PRAGOTI

The price of oil should be seen as part of a tax-subsidy framework, serving as part tax when global prices are low and part subsidy when they are high. If the government is willing to compensate oil companies with resources mobilised through taxes on those who can afford to pay, rather than through price increases that burden the rich and the poor alike, prices can be held constant until such time that the inflationary situation is brought under control. C.P.CHANDRASEKHAR writes in the Frontline. Cartoons, courtesy The Hindu and Times of India newspapers.

The task of combating inflation is wide-ranging. In particular, it requires reversing many elements of liberalisation resorted to in recent years; CP Chandrashekar says in The Hindu.

Inflation, an almost forgotten economic problem till recently, now hogs headlines. The issue shot to prominence when the headline inflation rate, as measured by annual point-to-point increases in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), rose from less than four per cent at the end of December 2007 to more than seven per cent in the second half of March 2008.