The government raised the price of diesel by Rs. 5 per litre on Thursday, prompting angry responses from allies Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee, who have demanded a rollback. The price hike is aimed at reining in the fiscal deficit and staving off the threat of becoming the first in the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) group of emerging economies to be downgraded to junk.
