Food price protests disrupt India's parliament

By Nigam Prusty

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian opposition lawmakers protested against rising prices in parliament on Tuesday, halting proceedings in the lower house, as the finance minister said more measures to ease price pressures were planned.

Indian inflation jumped to its highest in more than three years in late March, reaching 7.41 percent and raising political tensions.

The ruling communist-backed government has been rattled by the surge in prices and has cut duty and restricted exports on a number of food items and other commodities -- most recently cement -- to try and calm inflation in Asia's third-largest economy.

The Congress Party and its allies face a handful of state elections this year and a national vote by May next year, and, in a country where a large part of a family's income is spent on food, a jump in prices is bad news.

Many Indian consumers say they are feeling the pinch even more than the statistics suggest.

"This government is useless. It has not been able to check prices," lawmakers belonging to the main opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party shouted in parliament.

Earlier, the government's communist allies marched to parliament, waving placards and shouting slogans against the administration's failure to contain prices.

The communists demanded action against anyone found hoarding food and called for a ban on futures trading in commodities, which they say has helped fuel the current spike in prices.