Consumer

The Andhra Pradesh Congress faces pressure after the win of Jagan Reddy in the Kadapa Lok Sabha polls

Ever since the helicopter death of the Congress Andhra strongman YSR, there has been a running feud between his son Jaganmohan Reddy and the rest of the Congress in Andhra. He wanted to replace his father as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and this was something that the Congress High Command did not want. There can only be one dynasty rule in the Congress, and it cannot be anybody other than the Gandhi family; further, Jaganmohan Reddy has a huge amount of money at his disposal and with political power, there would be no stopping him, he would not be controlled by the Congress high command. As a result, he was not allowed to reach anywhere near a position of power.
Next, Jagan started piling on the pressure on the Congress through a campaign, which was supposed to be a condolence yatra through the state, where he met people who felt for his father, and in some cases, met the families of those who committed suicide when YSR died. The Congress tried to prevent him from doing this campaign, and actively discouraged any legislator or MP from supporting this campaign, but eventually some of them did do this support. Further, even Sonia Gandhi tried to discourage him from going on this path, but he refused to buckle down.
Read more…

Inflation Nation – a huge problem not being addressed

Anyone who goes to his local grocery store in the corner of the street realizes that the cost of basic food and vegetables have gone up many folds in recent months. The story is similar in almost all commodities across the various segment of people. Unfortunately it affects the poor people more than the rich people. This is because the percentage of money allocated for food is higher in the lower income group than others. Any price rise will affect the BPL (Below Poverty Line) and lower middle class segment of the population directly. Since the majority of Indians fall in this category its not a pleasant environment. Vegetables are part of regular Indian meal and they are consumed in abundance compared to other western nations. Onions and tomatoes are basic ingredients in any Indian food preparation. When the price of these items go from Rs. 20 a kilogram to Rs. 80, the ordinary people have the reason to be upset. It affects their monthly budget. Prices rises are significantly gone up for dhaal, oil, sugar and you name it. Even construction material cost have gone up making land, housing cost go through the roof over years now. Bottom line, the price rise is across board through out the country. We have the economist Prime Minister in Dr. Manmohan Singh, and people are left wondering what does he think conceptually on this. The recent press conferences from him merely reflects his political face rather than his economic thoughts.
The government as usual has come out against the rising pricing prices with more words, than actions, and has blamed it on the term “inflation”. Inflation according to the government is the reason for price rises. Contrary to what the government says, inflation is NOT price rises. Price rise is the ‘consequence’ of Inflation. The Inflation itself is a concept of lose monetary policy (that is originally proposed by the government). The government completely hides this big elephant below the mat and propagates its version of story across the country. And in many ways succeeded. Inflation can be summed up as : too much money chasing too little commodities. People possess more money and are willing to pay more for the commodity that is in scarcity. lets take the example of onion price in reason days.
Read more…

Will demand for diesel cards reduce if price of diesel increases ?

The Government went in for a partial decontrol of the prices of fuels, with giving a full decontrol of the price of petrol (and promising that future prices will be linked to international prices of crude); the prices for diesel have not been fully decontrolled, and the prices for cooking gas and kerosene have been kept away from decontrol although the prices may have been increased. The Government has been able to do this since politically the opposition is not at a very high pitch with the BJP still in some amount of disarray and no other opposition of any note.
Now, the Government is making noises about moving away from price decontrol over diesel. This is something that is much more serious than the decontrol of petrol. Petrol is perceived as the fuel for individual vehicles (and thus increase in the budget for those who can afford private vehicles), while diesel is the fuel used for the transport sector, for trucks, smaller carrier vehicles, and even for a number of goods trains that are not hauled by electric engines. The normal impact of a hike in the price of diesel is an increase in the rate of inflation, which is why the Government seems to be speaking about price decontrol of diesel, in order to gauge whether it can ride out the impending political storm.
Read more…