The third bi-monthly policy review this fiscal would find the RBI’s MPC in familiar territory. While growth concerns linger on in the wake of the second wave of the pandemic and an impending third, cost-push inflation pressures and renewed supply-side bottlenecks have translated into a board-based spike in inflation prints.

       That leaves limited options from a policy perspective. Since the last review meeting in June, several high-frequency indicators have broadly recovered from the second-wave slump, aided by a gradual easing of curbs imposed by states; however, consumer as well as ...