Mridul Saggar

iStock.com

The RBI’s Policy Has a Plot Beneath the Obvious Script

Beneath the RBI’s steady policy lies a war-shaped pivot, FX stress and governance resets, where the real macro story emerges on closer reading.

Phynix

Calm Policy, Stormy Skies

A prolonged pause is expected through 2026-27, but the bias has shifted. What once hinted at easing now suggests the next move is more likely a hike than a cut.

Shubhada Rao, Vivek Kumar, and Yuvika Singhal

Why Waste a Good Crisis: Breaking the Logjam

India’s renewable push is stalled by a broken PPA model, leaving 45–55 GW stranded. Without reform, capital, capacity and energy security gains risk slipping away.

Sharmila Chavaly

RBI's Overhaul: Tidying the Rules, Sharpening the Framework

The RBI's latest policy moves on capital norms, governance, and money markets signal a shift towards a more principles-based regulatory architecture.

Rahul Ghosh

Term Money, Vague Intent

RBI’s move to open the term money market widens access, but its effectiveness will depend on design and regulatory clarity aligning with its objectives.

R. Gurumurthy

When Policy Turns to Risk Management

The April policy does not extend the prior arc. It alters how the Reserve Bank frames risk when the problem itself has changed.

Kalyan Ram

Columnists

Michael Debabrata Patra

Michael Patra is an economist and former RBI Deputy Governor.

TK Arun

Arun is a seasoned writer on economic and policy matters.

Abheek Barua

Abheek is an Independent Economist and the Former Chief Economist at HDFC Bank.

Ajay Srivastava

Ajay Srivastava is the founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative.

Vijay Chauhan

Vijay Singh Chauhan, a former IRS official, is a Senior Visiting Fellow at ICPP, Ashoka University

Dhananjay Sinha

Dhananjay, a D-School alum, is CEO and Co-Head of Equities at Systematix Group.

Kirti Tarang Pande

Kriti is a psychologist specialising in mental health, org behaviour, and brand strategy

Srinath Sridharan

Srinath is an author, corporate advisor, and independent director on corporate boards.

Sharmila Chavaly

Ex-civil servant Chavaly held key Railways, Finance roles; specialises in infra & PPPs

Nilanjan Banik

Nilanjan Banik, Professor at Mahindra University, specialises in trade and development economics.

Sachin Malhotra

Sachin was till recently an MD with Standard Chartered Bank.

Rajesh Mahapatra

Rajesh Mahapatra is the former Editor of The Press Trust of India

Krishnadevan V

Krishnadevan is Editorial Director at BasisPoint Insight.

Dev Chandrasekhar

Chandra advises companies on big-picture narratives on strategy and markets.

Kalyan Ram

Kalyan Ram co-founded Cogencis. He now leads BasisPoint Insight.

R. Gurumurthy

Gurumurthy is an ex-central banker who handled markets, and later, financial stability for RBI.

Arvind Mayaram

Arvind Mayaram, former Finance Secretary, is Chairman of the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur.

The Bureau

Asia Edges Higher but Fragile Ceasefire Keeps Risk Mood Cautious

India’s capital flows outlook brightens as FDI holds firm, RBI says

Malhotra says RBI’s FX Steps Tactical, Not Structural

India Remittance Flows seen Steady Despite West Asia tensions

RBI Holds Repo Rate at 5.25% Amid Global Uncertainty: Key Policy Takeaways

US and Iran Agree to Conditional Two-Week Ceasefire, Oil Prices Slide

HDFC Bank Jan-Mar deposits up 12.8%, outpace 10% advance growth

US Announces Heavy Tariffs on Patented Drugs, Spares Generics for Now

Iran War Shadow: Livelihood Under Pressure in Post-MGREGA Rural India?

Learning to Shoot: I Tried to Fly Before I Could Walk

Week in Numbers: Tracking India’s Economic Pulse

Automobile and tractor sales remained buoyant in March, even as the war in West Asia, rising crude oil prices, and global uncertainty weighed on broader economic activity.

Datametricx

Stress Testing Must Evolve to Match a Fluid Shock Environment

A financial system where risks continuously shift demands a new approach to stress testing, one that anticipates vulnerabilities rather than merely measuring them.

Anupam Sonal

RBI’s Quiet Dovish Tilt Meets a Fragile Rupee Defence

RBI signals a growth priority amid oil-shock risks, even as it defends the rupee with calibrated intervention and selective curbs on speculation.

