A customer hands over a pineapple to a vendor at a roadside shop decorated with plastic Vishu Konna flowers (scientific name: Cassia fistula) ahead of the Vishu festival in Kochi, India, on April 14, 2026.

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India's consumer price inflation in April rose for the sixth straight month to 3.48% from 3.40% in March, even as the government kept prices at the pump steady to shield consumers from rising global oil prices.

The headline inflation number was below economists' expectations for a 3.80% rise in the consumer price index, as per a Reuters poll.

Food inflation, a key constituent of the country's consumer price index, hit 4.2%, up from 3.87% in March, India's Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation said in a release .

The latest inflation reading may matter less than its trajectory, Duvvuri Subbarao, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, told CNBC's Inside India on Tuesday.

"If inflation persists long enough, inflation expectations harden, and it can…