The Hindu Editorial Vocabulary 15th May 2024

Candidates can expect vocabulary-based questions in prominent government exams. Understanding new words with their meanings is essential to improving communication and solving vocabulary questions in exams. Read The Hindu Editorial Vocabulary 15th May 2024 to learn new words with contextual meanings.

The Hindu Editorial Vocab On Retail Inflation in India

Food inflation continues to undermine wider price stability

April’s retail inflation data flattered to deceive (to persuade someone that something false is the truth, or to keep the truth hidden from someone for your own advantage). The Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based provisional headline print shows year-on-year retail price gains, across the broad spectrum of goods and services that combine to constitute the CPI, slowed fractionally to a 11-month low of 4.83%, from March’s 4.85%. This slowing, however, did little to mask the more disconcerting acceleration (the increase in something’s speed, or its ability to go faster) in food price gains. Inflation (a general, continuous increase in prices) based on the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) quickened by 18 basis points from the preceding month’s year-on-year pace to a four-month high of 8.7%, with the month-on-month rate accelerating to 0.74%, from 0.16% in March. Rural consumers fared worse than their urban counterparts with both food and broader headline inflation reflecting (to show, express, or be a sign of something) faster price gains. The CPI-based reading for the hinterland was still well above the 5% mark at 5.43%, while inflation in urban areas was a sharply lower 4.11%, reflecting the widening divergence in the impact that price gains are having on those already struggling from the hit to the rural economy from a weak monsoon last year and sizzling temperatures this summer. Food price gains at 8.75% for rural consumers, a good 19 basis points faster than the 8.56% faced by urban consumers, is all the more disconcerting as food is an essential expenditure (the total amount of money that a government or person spends) that every household must try and find the means to meet.

The pressure on food prices remains wide-ranging, with cereals — the heaviest weight in the food category — witnessing a 26 basis points quickening in inflation to 8.63%. Data from the Department of Consumer Affairs’ Price Monitoring Division shows the average price of rice was 14.3% steeper as on May 14 than on May 14, 2023. And the price of wheat was 6.4% higher from a year earlier, signalling that respite on the cereals front is unlikely in the near term. April’s soaring temperatures also kept inflation in vegetables, particularly vulnerable (able to be easily physically or mentally hurt, influenced, or attacked) as perishable (used to describe products, especially food, that decay quickly) produce, in double digits for a sixth straight month at 27.8%. Price gains in pulses too offered little succour as they extended (long or longer than usual) their stay in double digits to an eleventh month. And the Consumer Affairs department’s data show prices of all the five key dals — gram, tur, urad, moong and masoor — continued to rise appreciably as on May 14. With live water storage at the country’s 150 reservoirs dwindling to 27% of capacity as on May 9 and trailing both the year-earlier and 10-year average levels significantly, the outlook (a person’s way of understanding and thinking about something) for price stability rides almost entirely on the forecast ‘normal monsoon’ delivering spatially (in a way that relates to the position, area, and size of things) and temporally well-distributed rains in the coming months.

Hindu Editorial Vocab Wordlist 15th May 2024

Start learning new words to improve your vocabulary. The Hindu Editorial Vocabulary 15th May covers a new list of difficult words with its meanings.

• Deceive: To persuade someone that something false is the truth, or to keep the truth hidden from someone for your own advantage.
• Acceleration: The increase in something’s speed, or its ability to go faster.
• Inflation: A general, continuous increase in prices.
• Reflecting: To show, express, or be a sign of something.
• Expenditure: The total amount of money that a government or person spends.
• Vulnerable: Able to be easily physically or mentally hurt, influenced, or attacked.
• Perishable: Used to describe products, especially food, that decay quickly.
• Extended: Long or longer than usual.
• Outlook: A person’s way of understanding and thinking about something.
• Spatially: In a way that relates to the position, area, and size of things.

The Hindu Vocab Master 15th May with Synonyms & Antonyms

Know synonyms and antonyms of difficult words in Hindu Vocab Master on 15th May 2024.

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