Supply management directive: address supply chain bottlenecks to narrow wholesale retail price gaps and ease food inflation.
The Finance Minister directs State Governments to address local factors widening the wholesale to retail price gap for key food items and to ensure all supply chain bottlenecks are removed promptly so that food prices can adjust, noting that much of recent food inflation stems from a few primary items and rising demand due to higher incomes.

Wholesale price inflation: primary articles rose, pushing year on year inflation higher; fuel and power remained unchanged.
Wholesale Price Index for the week ended 25 December 2010 shows Primary Articles rising to 193.4 (weekly increase 2.0 percent) with point to point annual inflation at 20.20 percent; Food Articles up 2.5 percent led by fruits, vegetables and select proteins; Non Food Articles down 0.5 percent; Minerals up 3.0 percent. Fuel & Power remained unchanged at 150.7 and its annual inflation was steady. The release tabulates subgroup movements and notes the next press release date.

Good governance: joint ICAI-AIA declaration promotes accounting harmonization and strengthened audit and corporate governance practices.
A cooperative declaration between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Association of International Accountants, UK promotes professional collaboration to benefit chartered accountants and students. Conference discussions stressed good governance based on systems and procedures, and advanced IFRS convergence with limited carve outs. Presenters urged reviewing the roles of independent directors, audit committee leadership, external confirmation procedures, and auditing and assurance norms to bolster corporate governance and audit quality.

Dividend distribution from rail public sector undertakings led to handover of cheques to the railway minister.
The Railway Minister received dividend cheques totalling Rs. 311.88 crore from seven railway PSUs (CONCOR, IRFC, IRCON, Railtel, RITES, IRCTC and RVNL) for 2009-10, with the prior year aggregate dividend from these entities reported as Rs. 281.56 crore.

Trade balance pressure as imports outpace exports, enlarging the merchandise deficit for the April-November period.
Monthly and cumulative trade aggregates show exports and imports both increased in November 2010 and for April-November 2010, with oil and non oil components distinguished; oil imports rose modestly month on month and more substantially cumulatively, non oil imports rose appreciably, and the differing growth rates produced a larger merchandise trade deficit for April-November 2010 versus the prior year, as shown in provisional US dollar and Rupee tabulations.