Indian rates rise, UK growth falls

India raised interest rates on Tuesday. AFP/CNA reports:

India's central bank hiked interest rates by a higher-than-expected 50 basis points on Tuesday, its 11th increase since March 2010 to combat near double-digit inflation.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised its repo rate at which it lends to commercial banks to 8.0 per cent and increased the reverse repo -- the rate it pays to banks for deposits -- to 7.0 per cent.

The UK, however, looks likely to continue delaying any rate hike after the economy showed little growth in the second quarter. From Reuters:

Britain's gross domestic product grew by 0.2 percent in the second quarter compared to the first. That took the annual growth rate to 0.7 percent, the lowest since the first quarter of 2010, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday...

The ONS said special factors such as an additional holiday for the royal wedding and the after-effects of the tsunami in Japan weighed on growth, which could have been as high as 0.7 percent without them.

The data from the US on Tuesday were mixed. Bloomberg reports:

Sales of new U.S. homes unexpectedly fell for a second month and a gauge of property values also dropped, showing the industry that sparked the recession is stagnating.

Purchases dropped 1 percent in June to a 312,000 annual pace, a three-month low, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Prices in 20 cities dropped 4.5 percent in the year ended May, the most since November 2009, according to a report from S&P/Case-Shiller...

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index rose to 59.5 from a revised 57.6 reading in June that was lower than previously estimated, figures from the New York-based private research group showed. Economists predicted the July gauge would fall to 56, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey.