Chennai (PTI): Blaming online futures trading and hoarding of essential commodities as the main reason for the spiralling inflation, AIADMK General Secretary J Jayalalithaa on Sunday demanded an immediate ban on online trading.

"Online trading is nothing but gambling using public resources with no risks or even stakes for the trader. The Centre has to immediately ban online trading in essential commodities and also make hoarding illegal," she said in a statement here.

The government machinery should be "mercilessly used" to bring out hoarded stocks to bring down the "artificially escalated prices," she added.

"Blind adherence to globalisation agenda," had resulted in total removal of subsidies in the agriculture sector, she said adding international agreements such as GATT and World Trade Organisation (WTO) were being cited as reasons for depriving Indian farmers of subsidies though countries like US and Japan were continuing with agricultural subsidies.

"As a result, agriculture has progressively become unviable, pushing farmers to the brink and thousands of them across the country committing suicide," she said. "The government has to immediately restore subsidies to agriculture and farmers have to be brought back to the farms," Jayalalithaa said.

The former chief minister also demanded a cut in customs and excise duties on petrol and diesel and restrictions on entry of big firms into retail business.

Describing as 'myopic solaces' the assurances by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram that inflation would be controlled, she called for more "remedial measures."