Conditional cash transfers” (CCTs) are a new buzzword in policy circles. The idea is simple: give poor people cash conditional on good behaviour such as sending children to school. This helps to score two goals in one shot: poor people get some income support, and at the same time, they take steps to lift themselves out of poverty. CCT enthusiasm, however, is often based on a superficial reading of the Latin...

Food-price inflation in India, Asia’s third-largest economy, may accelerate in the second half as farmers are paying 20 percent more to grow crops, according to the commission that helps set minimum farm-product prices. “The cost of production is going up very fast,” Ashok Gulati, chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “The labor cost has gone up dramatically in the past one year...

India's food inflation nudged up after three successive weeks of decline to 8.74 per cent for the week ended April 9 compared to 8.28 per cent recorded in the previous week as fruits, meat and poultry products became costlier, official data showed on Thursday. Limited data on the Wholesale Price Index released by the commerce and industry ministry also showed a rise in the index for primary articles, from 11.4 per...

Distribution of basic food grains and fuel at controlled prices every month through the Public Distribution System (PDS) could be the largest service provided by the Indian State, touching as it does over 65 million families through a network of nearly half a million retail shops. Given that the urban middle class has little stake in the health of the PDS, there have to be some compelling reasons for the...

Food inflation fell to a single digit at 9.5 per cent for the week ended March 19 amid easing pulses prices, even as fruits and protein-based items remained costly. Food inflation based on the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) had risen to 10.05 per cent for the preceding week leading up to March 12 after remaining in a single digit for two weeks. During the week ended March 19, prices of...