Protest erupts in Indian parliament over inflation

Reuters    Translate This Article
16 December 2009

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian lawmakers walked out of parliament on Wednesday protesting against inflation, as the opposition piled up pressure on the government to curb rising prices and threatened to carry out street protests.

The speaker adjourned proceedings for the day after lawmakers from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition, as well as from other parties walked out of parliament with many shouting: 'The government needs to be changed.'

India's food inflation was at 16.7 percent in November as the worst dry spell in nearly four decades and annual floods in some states slashed farm output.

Higher prices paid by government agencies to buy grains from farmers have pushed the headline inflation to 4.78 percent.

Rising food prices have given a political boost to the BJP, which has been riven by internal feuding after losing the May national election.

Inflation and a high fiscal deficit, projected to rise to 6.8 percent of the gross domestic product, are major risks to India's ambitious plan to ratchet up economic growth back to 9 percent level seen between 2005/06 and 2007/08.

In parliament, demands from sugar cane farmers last month asking higher prices and issues like formation of a new state have disrupted proceedings on a regular basis.

Many bills, including one on land acquisition and on the pension sector to allow entry of private players are likely to be now taken up in the next session.

(Reporting by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Sanjeev Miglani)

Copyright 2009 Reuters. Reprinted with permission from Reuters. Reuters content is the intellectual property of Reuters or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution or Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters Sphere Logo are registered trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world. For additional information about Reuters content and services, please visit Reuters website at www.reuters.com. License # REU-4198-JJM.

Global Good News comment:

For Maharishi's Vedic Approach to solving the problems of today's news, please visit:
http://maharishi-programmes.globalgoodnews.com

For information about Maharishi's seven-point programme to create a healthy, happy, prosperous society, and a peaceful world, please visit: Global Financial Capital of New York



Translation software is not perfect; however if you would like to try it, you can translate this page using:

(Google) Select a language English to Afrikaans English to Albanian English to Arabic English to Belarusian English to Bulgarian English to Catalan English to Chinese (Simplified) English to Chinese (Traditional) English to Croatian English to Czech English to Danish English to Dutch English to Estonian English to Filipino English to Finnish English to French English to Galician English to German English to Greek English to Hebrew English to Hindi English to Hungarian English to Icelandic English to Indonesian English to Irish English to Italian English to Japanese English to Korean English to Latvian English to Lithuanian English to Macedonian English to Malay English to Maltese English to Norwegian English to Persian English to Polish English to Portuguese English to Romanian English to Russian English to Serbian English to Slovak English to Slovenian English to Spanish English to Swahili English to Swedish English to Thai English to Turkish English to Ukrainian English to Vietnamese English to Welsh English to Yiddish

(Altavista babelfish) Select a languageEnglish to Chinese-simpEnglish to Chinese-tradEnglish to DutchEnglish to PortugueseEnglish to FrenchEnglish to GermanEnglish to GreekEnglish to ItalianEnglish to JapaneseEnglish to KoreanEnglish to RussianEnglish to Spanish