI now has raised it to 7%. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has raised an alert over a potential spike in global prices of sugar and cereals, especially wheat. Though India might just get away thanks to a bumper output...

Thiruvoipati Nandakumar How is better delivery expected by allocating more foodgrains, when the system is not equipped to handle even the current level of allocation? The debate about the proposed national food security act seems to be centred on the magnitude of the allocation of food grains. But the issue is far beyond only foodgrains. It is about improving health, sanitation and nutrition standards so that India’s human development goals can be...