After easing a bit in the previous week, food inflation was back to near-20% levels in the third week of December as items such as potatoes and pulses continued to belie hopes of sustained relief over prices of essential commodities. The wholesale price-based index of food articles rose by 1.18% for the week ended December 19 from 18.65% a week ago. One week before that, food inflation had stood at...
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Wasted effort
The national biofuel policy announced by the government last week is well-intentioned but is not really practical. It aims for achieving a 20 per cent blending of biofuels with petrol as well as diesel by 2017. Given that even the 5 per cent ethanol doping target — raised to 10 per cent last October — is yet to be achieved makes the target quite unachievable. The sugar industry, which is...
More »Aam admi finds dal-roti out of reach in UPA’s second innings by Gargi Parsai
More than the return of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to power, the aam admi will remember the year 2009 for the back-breaking mehngai and the inability of the government to make dal-roti, sabzi and chini affordable for the masses. The unprecedented rise in the price of essential commodities, particularly pulses, sugar, milk and vegetables turned the year bitter for the aam admi. What was irksome for the people was...
More »Food inflation creeping up to high levels
Unprecedented rise in potato prices pushes up inflation Food inflation soared to 15.58 per cent for the week ended November 14 in the wake of an unprecedented rise in the prices of potato and other essential items. Official data based on the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) released here on Thursday for the week revealed that while potato prices have more than doubled in the past 12 months, other basic food...
More »Whither Rural India? by Kripa Shankar
The rural population is at present estimated at 85 crores. Ten per cent of the households are completely landless. Another 52 per cent have holdings of less than 0.2 hectare. The per capita agricultural land in the rural areas has come down to 0.12 hectare. According to the National Sample Survey, the annual income of an agricultural household from farming is less than Rs 12,000 and from all sources it...
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