-The Indian Express Government has the opportunity to rein in food inflation on a sustainable basis. In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi counted his government’s achievements. Bringing down inflation from double digits to below six per cent was emphatically mentioned as one that brought relief to the aam aadmi. Without doubt, we witnessed moderation in the overall consumer price index (CPI) and wholesale price index (WPI) levels in the past...

-Frontline Medecins Sans Frontieres warns that the free or regional trade agreements that are being negotiated, which seek to strengthen current patent regimes, are a potential threat to the developing world’s access to life-saving drugs, which it sources mostly from India. WHEN NELSON MANDELA’S GOVERNMENT passed the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act in 1997 to make medicines more accessible to the poor, 39 big pharmaceutical companies filed law suits in...

-The Hindu  The latest inflation readings based on the Wholesale Price Index and the Consumer Price Index are a cause for concern. While the annual gain in wholesale prices hit a 23-month high of 3.55 per cent in July, retail inflation quickened past the Centre’s new Monetary Policy Framework’s upper limit for tolerance to 6.07 per cent. Food costs — a key component in both indices — were the main culprit....

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...

-Down to Earth A parliamentary standing committee blamed Agriculture Ministry’s skewed policy for the inequality in fertiliser usage The parliamentary standing committee on agriculture has recommended formation of a “Pesticide Development Authority” to ensure balanced use of chemical fertilisers in the wake of declining agricultural productivity. The 29th report, called “Impact of chemical fertilizers and Pesticides on agriculture and allied sectors in the country”, was tabled in Parliament by the committee. The...