Category Archives: 24th Aug 2016

RBI’s Patel: an insider, a hawk, an enigma (2)

Not surprisingly for a country obsessed with politics and gossip, the appointment of India’s new central bank chief has already spawned reams of newsprint and hours of television talk-time on what makes Urjit Ravindra Patel tick.   Two words sum up Patel: low key. Unlike other deputy governors of the Reserve Bank of India he has…

RBI’s Patel: an insider, a hawk, an enigma 

Indeed, a committee headed by Patel himself in January 2014 made three far-reaching recommendations that seem certain to haunt him. First, it suggested a shift to the consumer price index as the base metric, instead of the outdated and misleading wholesale price index. Second, it called for inflation targeting, and Rajan and Modi agreed to…