Statistics and story.

"The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) rate-setting panel...increased the benchmark rate by 50 basis points, in a bid to bring inflation to its comfort zone and in line with aggressive policy tightening by key global central banks." ET. "The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) increased the repo rate, or the key rate at which the RBI lends short term funds to commercial banks, to 5.9% from 5.4%. It also decided to remain focused on withdrawal of accommodative stance." "The real GDP for FY23 has been revised downwards to 7.0% from 7.2% projected earlier." Growth for Q1FY24 (April-June 2023) has been revised to 7.2%." ET. Real GDP is derived from nominal GDP by dividing by a GDP deflator to adjust for inflation. Investopedia. "The inflation projection for FY23 has been retained at 6.7%." "Price-tags of daily groceries from oil and spices to rice and hair oils have risen between 10% and 22% since January this year, according to retail analytics platform Bizom, on the back of higher commodity rates. This has impacted volume sales, particularly in rural markets dragging down the market growth." ET. "The rural markets witnessed a 5% decline in monthly purchases of essential items, including cooking oils, laundry products, biscuits and chocolates, besides personal hygiene products such as toilet soaps, said the Rural Barometer Report." Mint. As expected, 'experts' eulogized the RBI's move, with stock markets zooming to dizzying heights. "Sensex rallied over 700 points while Nifty reclaimed the coveted 17,000 mark as banks and financials led the bull charge." ET. Debt fund managers were non-committal, preferring to talk about international commodity prices and actions of other central banks. ET. The rich celebrate while ordinary folk cut consumption. All this may be fairly straightforward, but it begins to get weird. "India's current account deficit (CAD) widened to 2.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the three months through June, up from 1.5% in the March quarter, primarily due to a widening of the merchandise trade deficit and an increase in net outgo of interest income payments. The CAD increased to $23.9 billion in the June quarter of FY23" Mint. However, the RBI data "showed the country's balance of payments came at a surplus of $4.6 billion for the quarter," even though "Robust services revenue led to CAD coming in less than forecasts" at $23.9 billion. ET. "About 67% of the decline in reserves during the current financial year is due to valuation changes arising from a appreciating US dollar and higher US bond yields," said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das. "The Indian rupee has fared better than many other currencies but it has cost the RBI more than two-thirds of its warchest in defending it, Governor Das said." CNBC. "Multiple revisions by the RBI in its projections for growth and inflation have caused concern within the government about these being off the mark from actual numbers." TIE. Because, "India's growth story will be second to none in the world: Piyush Goyal." ET. Forget statistics. Just stick to the story.