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...

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...

Food price index rose 14.44 per cent while the fuel price index climbed 11.63 per cent in the year to December 18, government data on Thursday showed. In the prior week, annual food and fuel inflation stood at 12.13 per cent and 10.74 per cent respectively. The primary articles price index was up 17.24 per cent in the latest week compared with an annual rise of 15.35 per cent a week earlier. The...

India, the world’s biggest producer and consumer of pulses, has extended ban on pulses exports until further orders, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Tuesday, as it battles to rein in high food prices. The government had in June 2006 banned exports of pulses, which has a weight of 0.72 per cent in the Wholesale Price Index. India’s food price index rose 12.13 per cent in the year to December 11, government...