Abheek Barua

Staying on Pause May Be the Optimal Policy Response to a Supply-Shock

Gaura Sen Gupta

RBI MPC Dials Down Market Anxiety; Retains Policy Flexibility

Upasna Bhardwaj

Rupee Pressure Rewrites RBI’s Policy Playbook

Yield Scribe

RBI’s Optimism Sits Uneasily with Its Own Risk Diagnosis

The central bank has identified how supply shocks will hit demand, yet its growth and inflation projections do not fully reflect that reality

Dhananjay Sinha

Monetary Policy

RBI Stays on Hold, but Signals Flexibility in a Shifting Risk Landscape

A ceasefire eased the backdrop, but RBI’s message was clear: policy stays flexible, FX steps are temporary, and risks to growth and inflation remain live.

Aastha Gudwani

Monetary Policy

RBI Tells Bank Boards to Stick to Their Lanes

The RBI is ensuring that bank boards know where their powers begin and end to strike the right balance between governance and autonomy for bank management.

T. Bijoy Idicheriah

Monetary Policy

War Breaks the Policy Cycle

The April MPC ends the disinflation-led easing phase, pushing the RBI into a supply-shock regime where inflation risks rise even as growth weakens.

BasisPoint Groupthink

Taking Stock of the Rupee in an Uncertain World

As the RBI enables a calibrated real depreciation of the rupee, it is signalling readiness to deploy instruments across markets to preserve stability.

Michael Debabrata Patra

Monetary Policy

Risk Signals, Not Reassurance from RBI’s GDP, CPI Projections

RBI’s latest projections acknowledge a harder macro trade-off, with external shocks reviving inflation risks and forcing policy into a more conditional, risk-managed stance.

BasisPoint Groupthink

SEBI Reopens Buyback Route, but Markets May Barely Use It

SEBI revives open-market buybacks, but tax changes skew incentives, pushing promoters toward tender offers and limiting meaningful adoption.

Krishnadevan V

The Watchword in This VUCA World is ‘Security’

A decade of shocks—from pandemics to wars and trade disruptions—is reshaping policy priorities, with nations and firms racing to secure supply chains, energy and resilience

G. Chandrashekhar

IBC Amendment Fixes Key Gap, Creates Some New Ones

Select Committee-backed reforms introduce voluntary, creditor-led resolution with management continuity, but restrictions and execution risks could dilute value outcomes.

TK Arun

India’s Farm Productivity Puzzle Lies in Distorted Land Markets

Restrictive leasing laws and weak land records are impeding efficient land use, keeping agricultural productivity far below its potential.

Amitrajeet A. Batabyal*

Accounting By Asterisk

Banks seek to defer MTM losses as yields rise, but masking volatility risks weakening discipline and blurring the line between transparency and regulatory convenience.

R. Gurumurthy

RBI Must Treat Communication as a Policy Instrument

When external shocks dominate markets, communication is not signalling. It is policy, shaping expectations, sequencing reactions and lowering intervention costs.

T. Bijoy Idicheriah

Hormuz Reset Redraws Power Lines in West Asia

A fragile US-Iran ceasefire signals a shift in Gulf power dynamics, currency flows, and strategic alignments, with implications far beyond oil markets

Rajesh Ramachandran

RBI’s Currency Curbs Risk a Deeper Trust Deficit

Accrued Interest

RBI Balance Sheet Shifts As FX Share Falls To A Decade Low

Abhishek Dey

Rupee Weakness Tests RBI, but Rate Action May Wait

Anubhuti Sahay

RBI May Look to Hold Its Nerve as It Buys Time on Policy Calls

Kalyan Ram

Monetary Policy

RBI’s Real Test Lies Beyond Rates in a War-Driven World

Oil shock, capital outflows and a fragile rupee are recasting policy limits, forcing the RBI to defend stability beyond rates alone.

Madhavankutty G

The Imposter, The Strongman, and the System Under Strain

Between private doubt and public overconfidence, individuals and nations alike are navigating a world where credibility is thinning and coherence is elusive.

Phynix

Week in Numbers: Tracking India’s Economic Pulse

The war in West Asia is beginning to weigh on economic activity, with rising crude oil prices and supply-side uncertainties affecting demand and sentiment.

Datametricx

RBI Faces a Real Interrogation as Markets Probe Its Playbook

In a multi-shock setting, the question is no longer about reassurance, but whether the reaction function holds

BasisPoint Groupthink

BEL's Record Turnover Highlights a Steadily Accelerating Execution Cycle

A ₹740 billion order book and expanding margins are the headline. The story is the structural shift underneath, from long-cycle PSU to higher-velocity defence supplier.

Dev Chandrasekhar

Merging Penalty Into Assessment Will Not Cure Tax Litigation By Itself

Finance Act 2026 merges penalty into assessment and the reform logic is sound — the execution however is where it could all unravel

Sangeeta Jain

Towards Smarter, Greener, Indigenous Fertilisers

With global supply chains increasingly fragile, fertiliser security has become central to India’s food security. Reducing import dependence through more sustainable and efficient nutrient use must be a priority.

