Did the RBI wait too long to raise interest rates?

On May 4, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to raise the benchmark interest rate by 0.4 percentage points to 4.4%. Over the past few months, there has been a growing clamour to raise rates, mixed with anxiety over retail inflation exceeding the central bank’s tolerance limit of 6% for three months running. The surprise to the markets was in the timing of RBI’s move, via an off-cycle meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). In a discussion moderated by K. Bharat Kumar, Shubhada Rao and U.R. Bhat discuss whether the RBI delayed the rate hike. (Read More)