In Indian benchmark indices celebrated market rally with Nifty Bank recording its fresh high of 9,122, crossing its March 2015 level of 9119.20. 15 stocks on the Nifty crossed its 52-week high.

Inflation at the wholesale level, measured by the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), increased to 5.3 per cent in January 2017, reaching the highest level since August 2014.

The fall was primarily on account of food inflation which declined to a five-year low of 0.5 per cent in January 2017 from 1.4 per cent a month ago.

With banks flush with funds post demonetisation and surging oil prices likely to fuel inflation, the Reserve Bank may refrain from lowering benchmark interest rate at its policy review meet this week.

The funds infusion will be more than Rs 25,000 crore as announced in the earlier budget and the additional requirement will reflect in the final batch of supplementary demand for grants to be presented in the upcoming Budget session, sources said.

India's wholesale prices rose 3.39 percent year-on-year in December, their fastest pace in two months, government data showed on Monday.

This is the fifth bi-monthly monetary policy of the RBI and the second monetary policy statement after Urjit Patel  took over as RBI Governor. The RBI decision comes at a time when the nation is facing a cash crunch due to the government's demonetisation move which is one of the main driving factors that led to the cut.

The Reserve Bank of India monetary policy committee (MPC) is widely expected to cut repo rate and adopt a growth supportive stance. This will be RBI governor Urjit Patel's second monetary policy.

Going forward, industry and experts anticipate prices to remain benign, estimating wholesale price-based inflation, which reflects the annual rate of price rise, to remain below 4 per cent till the year-end.

The minutes of the US Federal Reserve's September policy meeting released overnight indicated that rate hike in US in the month of December could well be on cards.

The stock market snapped the three-day losing streak, while trading lacklustre to slightly gain by 21.20 points at 28,082.34, while broader Nifty also garnered 11.20 points to reclaim the key 8,700-level amid listless global cues.

The newly-constituted Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) headed by RBI Governor Urjit Patel is unlikely to lower rates at its maiden policy review on Tuesday.

While the private investment has dried up, the government spending is increasing in a calibrated manner. In this backdrop, the expert suggested these five sectors to look upon for medium term:

The demand for Indian debt from should continue to be strong, which will support the bond valuations

The report penciled by Chetan Ahya of Morgan Stanley India compares both macro as well as the micro parameters during the 1998-2002 cycle and the present downturn cycle that began in 2013, which according to him, are very similar.

WPI inflation remained in the negative zone for a 16th straight month at (-)0.91 per cent in February as food articles, mainly vegetables and pulses turned cheaper.

The 30-share index ended the day at 23,554, up 568.00 points, while broad-based 50-share index was quoted 7,162, up 182.00 points at close.

Reversing four months of rising trend, WPI inflation fell to (-)0.9 per cent in January as food articles, mainly vegetables and pulses, turned cheaper.

For any finance minister, preparing a Budget is all about trade-offs. It has to meet many different objectives simultaneously, and some of them might be in conflict with one another.

The Nikkei Business Activity index climbed to a 19-month high of 54.3 last month from 53.6 in December, pointing to a marked expansion of activity across the sector.