G. Chandrashekhar

When FX Rules Fragment the Balance Sheet

RBI’s NDF curbs shift risk from economic reality to geography, raising a quiet but persistent confidence cost for the rupee.

Quixotic Banker

Why Waste a Good Crisis: The Electrostate Model

What is an electrostate model, what does it require, and why does it offer a more resilient path than the one India is currently pursuing?

Sharmila Chavaly

War, Woes and Worries: The MPC's Policy Perplexity

As the Middle East conflict roils oil markets and rattles capital flows, India's Monetary Policy Committee faces a near-impossible balancing act.

Rajendra Paramanik

Unninarayanan Kurup

Opinion

When Process Defeats Purpose: India's IBC and the Value Maximisation Test

India's insolvency framework has transformed credit culture, but recent cases raise pointed questions about whether process is displacing purpose.

Nilanjan Banik

Opinion

BHAVYA Scheme: Building on Past Failures

Another plug-and-play park arrives. We have seen this before. What did it deliver?

Sharmila Kantha

India’s Case for Monetary Sovereignty in a Changing Order

The future of power in finance lies not in currencies alone, but in who controls how they settle.

Srinath Sridharan

Anand Venkatanarayanan

Unilever Simplifies Its Portfolio, HUL Still Carries the Complexity

Unilever’s sale of its global foods business excludes India, bringing HUL’s portfolio mix and valuation framework under closer market scrutiny.

Krishnadevan V

Calibrating FX Rules Without Penalising Genuine Hedgers

RBI's curbs rightly target speculative misuse in FX markets. But blunt restrictions risk leaving genuine hedgers unprotected and amplifying unhedged exposures across the economy.

Quixotic Banker

Geopolitics

Why Iran Is Beating America

The “asymmetric cost” model—a war the US starts will ultimately cost the other side far more—has proven vital to sustain the illusion of American invincibility and to limit domestic political resistance to US military adventurism. Now, Iran has broken it.

Brahma Chellaney

India’s Growth Faces Triple Bind of Oil, Rupee and Trade

Rising crude, a weakening rupee and widening deficits threaten India’s growth momentum, exposing vulnerabilities in inflation, trade and GDP outlook.

Smita Roy Trivedi

Abhiman Das

From Invisible Hand to Iron Fist: When Populism Rewires Capitalism

Populism is reshaping capitalism, expanding state power while weakening institutions. As markets grow politicised, the balance between democracy, governance, and economic freedom faces a critical test.

R. Gurumurthy

How Marriage Markets Drive India's Vanishing Girls Problem

New research links skewed sex ratios to marriage markets, dowries and relative wealth, showing why growth alone hasn’t corrected gender bias.

Amitrajeet A. Batabyal*

When the Culture Turns: Supervising the Risks That Hide in Plain Sight

Culture shapes how risk is lived, not just managed. Supervisors who ignore it miss the deepest root cause of institutional failure and misconduct.

Rabi N. Mishra

RBI Snaps Onshore–Offshore Rupee Link to Curb FX Arbitrage

Curbs on NDFs and rebooking may steady the rupee in the near term, but risk widening onshore-offshore gaps and unsettling foreign investors

V Thiagarajan

Tokenisation Could Fix India’s Most Ignored Risk

India’s market infrastructure is ageing. Tokenisation is less about crypto hype and more about fixing settlement risk, liquidity friction and system fragility.

Indra Chourasia

Inflation’s Triple Shock: Crude, Crops and Currency Pressures

A volatile oil market, fragile farm outlook and weakening rupee threaten to stoke inflation, testing policy credibility and burdening India’s most vulnerable.

G. Chandrashekhar

Fraud’s Hidden Cost: Why Operational Risk Needs Every Eye

Fraud risk is no longer contained. It spills into markets, reputations and trust, making operational risk a shared responsibility across every level of a bank.

K. Srinivasa Rao

Credit Cards Lose Their Skin, Not Their Relevance

Ganga Narayan Rath and Chirayu Sharma

The Global Economy's Many Chokepoints

Michael Spence

The Fine Print India Keeps Glossing Over in Its New Trade Deals

Surendar Singh

Balancing on the Brink: India’s Economic Policy in a Time of Crisis

Arvind Mayaram

The AI Gavel: Navigating the Hype and Reality of Artificial Intelligence in Law

AI has made a big bang entry into legal work but with more promise than performance. World over, courts continue to rap the knuckle of those who keep blind faith

Reform Compass

India's Next Billion-Dollar Category Has Zero Inventory and Zero Warehouses

Shares of UrbanCompany are trading closer to its issue price, in a market that is punishing everything. Not everything deserves it, but some of the punishment is earned.

