Food Inflation: This Time it's Different

I would like to thank Professor Parchure for inviting me to deliver this year's Kale Memorial Lecture. The lecture has been instituted to honour of the Rao Saheb R.R. Kale, who was instrumental in setting up this great institution, the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics. Despite his professional achievements as a lawyer, he was apparently a rather modest and humble person. Given his financial contribution to the establishment of the institution, it would have seemed perfectly appropriate for it to have been named after him. But he demurred and it was named after Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a somewhat more recognizable name for readers of Indian history.