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New Delhi: A remark by President George W. Bush saying India was partly responsible for rising global food prices has sparked a nationalistic storm across the political spectrum, with the defence minister calling it a "cruel joke".
Praising the growing prosperity of developing countries, Bush said on Friday "there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class".
"That's bigger than America ... and when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up," Bush said, according to a White House transcript.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India's main opposition party, threatened on Monday to force a parliamentary debate on Bush's remarks that India's increasingly prosperous middle classes were helping push up prices.
"US policies are also responsible for the food grain shortage," Defence Minister A.K. Antony told local media on Sunday, saying that official encouragement of biofuels in the United States was causing food shortages.
He added that Bush's remark was a "cruel joke".
"Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics," India's Junior Trade Minister Jairam Ramesh said.
"He has just proved once again how comprehensively wrong he is. To say that the demand for food in India is causing an increase in global good prices is completely wrong.
Rapid economic growth and better wages, powered by nearly two decades of liberal reforms that have made India's economy the third-largest in Asia, have fuelled demand for farm products at a time when output has languished.
India has imported wheat in the last two years and imports of edible oils have risen to help meet rising consumer demand and changing food habits. India has also banned non-basmati rice exports to ensure local availability.
At the same time, dwindling global stocks of staples like wheat and rice, Asian demand and government mandates to produce crops for fuel have stretched the world's ability to feed itself.
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