Krishnadevan V

India’s Liquidity Cycle May Not Be Driven by Policy Alone

RBI policy isn’t the only driver of liquidity. Data suggests sharp swings in state government cash balances may also influence India’s banking system liquidity cycle.

Abhishek Dey

Induction Push Alone Cannot Solve India’s Cooking Energy Crisis

Lower prices are not enough. Certification, wiring upgrades, grid strength and gas allocation choices will determine whether India’s cooking transition reduces or shifts stress.

TK Arun

Managing the Rupee, Constraining the Market

RBI’s move can be seen as a necessary check on speculative bank positions, yet it may also narrow intermediation capacity and make rupee adjustment more abrupt.

R. Gurumurthy

Board Independence in India is Largely a Managed Illusion

Indian boards have mastered the form of independence without hollowing out its substance. Unless dissent is enabled, accountability stays performative.

Rabi N. Mishra

Srinath Sridharan

A System That Adjusts by Moving the Pain Somewhere Else

From Hormuz to HDFC Bank, the adjustment isn’t absorbed but displaced, into the rupee, the consumer, and wherever policy won’t let it land.

Phynix

Press Note 3 Amendment Unlikely to Attract Significant Chinese FDI in Manufacturing

PN2 eases rules for minority Chinese-linked holdings, but geopolitics, supply-chain risks and weak evidence on technology transfer may still limit meaningful manufacturing FDI.

Sharmila Kantha

Safeguarding Financial Stability amidst the West Asia Crisis

A framework for regulators and institutions to manage multi-channel shocks, combining liquidity support, sharper supervision and stronger internal risk discipline without distorting markets.

Anupam Sonal

Rupee Policy Must Shift Focus from Trade to Capital Flows

Arvind Chari

Governance Risks Move Centre Stage in Bank Supervision

Anupam Sonal

Indian Women in the Workplace: Tokens, Triumphs and Thresholds

Smita Roy Trivedi

Abhiman Das

India’s Oil Response Needs a Demand Signal Too

As supply lines hold for now, the absence of price and consumption signals risks delaying adjustment and amplifying the macro impact of any disruption

Aabhas Pandya

Week in Numbers: Tracking India’s Economic Pulse

The war in West Asia is weighing on the Indian economy, with higher crude oil prices and trade route disruptions dampening economic activity.

Datametricx

World Bank’s Recantation of a Dogma

TK Arun

Markets Are Mispricing a Structural Geopolitical Regime Shift

Dhananjay Sinha

India Must Wargame the Emergent WTO

Sangeeta Godbole

India Ought to Be Relieved It Isn’t a West Asian Interlocutor

Rajesh Ramachandran

Geopolitics

India’s Multi-Alignment Policy Faces Its Toughest Test Yet

The Iran conflict is forcing India to stress-test its multi-alignment strategy, balancing ties, asserting neutrality, and proving its geopolitical relevance.

Karan Mehrishi

India’s Laws Don’t Falter in Drafting, They Fail in Delivery

India’s legal problem isn’t weak drafting but uneven execution. Delays, weak enforcement and diffused accountability erode deterrence and public trust.

Ninupta Srinath

Stop Calling It a Favour

Fuel price stability is not a favour from the state. It is paid for by taxpayers and balance sheets, and presenting it otherwise distorts accountability.

BasisPoint Groupthink

RBI’s FX Strategy Shifts as Oil Shock Tests External Stability

A prolonged West Asia shock may widen external deficits and strain capital flows, forcing the RBI to prioritise FX reserve preservation over currency defence

Gaura Sen Gupta

When Scale Becomes a Systemic Risk

What looks like strength in politics, markets and energy may actually be a dangerous concentration of risk. Probably why modern systems are becoming more brittle precisely where they appear most powerful, as concentration risk is becoming one of the defining strategic vulnerabilities of our time.

Srinath Sridharan

Rupee’s Turn from Shock Absorber to Amplifier in Oil Shock

As oil prices surge, the rupee risks shifting from shock absorber to amplifier. RBI must balance depreciation and reserves to contain inflation and volatility.

Sakshi Gupta

When Gold ETFs Stop Being Gold

Gold ETFs promise price efficiency, but persistent gaps between NAV and market price reveal structural limits in India’s market, where weak arbitrage and retail flows distort pricing.

R. Gurumurthy

Shock Rules, Not Shock Responses

Lagarde’s three principles recast shock response as risk management. For the RBI, the task shifts to containing spillovers, not just inflation.

BasisPoint Groupthink

US Institutional Decay Is Threatening Global Finance

Even through tumultuous political cycles, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission have been able to signal that US markets operate under clear, impersonal, reliably enforced rules. But this is no longer true, and the implications for the rest of the world are dire.

Jayant Sinha