New Delhi, Aug. 3 -- The six members of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) are scheduled to meet in Mumbai on Monday for the third of their bi-monthly meetings this fiscal year.

As always, the MPC has three options. Hike, hold or snip the policy rate of interest. Till as recently as April, the talk was about whether it would cut RBI's repo rate or keep it unchanged. Raising it was seen as an unlikely option.

It is a measure of how sentiment has changed that this time round, there is hardly any talk of rate reduction. Instead, it is largely about whether the MPC should maintain the status quo or go in for a hike.

Recall, the last time monetary policy was tightened was in February 2023, when, under former g...