The Consumers International (CI) battle against marketing of unhealthy food to children has gathered support from domestic groups as well. The London-based CI is an independent consumer network with over 220 member organisations in 115 countries. Ahmedabad's Consumer Education and Research Centre (CERC) and Chennai's Consumers Association of India have joined CI's international research on the subject. Other than these, participating organisations are from the Philippines, Fiji, Malaysia and Korea.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Wednesday called for a new coordinated global response to deal with spiraling food prices exacerbating shortages, hunger and malnutrition around the globe. Speaking ahead of International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington next week, Zoellick said the global food crisis now required the attention of political leaders in every country, since higher prices and price volatility were likely to stay for some time.

Governments across the developing world are scrambling to boost farm imports and restrict exports in an attempt to forestall rising food prices and social unrest.

A group set up by the Planning Commission has pointed out that the reimposition of controls on wheat and pulses under the Essential Commodities Act (ECA), 1955, "has not had any favourable effect on

India has expressed concern over the increasing use of food grains for the production of bio fuels.

By Raphael Minder in Hong Kong, John Aglionby in Jakarta,,Amy Yee in New Delhi, and Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok For years, farmers in the remote village of Pallantikang on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi relied on middlemen to sell their produce and found themselves largely isolated from the realities of market demands and price fluctuations. But when 50 of them recently started going directly to retailers, the outcome was a jump of 80 per cent in their earnings from their rice and cassava and 40 per cent from their corn.

Soaring food prices are making holes into the wallets of consumers but throwing a golden opportunity to poor farmers in Asia, including India, to ramp up production and increase profits, a report by think tank International Food Policy Research Institute has said.

Global investment funds smelt greater profit potential in commodities than in stocks and from 2002 started diving into oil, followed by metals and grains NEW YORK, April 2: High food prices around the world? Blame, at least in part, the investors who moved their money into commodities in the past five years, looking for better returns than they were getting from stocks and bonds. Global investment funds saw the potential for profits in commodities outstripping those from the stock market, and from 2002 started diving into oil, followed by metals and then grains.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will provide approximately 90,000 metric tons of food aid worth $67.8 million to Bangladesh this year. One third of the food aid will be used to assist Cyclone Sidr affected people of Barguna and Bagerhat districts and the rest will be distributed as part of the USAID's regular food aid programmes in the flood-prone and seasonally food insecure areas of the country, a US Embassy press release yesterday said.

The anti-inflation package hammered out by the Cabinet Committee on Prices (CCP) in a marathon three-hour-long meeting on Monday night makes it clear that the government is short of ideas.