It is heartening that the Reserve Bank of India, in consultation with the Centre, has picked up enough courage to bite the bullet and take up the issue of tackling inflation as its main priority. So far, it was taking mere baby steps by way of a 25 basis point hike eight times since March 2010 to ensure that GDP growth does not falter. This time, the central bank surprised the market and a section of economic analysts by turning hawkish and raising its short-term lending (repo) rate by an unanticipated 50 basis points to 7.25 per cent and leaving the borrowing (reverse repo) rate to float lower by one percentage point at 6.25 per cent. Even as the bank rate and the cash reserve ratio have been left unchanged so as not to affect the flow of liquidity, the net effect of the annual credit policy action is that short-term funds the banks borrow from the RBI will be available at a higher rate and, as a result, housing, auto, and consumer loans will cost more to the consumer. The policy move, which will mean marginally lower GDP growth in the short term, has come as a disappointment to India Inc. owing to the negative impact on investment. But the higher-than-expected increase in key policy rates should be viewed as a chemotherapeutic dose to combat the cancer of inflationary expectations. 
From blunt and brutal physical assault to sophisticated technical barriers — and the more insidious corporate threat from within — the Indian media have been under attack over the last year.Several reports catalogued the threats on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day on Tuesday.The Free Speech Hub, an initiative of The Media Foundation and its mediawatch website TheHoot.org, has released its latest report tracking the attacks on journalists as well as policy measures that could endanger the freedom of speech and information in the country. 
New Delhi has emphasised that the war on terror has not ended with the death of Osama bin laden, asserting the need for more steps to bring more Mumbai 26/11 perpetraters and conspirators to justice.However, the policy of engaging Pakistan through talks was endorsed. 
