The Hindu Business Line : The Guv does it again!

He quipped, “I have not done anything. There is nothing to explain!” One wanted to reach for the phone and wail to the editor, with an “I told you so!”

But, as one knows from experience, the show had just begun. Over the next hour-and-a- half, Dr Reddy fielded questions with his usual panache.

There were the trademark one-liners mixed with the long-winded explanations, delivered with a twinkle that would have the audience in splits.

When asked if he was using moral suasion to get banks to be more active in extending credit, Dr Reddy preferred to call it ‘interactive suasion’.

When asked about uncertainties in the global environment, he came up with this, “There is now more uncertainty about the duration of uncertainty”.

When asked whether the Finance Minister was trying to influence him by his statements over the past few weeks, Dr Reddy handled it calmly. His response: “In India, the de facto position is that the RBI has operational autonomy.”

Additionally, he added, there are continuous consultations because of fiscal dominance of the economy. There is significant co-ordination of both the spoken and unspoken variety, he said.

Taking a friendly jibe at the western world, he said this was the practice elsewhere and ‘we will follow similar best practices’.

When a questioner brought up the criticism of the RBI’s exchange management policy by some experts, Dr Reddy was unperturbed. He said, “We have found that half are supporting and half are opposing our exchange rate management policies. That means we are approximately right!”

‘Out of syllabus!’

When posed with a difficult question, he said candidly, “I have been giving confusing answers till now. But I have now got a confusing question.”

Another questioner was met with a straight defence – “That’s out of syllabus. Next question please!”

When a questioner asked about oil prices and inflation, he quipped, “We are waiting for the pass-through – and for the next question also!”

And in another aside that best captures the dilemmas of central bankers, he said, “Where you stand on a subject depends on where you sit!”

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