Macro risks return: Oil markets uneasy, inflation outlook hazy

The decision by US President Donald Trump to launch air-strikes against Syria, while limited, caused prices to go up by 2%

A week after the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) largely met expectations by keeping interest rates steady in its bi-monthly monetary policy review, the macro-economic situation looks less stable. A combination of factors suggests that it would be over-optimistic to hope that the RBI will cut rates any time soon, and in fact a hardening of its stance might be on the horizon. For one, an examination of the data on consumer price inflation in March 2018 is not entirely reassuring. The headline number may not be disquieting, given that CPI inflation was only 4.3