A Month ago, the Finance Ministry changed the timing of releasing Inflation data citing that the sensitive data would be ready by Thursday of every week and should be released by evening on the same day. However, I don’t agree with the Finance Ministry’s argument and I think it was directly related to rampant sell-offs on Friday’s in the Stock Market where the Inflation figures kept on rising and older numbers revised upwards in retrospect.
Today’s Inflation Data of 12.44% was widely available in all the newsgroups across the web during market hours much before the Government’s announcement at 5:00 PM IST.
Just late last month, RBI’s Web Manager sent out e-mails on rate hike even before the RBI Governor addressed it. Today, the Inflation Data and tomorrow it could be India’s Financial Budget or details of India’s Nucelar Deal with the US.
It is high time that the Government clean such elements from the system to bring higher level of transparency and boost Investors confidence.