If the price rise is due to production shortfall, how does one explain the near doubling of the price within a few days? The sharply rising onion prices have raised the suspicion that speculators are manipulating a shortage situation. First, a few facts. In retail markets, onion prices have soared from Rs 10-11 per kg in June to as high as Rs 70-80 on Dec 21. Even more significantly, prices zoomed by...
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Grain for states
The Centre has given the states another 50 lakh tonnes of wheat and rice stocks, half of which will be sold to the poor at subsidised rates as food prices continue their steep climb. An empowered group of ministers (EGoM), headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, also decided to extend the ban on pulses exports and allow duty-free imports of pulses till March 2012. “In today’s EGoM meeting, it was decided to...
More »“Price rise a major issue”
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has admitted that price rise was a major problem confronting the United Progressive Alliance government in its second term. In a book brought out by the Congress with Mr. Mukherjee as its chief editor, he has said: “Inflation based on high prices of foodgrains continues to be a challenge.” The book Congress and the Making of the Indian Nation was released at the just-concluded party plenary marking...
More »Binayak Gets Life Sentence, Democracy Wounded!
Indian civil society was dismayed and horror-struck when human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen, who has spent over three decades caring for the poor in tribal areas of central India, was sentenced to life imprisonment for ‘sedition’ along with two others, Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal by a Raipur Sessions Court judge. Protests are taking place everywhere in the country and the members of India’s vibrant civil society, peoples’ movements,...
More »Swaminathan conferred CNN-IBN Lifetime Achievement Award
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was chosen CNN-IBN Indian of the Year Veteran agricultural scientist M. S. Swaminathan has been conferred the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award for his “outstanding leadership in the field of agriculture that has contributed to ensuring food security for millions of Indians.” Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented the award to Dr. Swaminathan at a function here. Dr. Swaminathan, a statement from...
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