Et tu, RBI

The government has attracted considerable criticism for making mistakes in the economic data it puts out and, some months ago, Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao alluded to the wide variations between provisional and actual numbers that made monetary policy-making difficult. But the central bank is hardly free of the same problem. The RBI bulletin, a monthly publication, went off track by stating that the outstanding number of credit cards declined by close to 2 million in January over December. An enquiry from this paper revealed that instead of a decline, the number had actually increased by 0.07 million and the mistake was subsequently corrected on the website.