Indian middle class causes food price rise : Bush

US President George Bush has joined his top diplomat in suggesting that the growing prosperity of India's large middle class is contributing to rising food prices around the world.

"...the more prosperous the world is, the more opportunity there is," he said commenting on the economy during a visit Friday to World Wide Technology, Inc. in Maryland Heights, Missouri. "It also, however, increases demand."

"So, for example, just as an interesting thought for you, there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That's bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population.

"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," said Bush joining his top diplomat Condoleezza Rice in suggesting India's role in the world food crisis.

I read an interesting post regarding this at bloggernews

What should the Indian middle class do? Should he give up the prosperity and return back to the fold of backward nations? Or should he look for statistics to find out how much food the prospering Indian Middle class gulp down in the form of Pepsis, Coca Colas Mac Donalds.

These Indians drink, on average, nine servings of Coke products per year. Has George Bush forgotten that few years back there was an agitation in India in which it was alleged that the 68 Cola plants in India has caused a water shortage in many parts of India? In Varanasi, alone, Coke draws an estimated 158,503 gallons a day. In fact the Colas have a market of 300 millions of middle class Indian, incidentally equivalent to US population

And what about the expenditure of these middle class Indians who help US economy by buying Levis ,Reebock ,Adidas to name a few.

Indians have right to grow their food and give preference to their own country men instead of selling to countries busy in selling nuclear arsenals ,oil and other things.