Need for a snake.

"India's retail inflation eased to 5.02% in September on an annual basis as against 6.83% in August, showed data released by the ministry of statistics." ET. "Professional forecasters, comprising economists surveyed by the RBI, projected that the headline CPI inflation will ease from 6.6% in the September quarter to 5.5% in the December quarter. Further projections indicated a decrease to 5.1% in the March 2024 quarter and a range of 5.2-4% in the first half of 2024-25." So how prescient is the RBI? The RBI has a mandate to keep the consumer price index (CPI) inflation at 4% with a margin of 2% on either side. ET. "A target it has failed to achieve in seven out of the past 12 months," wrote Mythili Bhusnurmath. "As late as June 2023, the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) had projected inflation in the second quarter (June-September 2023) at 5.2%, only to raise it sharply to 6.2% at its very next meeting in August 2023. Since the first two months have averaged 7.1%, the actual number is likely to be 7%." "The last time inflation was down to little over 4% was in January 2021, when inflation touched 4.06%, only to increase to 5.03% the very next month." In fact the RBI has not attained its target of 4% since October of 2019. RI. An inflation rate of 5.02% in September may be within the RBI's "tolerance level" but a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of prices at 7% is almost lethal for the multitudes of India's poor. "According to the GHI (Global Hunger Index) report, India's child wasting rate, at 18.7% was the highest among countries on the index; its child stunting rate at 35.5% was the 15th highest; the prevalence of undernourishment was 16.6%; and the under five mortality rate was 3.1%." TOI. The RBI has various weapons to fight rising prices. One of them is the repo rate at which the RBI lends to banks and that sets the lending rates for the economy. The MPC held the repo rate at 6.5% for the fourth time since April 2023. TOI. The RBI's motive is to keep the government's borrowing cost as low as possible. So, the RBI is selling dollars to support the exchange rate of the rupee instead. "Abrdn Plc reasons that the RBI is probably tapping its large foreign-reserve stockpile to defend its currency to keep imported inflation in check." ET. The bond market is wise to the RBI's tricks, so the yield on the benchmark 10-year government bonds is consistently above 7.0%. Investing.com. The RBI's reserves belong to the nation but this government thinks it has a right to spend all the reserves to win elections. "The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) refused the government's proposal to extract Rs 2-3 lakh crore (Rs 2-3 trillion) from its balance sheet for pre-election expenditure ahead of Lok Sabha polls in the following year, former central bank deputy governor Viral Acharya said in a new prelude to his book, Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India." The Wire. This prompted Prime Minister Modi to compare then Governor Urjit Patel to "a snake who sits over a hoard of money", wrote Subhash Garg. Urjit Patel resigned prematurely as his position became untenable. ET. RBI's tricks to try and help the government are also helping the very rich, as the number of individuals with wealth over Rs 10 billion increased by 219 to 1,319, as per the 360 ONE Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2023. Apparently, India is the fastest growing major economy. CNN. Growing have lots and have nots. We really need a "snake" to protect us.