28% inflation in pulses... 24% in veg: does the UPA have an answer?

Policy makers may have expressed a sigh of relief as inflation, measured by the wholesale price index, came down marginally to 6.87% in July from 7.25% in June. But headline numbers often don’t tell the entire story. Even as India turned 65 and Prime Minster Manmohan Singh read out a long list of government programmes in his Independence Day speech, the Indian consumer has been bearing the brunt of raging inflation. As these charts show, prices of many food items and other articles have been rising 10% to 30% year-on-year in the last six months (Click on graphic)