Beyond a rate cut

Monetary policy panel has to consider many other variables

As the six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) began its three-day review of the monetary policy on Monday, it must be grappling with a dramatically different picture of the economy from the one it considered in the last policy review two months ago. In October, crude oil prices ran up steeply and the rupee had depreciated sharply. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the first quarter was a robust 8.2 per cent, and even though the RBI expected growth to decelerate through the year, the expectation was that the MPC would keep the door