Weekend Bites: RBI kills one bird with one stone, future of 50-over cricket

In which we munch over the week's platter of news and views

Central bankers have an ability to surprise you with juicy quotes. When you think they will only talk about numbers and rates, they can come up with something that will make you do a double take.
 
“We use one stone to kill one bird,” Shaktikanta Das, the Reserve Bank Governor, said on Friday.
 
Story of the week
 

For the fourth time in a row, the RBI’s monetary policy committee decided not to change the repo rate. The decision was unanimous.
 
The decision to hold the benchmark interest rate, say experts, is on expected lines and the RBI’s focus on withdrawal of accommodative monetary stance will help in bringing down inflation while supporting growth.

 
Government bonds yields surged to a seven-month high after the RBI said it might conduct open-market operations to mop up liquidity. There is no timeline for this yet and it will depend on the liquidity situation. Market participants said the uncertainty around the time and quantum of auctions caused panic sale.
 
The Central bank advised banks to remain cautious about unsecured loans, which have grown much faster than the overall credit in the banking system.
 
In other news…
 
On the occasion of the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, two months before the Assembly polls in three Hindi heartland states, and six months ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar released the findings of a survey that revealed castes comprising Other Backward Class and Extremely Backward Class categories constituted 63 per cent of the state’s total population of more than 130 million. This triggered renewed demands, including from the Congress, for a nationwide caste census.

 
The World Bank on Tuesday increased its retail inflation forecast for India for 2023-24 to 5.9 per cent from the 5.2 per cent estimate made in April. Its economic growth forecast for the country remains at 6.3 per cent, underpinned by strong investment growth.
 
Airfares are set to rise with IndiGo on Thursday introducing a fuel charge of up to Rs 1,000 based on a flight’s distance, in response to the rise in aviation turbine fuel prices in the last three months.
 
Walt Disney Co is holding preliminary discussions with potential buyers, including billionaires Gautam Adani and Kalanithi Maran, for its India streaming and television business, reported Bloomberg.

 
Men account for more than 80 out of every 100 persons in managerial roles in India. And the number has got worse for women after the pandemic.
 
Tech that: Word from the world of technology and start-ups
 
On-demand delivery platform Dunzo said one of its four co-founders, Dalvir Suri, would leave, and announced an organisation-wide restructuring from this quarter.
 
TCS will consider a share buyback on October 11, when its board meets to approve the second-quarter financial results.
 
Watch it: From The Morning Show
 
At the Asian Games, the Indian men's cricket team booked a place in the final to ensure at least a Silver medal. With that, the Indian contingent will come back with a haul of…. It is a lot of medals. More than ever before. A lot of gold in them, too.

 
What is behind this? Is it the economy? Delve deep into this here.
 
What is Suveen obsessing over?
 
This was always on the cards.
 
T20 cricket began with the idea of taking out the “boring” middle overs from one-day cricket. It has succeeded to such as extent that the future of cricket seems to have become synonymous with 20 overs a side.
 
As an inevitable collateral damage, one-day cricket – 50 overs a side – has fast lost audiences. It springs to life only when multi-nation tournaments roll along. The biggest of those started in India on Thursday.

 
The inaugural match was played between the two sides that had played the pulsating final of the 2019 edition – one riddled with the surest ingredient of a successful event: controversy. Yet, reports say the stadium on Thursday was far less than packed.
 
Yet, it was the best-attended opening game of an ODI World Cup and organisers said they were happy with the numbers. It may be that the seating capacity of the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, at 130,000, is so large that a large crowd can be made to look small.
 
Be that as it may, 50-over cricket needs a new relevance. Bilateral ODI series barely create a ripple in an era of T20 leagues, which are so lucrative that players opt out of national contracts to focus on league cricket. How long will the ODI World Cup continue to hold interest?

 
An India-Pakistan final can provide one kind of answer.
 
This is Suveen signing off. Please send tips, comments, news, or views about anything from poetic bankers to packed stadiums to suveen.sinha@bsmail.in.
 
(Suveen Sinha is Chief Content Editor at Business Standard)