The spectre of rising onion prices is haunting Indian politics again. As prices trebled over a period of three weeks, touching Rs.90 a kg in some parts of the country, the liliaceous plant, whose bulb is the mainstay of many Indian staple recipes, became a topic of debate and discussion not only for ordinary consumers, but for economists and policymakers as well. India is the world's second largest producer of...

The Prime Minister’s Office has given direct orders to top officials of Sharad Pawar’s department to get cracking after the food minister said it would take “two to three weeks” for onion prices to stabilise. Sources said an annoyed Manmohan Singh has conveyed to Pawar that the time frame set by the minister is too long, especially since prices have skyrocketed within a week. Expressing deep concern over the “extraordinary price rise...

This week’s good news on food price inflation was evened out by the bad news on fuel prices hike. But, both were along expected lines. Thanks to the so-called “base effect” — the fact that last year this time food prices were rising sharply and since last year’s prices become the denominator in this year’s price ratio, the rate of inflation would be expected to moderate — and to an...

Continuing with its trend towards moderation, inflation declined to 7.48 per cent in November, mainly boosted by lowering of pressure on certain food items.Inflation had stood at 8.58 per cent in October. It was 4.50 per cent in November 2009. For September this year, the inflation figure has been revised upwards to 8.93 per cent from the provisional number of 8.62 per cent.This is the fourth consecutive month when the...

Asian governments, battling soaring food inflation, are pumping ever more resources into agriculture but will struggle to offset rapidly expanding demand in top consumers China and India. China, stung by consumer prices running at a 25-month peak, has been selling state stockpiles. It has also ordered banks to urgently offer support to farmers, an example of the sort of firepower these governments can deploy. With China and India also in many cases...