India 'considers' Halting Food Futures Trading - Can FM Chidambaram do what it takes?

May 5, 2008 Financial Times By Raphael Minder - India considers ban on Trading in Food Futures
"India is considering a blanket ban on trading in food futures, highlighting growing concerns in Asia over the role of hedge funds and financial market traders in the recent surge in commodities prices.
An emergency move by India to shut down its food futures market, proposed on Monday by P Chidambaram, the finance minister, would reverse measures introduced only five years ago to aid the development of India as a financial centre. Speaking on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting in Madrid, Mr Chidambaram also lambasted the conversion of crops into biofuel as “the single biggest reason why we are facing this [food] crisis”. His comments came a day after US president George W. Bush said India was partly responsible for rising food prices.
India has already curbed futures trading in some crops, as well as being among countries that have imposed restrictions on food exports. India’s approach, however, drew a strong rebuke ..."
"Weighing into the debate, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, said that speculation was not responsible for food-price rises. “At the source . . . was a supply phenomenon and a demand phenomenon, which was explaining most of what we have,” he said after chairing a central bankers’ meeting in Basel, Switzerland.
Food shortages have sparked social unrest in Africa and parts of Asia, as well as other impoverished nations such as the Caribbean island of Haiti."