The commodities named by the FMC are potatoes, refined soya oil, rubber and gram. Their existing contracts closed at Wednesday's closing prices, it added. The announcement follows an earlier suspension in futures trading of wheat and rice.

Outside of political circles, local market observers have criticized the decision, especially as the government's own committee, appointed to probe the effect of futures trading on commodities, said it had not found any evidence of prices in the futures market affecting spot prices of commodities.

However, Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said on Monday that "the pressure is to suspend a few more food articles. If rightly or wrongly, people perceive that commodity futures trading is contributing to a speculation driven rise in prices, then in a democracy you will have to heed that voice."

Inflation in India rose to a fresh three-year high of 7.57% for the week ending April 19, making it the fourth successive week that the country's Wholesale Price Index has stayed above both the 7% mark and the Reserve Bank of India's revised target of 5.5% for 2008.

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