Policy process: Currency-market intervention should be more selective

On monetary policy, Mr Das categorically noted that a rate cut would be premature and could be "very, very risky"

Indian financial markets have been speculating about when the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) monetary policy committee (MPC) will start cutting policy rates, particularly since the US Federal Reserve decided to reduce its policy rate by 50 basis points. The MPC meeting with three new external members earlier this month left the policy repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent.

The committee, however, changed its stance to “neutral” from “withdrawal of accommodation” to give itself more flexibility in an increasingly uncertain global economic environment. Although RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das well explained the reasons for the MPC’s