India, Feb. 12 -- India's inflation rate has risen to the highest in eight months under the new CPI series to fall within the Reserve Bank of India's tolerance band for the first time since August 2025. That indicates a status quo on repo rate in the longer term.

India's new Consumer Price Index surged to 2.75% in January 2026 as against 1.3% in December 2025, when the old CPI series was in effect, according to data released by the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on Thursday. A Bloomberg survey of economists had pegged the figure at 2.77%.

The food inflation rate was 2.13%, according to MOSPI.

The new Consumer Price index cuts the weight of volatile items such as food to about 36.8% from nearly half and shifts...