Monetary policy review: RBI's dovish tone divides economists

Most economists see the RBI maintaining a data-dependent extended pause

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) dovish language in the first bi-monthly monetary policy in 2018-19 has upset the projections of many economists who were expecting interest rates to harden sometime this year. Now the consensus is that it would be a prolonged pause, possibly longer than expected. However, some have started giving bold calls for rate cuts, which could happen as early as August, when the RBI meets for the third bi-monthly monetary policy review.

In its policy statement, the RBI revised its inflation forecast for 2018-19 to 4.7-5.1 per cent in the first half of 2018-19 and 4.4