India is not the only country where rising prices of essential commodities is giving consumers and policy makers sleepless nights -- the surge in inflation is a major cause of concern even for giants like the United States and China and rich nations like Britain and Singapore.

Inflation based on wholesale prices in India has been hovering around 6-6.5 per cent for the past few weeks, well above the Reserve Bank's target of 5-5.5 per cent for this fiscal. This is despite various efforts by the government and the central bank to rein it back within the limits.

Even measures like repeated hike in interest rates and ban on futures trading of certain commodities like wheat and rice have failed to yield the desired results in India.

Across the ocean in the UK, the measure of annual consumer price inflation rose to 2.8 per cent in February from 2.7 per cent a month ago, well above the government's target of 2 per cent, as per UK's Office for National Statistics.

The largest upward impact on the CPI annual rate came from transport costs due to increase in air fares in February, particularly for travelling to European destinations.

Back home in Asia, the inflation rate is inching closer to the tolerance level of three per cent in China, where it rose from 2.2 per cent in January to 2.8 per cent last month.

Similar to India, soaring inflation in the world's fastest growing economy has put pressure on Chinese central bank to raise interest rates.

Food prices, a major component of the Chinese CPI basket, were up six per cent for the month. February's data bring inflation for the first two months of the year to 2.4 per cent, below the government's target of a sub-three per cent rise in the CPI index.

The world's largest economy, the US, is also experiencing a spurt in the CPI index -- the benchmark inflation measure.

According to Federal Open Market Committee, recent readings on core inflation have been somewhat elevated.

Although inflation pressures seem likely to moderate over time, the high level of resource utilization has the potential to sustain those pressures.

In this situation, the committee's main policy concern remains that inflation will fail to moderate as expected. Future policy adjustments will depend on the evolution of the outlook for both inflation and economic growth.

However, in Japan, the world's second-largest economy, the central bank is faced with a different situation -- deflation. Core inflation, which excludes food items, fell to zero in January, while the Bank of Japan is tightening interest rates despite any increase in prices.

Elsewhere, in Singapore, the consumer price index rose by 0.6 per cent in February on rising prices of housing, clothing and food items, according to the Department of Statistics.

In Hong Kong, the composite Consumer Price Index rose at a slower annual pace of 0.8 per cent in February, compared to the 2.0 per cent increase in the prior month, according to the Census and Statistics Department.

Inflation in the current month was impacted by the waiver of public housing rentals by the Housing Authority and Housing Society. But for this factor, the yearly inflation was up 3.1 per cent, fuelled mainly by spike in package tour charges and food prices, during the Lunar New Year holidays.

Taking the first two months of 2007 together, the CPI in Hong Kong climbed 1.4 per cent over a year earlier.