How long will the RBI allow the government to borrow cheaply? A change in policy direction will see rates climb and bond values fall. Investors in debt funds are therefore at risk, as are people invested in the heated stock market, warns T N Ninan.
The Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee law allows mandis to remain in the grip of a middlemen cartel, with clear links to politicians who run the governments.
Achieving inflation target of 4 per cent, recovery after remonetisation and hardening profile of oil prices are some of the risks which the RBI is watching closely, says Gaurav Kapur.
India's rampant inflation remains a hotly debated puzzle.
The retail inflation, which is a better gauge of price rise and measured by Consumer price index, ruled in double digit for most months of the year with the latest November figures coming in at 11.24 per cent.
Deflation masked the rise in food inflation to a 5-month high.
The inflation in the food basket spiked to 7.89 per cent in October 2019 as against 5.11 per cent the preceding month.
The rate of price rise was at 6.77 per cent in June last year.
For August, CRISIL core inflation indicator stood at 3.6 per cent, a tad higher than RBI's measure.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday decided to leave the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4 per cent but maintained an accommodative stance, implying rate cuts in the future if need arises to support the economy hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Full capital convertibility means a foreign investor can repatriate his money into his own local currency at will.
For the entire UPA regime, from 2005-06 to 2013-14, the average annual farm growth according to the GDP back series data is 3.8 per cent, which too is higher than the first four years of the NDA, though these two periods aren't comparable because one spans nine years and the other four.
When one part of the government comes out with a serious and objective piece on how the government itself has been responsible for creating food inflation, hopefully the government is more likely to take note.
Analysts say RBI will cut rates because the liquidity crunch that began this time last year is still hurting the economy and also with an eye on the August industrial production numbers, which showed a contraction by 1.1 per cent -- the steepest in seven long years.
Although the RBI is not statutorily independent from the government, Rajan, like previous RBI Governors, has long valued his independence.
Costlier food items, including vegetables, pushed the October wholesale inflation to 7 per cent, the highest in the current financial year.
The stock markets, which had opened in the green on rate cut hopes, tumbled after the monetary policy announcement.
Goyal said India has been recognised as brightest spot in the world in last five years.
The Committee, in an earlier report on the Direct Taxes Code (DTC) Bill, had favoured abolition of STT.
The agriculture sector is likely to grow in the range of 5.2-5.7 per cent in 2013-14, nearly three times more than the last year as good monsoon has raised the prospects of bumper harvest, a CACP discussion paper said.
The rise in May Wholesale Price Index based inflation has been mainly on account of 31.44 per cent increase in prices of potato, 19.40 per cent in fruits and 12.75 per cent in rice.
However, risks to the outlook stems from possible sub-normal monsoon and higher crude oil prices (on account of the crisis in Iraq)," the Economic Survey 2013-14 tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has slashed the repo rate by 25 basis points from 7.75 per cent to 7.5 per cent with immediate effect.
Industry body Confederation of Indian Industry said with the government having announced a clear road map for fiscal consolidation and non-food inflation demonstrating a secular decline, conditions are conducive for RBI to have intervened with a repo and cash reserve ratio reduction.
A Kotak research report expects RBI to cuts rates by 50 basis points in the first half of 2019. RBI will announce its sixth bi-monthly monetary policy on February 7.
Items such as cereals and products, meat and fish, oils and fats became cheaper
The NCEAR has indicated some improvement in the fourth quarter of the current financial year.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presents his maiden budget next month and faces headwinds from a weak economy, a food inflation scare and now the risk that higher oil prices could swell the government's oil subsidy bill.
The RBI's projections for consumer inflation over the rest of the year indicate some acceleration, with the rate reaching eight per cent in its baseline scenario.
The IMD projects total rainfall in the June-September monsoon season as being 99 per cent of the long-period average.
Corporate America has urged India's Finance Minister to announce a bold Union Budget that would unleash the next generation of economic reforms and help the country realise its full growth potential.
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Food and fuel inflation in India have remained high for several years, the paper said, adding to durably reduce the current high inflation, the monetary policy stance needs to remain tight for a considerable length of time.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said that inflation will start easing soon as the government's efforts to remove supply-side bottlenecks have started yielding results.
It is not just India that is witnessing a continuous increase in food prices.
The Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday said inflation, which is showing signs of moderation, remains a concern in view of volatile crude prices in international markets and widening fiscal deficit.
WPI inflation even breached psychological level of 0% in Nov.
For July-September, it pegged CPI-based retail inflation at 4.2 per cent which it saw firming up to 4.8 per cent in the second half of the current fiscal.
Only recently had UP chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati expressed reservation against the Congress-led government's proposed FDI-in-retail policy.
Inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index, was 6.87 per cent in July.
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