Sensai
Reading the tape…Pulling live market data…Setting the scene…
Sensai
The policy backdrop that moves the whole market — the RBI's rates and the country's inflation — turned into the two numbers you actually feel: your EMI and your grocery bill. Grounded in RBI and MOSPI data.
Macro Brief
Where the RBI has set the price of money — and what that does to your borrowing and your savings.
As of 2026-07-22 · Reserve Bank of India
The RBI's current policy stance affects borrowers and savers in the following ways: - Home loan EMIs tied to repo rates will cost around 2.5% more than the repo rate, meaning a 7.75% rate. This translates to higher monthly EMIs for home loan borrowers. - Savings accounts and fixed deposits (FDs) tend to earn around the repo rate (5.25%) to 1-1.5% higher, due to bank margins, making the effective interest for these low-risk accounts lower.
The rate the RBI lends to banks at — the anchor for your floating-rate EMIs.
The floor: what banks earn parking surplus cash with the RBI, no collateral.
The ceiling: emergency overnight borrowing for banks against securities.
The long-term rate the RBI rediscounts bills at; tracks the MSF.
Share of deposits banks must hold in cash with the RBI — idle, earning nothing.
Watch the RBI ease as CPI collapsed to a near-zero low, then both normalise. Both are percentages, on one axis.
As of 2026-05 · RBI + MOSPI
Repo is 5.25%. Floating loans price off it via the EBLR — set your loan and see the EMI move.
Repo is 5.25%; floating home loans are typically priced at repo + your lender's spread, so the whole EMI ladder shifts point-for-point with RBI moves. Total interest over 20 years at today's rate: ₹48,51,383. Illustrative — your actual rate, spread, and reset dates vary by lender.
What the government pays to borrow across tenors — the yield curve that prices every other loan in the country.
As of 2026-07-22 · RBI — benchmark G-sec yields
Mehngai Brief
The headline CPI is one number for 1.4 billion people. Yours depends on where your money actually goes.
Year-on-year rise in the cost of a representative household basket, rural and urban combined.
As of May 2026 · MOSPI — Consumer Price Index (Combined, 2012=100)
Comfortably inside the RBI's 2–6% target band — a different world from the near-zero low of late 2025 you can see in the cycle chart above.
The May 2026 Consumer Price Index shows headline inflation of 3.93 percent. Food and beverages, the biggest spending slice at 45.9 percent of the basket, rose 3.8 percent, keeping grocery bills tight for most families. Miscellaneous goods—things like household items and personal care—jumped 4.9 percent, the highest rise among all groups. These two areas are the main forces that raise the overall CPI, meaning families will see higher costs on food and everyday household items in their monthly budget.
Enter what your household spends each month. We weight the official group inflation by your basket and compare it to the headline.
On ₹47,400/month, your basket is rising 3.88% a year — slower than the official 3.93%, roughly ₹22,081 of extra cost over a year at that pace. Reset the sliders to the official weights and it reproduces the headline. Group figures as of May 2026.
Learn
Ask anything about the economy, then test what stuck.
Rates, inflation, the RBI, bonds — explained in plain English. It teaches; it won't give investment calls.
Six questions on the concepts on this page. Did they stick?
The RBI cuts the repo rate. What typically happens to a floating-rate home loan EMI?
Sensai publishes educational market commentary, not investment advice. We are not SEBI-registered investment advisers or research analysts, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security.
Live prices, index levels, and other market data are pulled from third-party feeds, may be delayed, and can be inaccurate or unavailable. Do not rely on them for trading decisions.
Investing in equities carries risk, including the loss of principal. Always do your own research and consider consulting a SEBI-registered adviser before making any investment decision.
Share of deposits banks must hold in safe assets like government bonds.
Your FD's headline rate isn't what you keep. Tax and inflation both take a slice — what's left is your real return.
Your money is just ahead oftax and today's 3.93% inflation — the real growth is what's left.
At 3.93% inflation, ₹5,00,000 under the mattress buys only ₹4,12,349 worth of goods in 5 years — a silent loss of ₹87,651. At this rate, prices double about every 18 years (the “rule of 72”).
What's in the basket, how it's weighted, and the quirks that trip people up.
The headline CPIis a weighted average: each spending group counts in proportion to how much of a typical household's budget it takes. Food alone is nearly half the basket — which is why vegetable and cereal prices swing the number so much.
Weights are frozen to a 2012 spending survey, so they lag how India actually spends today.
The housing group excludes rural households entirely — a common source of confusion when people compare their rent to the index.
A big jump or drop can be a base effect— last year's reading moving the maths, not fresh price changes now.