India

Another day and another Indian inflation reading comes in “hotter” than markets expected. Yesterday, India’s CPI printed at 3.58% for October 2017 - its highest level in seven months - versus the consensus expectation of 3.43%. The September 2017 reading was 3.28%, itself marking a strong rebound from the recent low of 1.46% in June 2017. Market chatter was that the prospect for a rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) when it meets on 5-6 December 2017 was fading.

Today Credit Suisse released its latest annual global wealth report, which traditionally lays out what has become the single biggest reason for the recent "anti-establishment" revulsion: an unprecedented concentration of wealth among a handful of people, as shown in Swiss bank's infamous global wealth pyramid, an arrangement which as observed by the "shocking" political backlash of the past year, suggests that the lower 'levels' of the pyramid are increasingly unhappy about.

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Residents of the heavily populated city of New Delhi, India have had to tie scarves across their faces in an effort to breathe more easily. 

The heavy smog in the city is entering day three, and a state of emergency could soon be declared to protect the health of the people who reside there.

Air quality readings in India’s capital have soared since Tuesday, with one monitor showing levels in the city were 969.

Share prices of Indian state banks surged as the government announced it would hand over $32bn to recapitalize the sector. According to Reuters, the motivation was a bid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to tackle a major drag on the economy that has frustrated his attempts to boost growth.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

The US-Indian Strategic Partnership has rapidly evolved to such a point that the Indian government is now obliquely hinting that Russian twitter trolls are backing the country’s opposition leader, showing that New Delhi is willing to say and do anything in order to further ingratiate itself with Washington even if this means demolishing its decades-long relationship with Moscow.