-The Economic Times Nothing can be more ironic than to have food inflation at 18% (August 2013 over last August) in a country that takes pride in enacting the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and bestowing "the right to food" to 67% of its population by promising 5 kg cereals per capita per month (pcpm) at highly subsidised rates. Given that cereals consumption is 10.7 kg pcpm, people will have to face...
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Doing a number on FSB-Ashok Kotwal, Milind Murugkar and Bharat Ramaswami
-The Financial Express In an article published in this newspaper on September 4, 2013, Surjit Bhalla takes us to task for critiquing his earlier estimates of the cost of the Food Security Bill. Bhalla asserted that subsidy expenditures would more than triple and the FSB would cost the government R3,14,000 crore annually or 3% of GDP. We argued that Bhalla was barking up the wrong tree and that the main things...
More »Wasted food for thought
-The Hindu That one-third of the food produced annually for human consumption is wasted is in itself unconscionable in a world where 870 million, or one in eight people, go hungry every day. A United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation report now says that this high volume of wastage that occurs right through the food supply chain exerts an adverse impact on land, water, biodiversity and climate change. This impact...
More »Food prices rose 157% between 2004 and 2013 -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: If you were to ask any random aam aadmi anywhere in India what is the single biggest failing of the UPA, the answer would be - price rise. This is so because the most important items of family spending - food items - have relentlessly risen for the past several years despite repeated promises to bring them down by the economic mandarins and policy wonks...
More »Inflation at 6-month high on onions
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The rate of inflation accelerated to a six-month high in August on the back of spiralling onion prices, posing yet another challenge for RBI ahead of the monetary policy review as it struggles to tame volatility in the foreign exchange market. Data released on Monday showed the wholesale price index (WPI) rose an annual 6.1% in August, higher than previous month's 5.79%. The inflation rate...
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