India's Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rose to 5.59 percent in December 2021. This took the average for the last quarter for 2021 to 5.0 percent, 10 basis points lower than the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) forecast. While inflation is expected to increase sharply in the first quarter of 2022, economists think the RBI is underestimating the extent to which it will rise. The RBI sees CPI inflation averaging 5.7 percent in January-March 2022. Forecasts of economists outside the central bank are in the range of 5.8-6.4 percent.