India announced a ban on the export of non-Basmati white rice on Thursday, July 20. India is the world's leading rice exporter and, as per reports, the Ministry initiated this ban to regulate the prices of rice in the domestic market. Meanwhile, the ban would affect prices in the international market and make them rise due to a shortage in supply. This is especially true for countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, as well as our neighbours Pakistan and Bangladesh. While it is not clear that the US would directly be affected by the ban, there was a panic buying situation at the supermarkets in the country. A couple of videos that surfaced on social media showed how hordes of people are visiting the markets to purchase rice in bulk in fear of the rice export ban by India. Take a look:
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Disclaimer: NDTV does not vouch for the claims in the post by the Twitter user.
In the clips posted on Twitter, we could see Indians living in the US in huge numbers at supermarkets. The video source was unclear but the clip was widely circulated. There was a lot of crowd accumulated in the rice section of the market. People were climbing up the supermarket shelves to buy bags of rice after the announcement of the export ban by India. "In the aftermath of the ban on rice exports by India, the situation in the USA," read the tweet. The clip showed a man lugging three bags of rice to his home.
Many people pointed out that there was no need to engage in panic buying and purchase rice in bulk quantities. However, the videos continued to be circulated and went viral.
Rice is not the only commodity that has been in the news. Recently, people in India had also been hoarding tomatoes after the prices skyrocketed to Rs 200 per kg in some parts of the country. In fact, a daughter requested her mother to bring 10 kgs of tomatoes while coming from Dubai. Click here to read more about the story.