Late last month, two key decisions were announced by the government. First, on October 28, the terms of reference of the 8th Central Pay Commission (CPC) were approved by the Union Cabinet, with the Commission given 18 months to submit its recommendations. Two days later, the Statistics Ministry released a discussion paper seeking feedback on the changes it wants to make in how housing inflation is calculated as part of the exercise to revamp the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The two issues might look unrelated; after all, what could possibly link the revision of pay and pensions of Central government staff and a component of retail inflation ? As it turns out, the 8th CPC could completely upend India’s headline inflation number if not for the changes proposed by the Ministry of Stati

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