Bad monsoon, rising crude oil prices shoot up prices of 41 kitchen essentials, onion prices shot up 113%

Retail inflation rose to a nearly two-year high of 5.5% in September 2026, driven up by rising prices of  food and fuel, official data released on October 12, 2026 showed, the Hindu reported. According to TOI retail prices of 41 kitchen essentials also rose massively, prices of onions shot up nealry 113%, followed by sugar (nearly 22%) and sunflower oil (around 18%), according to government data. ICRA’s Aditi Nayar told the Hindu that while the monsoon has turned out to be dismal, with inadequate replenishment of reservoirs clouding the outlook for rabi sowing, another rate hike by Reserve Bank of India in December seems certain. “Crude oil prices currently remain elevated, and their trajectory will keenly influence the likelihood and extent of further rate tightening in 2027.”

Farmers’ body rejects rabi MSP hike as ‘insult’, plans village protests

Farmer organizations led by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) rejected the new Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for Rabi crops for the 2027–28 marketing season. Farmers branded the ₹25-per-quintal increase in the wheat MSP (bringing it to ₹2,610 per quintal) an "insult" to farmers, noting it equals just 25 paise per kilogram, reported the TOI.

Farmers are demanding a legally guaranteed MSP based on the comprehensive C2 + 50% formula (covering all production costs plus a 50% profit margin), alongside full state freedom to offer crop bonuses and have called for village-level protests and burning of  copies of the government order in response to the hike.

Western Ghats Eco Sensitive Area: Seventh draft faces resistance from  six states, conservation hangs in balance

The Union government’s seventh draft notification to declare 56,825.7 square kilometres of the Western Ghats across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) has reopened a contentious battle over conservation, land use and livelihoods, reported DTE.

Issued on July 27, 2026, under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the notification proposes restrictions on mining, quarrying, sand mining, new thermal power projects, red-category industries and specified large construction and township projects. 

Iran war could make president Trump accidental climate president

The impacts of the Iran war could make Trump an “accidental climate president” due to clean-energy shifts amid soaring fossil-fuel prices, despite him being, “climate-denier-in-chief”, CNN said. Trump called global warming a “hoax,” clean energy a “scam,” pushed fossil fuels, and unraveled a slew of climate and environmental protections, the outlet said adding that  as the war grinds into its eighth month, it’s highlighting the immense vulnerability of fossil fuels to geopolitical instability. There are signs of global clean energy moves, even as the picture remains complex, with some countries scrambling for coal instead.

The longer the war continues, some experts say, the bigger the impact it could have on undermining global oil and gas demand, the news channel said. 

Saudi Russia India China wish to delay publishing of key climate report to 2029 ? 

Scientists gathered  at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, are facing “pressure from some petro-states and major developing countries” to delay publishing the IPCC’s seventh assessment report (AR7), reported the Guradian. The report is due to be published in 2028 in time for a global stocktake of progress at the COP33 climate summit. The article states: “A group of countries, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia and including India and China, is pressing for publication of the report to be pushed back to 2029.” 

Climate Home News, wrote that the IPCC meeting is “crucial” for deciding the publication timeframe adding that if the report on mitigation is delayed beyond the second global stocktake, the same governments that delayed it will then argue that the stocktake cannot meaningfully discuss vital mitigation action without the latest report, effectively delaying more ambitious agreements on cutting emissions by another five years. 

2030 deadline: countries falling far short on promise to protect nature

Countries attending the COP17 biodiversity conference in Armenia next week will be meeting “against a backdrop of patchy progress”, wrote Reuters, while listing a number of recent nature assessments, including one from the Campaign for Nature that finds that government commitments could take the amount of land and inland waters protected to 27% by the end of the decade, up from 20% today. Fifty countries have so far met the 30% target by 2030 set in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), Reuters reported. 

A separate report from Together for the Ocean shows that – at the “half-way point to delivering the GBF” – just 10% of the world’s oceans are protected, with existing commitments only likely to raise this to around 12% by 2030, according to Reuters. It says the “finance gap for nature” is expected to “top the COP17 agenda”, adding that there is hope the talks will lead to a “roadmap for the next four years of implementing the GBF”.