The six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is meeting this week to review the policy. Several factors in the backdrop would be comforting for the committee. First is the commitment shown by the government to fiscal consolidation in the Budget, presented in July. The Union government will now target restricting the fiscal deficit to 4.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), compared to 5.1 per cent projected in the Interim Budget, and is on course to contain the fiscal deficit below 4.5 per cent of GDP next year. This augurs