Amid concerns that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) could tighten its monetary policy in January 2010, inflation during October more than doubled to 1.34 per cent, as compared to 0.5 per cent a month earlier, mostly due to the rising cost of essential food items. In the first monthly data released by the government on Saturday, the build-up inflation in the financial year so far was 6.13 per cent...

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said the food price inflation would come down by the end of the current fiscal. "Food price inflation by the end of the current fiscal would be significantly lower than what it is right now," Ahluwalia said while speaking at the India Economic Summit here. Citing the reason for high food inflation, he said, at the end of a bad monsoon, particularly...

In a more realistic and less confusing picture of the situation, the new wholesale price data monitoring system introduced on Thursday revealed that inflation of food articles soared by 13.39 per cent year-on-year during the week ended October 24, mainly owing to a surge in potato and onion prices, even as inflation for primary articles declined by 0.11 per cent on a weekly basis. As per the new data collation system,...

NEW DELHI: Floods that have ravaged parts of southern and western India is likely to hit the grain production in the country, leading to higher prices of essential commodities such as rice, pulses, jowar, bajra and certain category of vegetables. While the extent of the damage caused by the sudden burst of floods in Karnataka, Andhra, Maharashtra and Goa is yet to be assessed, the governments at the Centre and...

Government may cut the import duty on rice, says official  Paddy and sugarcane production may be lower owing to the floods Agriculture Commissioners of affected States assessing the situation Crucial paddy, onion, sugarcane, and horticulture crops have been lost in the floods in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, though the quantum of loss is being assessed. Paddy and edible oil crops have already been affected by the drought in the northern States,...