Surjit S Bhalla: RBI 1, Subbarao 0 Unfortunately, with RBI, history repeats itself as both farce and tragedy much too often

For a moment, it looked like Indian monetary policy-making would step out into the modern world. The job of monetary policy is to be forward-looking, to anticipate future possibilities, rather than practise “rear window” economics. And, as financial and product markets around the world globalise and integrate, so should monetary policy divine not only what is happening and will likely happen in India, but also infer the same about the economies of the western world and that of our competitors in Asia. Very likely, this is what D Subbarao had in mind when he joined RBI as governor in September 2008.