Oil prices are expected to be the main driver for the Indian rupee and government bonds this week, with traders also watching July inflation data from India and the U.S. for signals on the interest-rate path. The rupee closed at 95.2075 per dollar on Friday, up about 0.2% from a week earlier, while the 10-year benchmark bond yield ended at 6.7651%, down 7 basis points (one-hundredth of a percentage point) over the week after its first decline in five weeks. Market attention remains fixed on inflation because volatility in energy prices, tied to uncertainty in the Middle East, can feed directly into price pressures. Iran said on Sunday that a deal on new shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz is nearly finalized, but it also said the route would reopen only once the U.S. meets other conditions. In the U.S., data released on Friday showed the economy unexpectedly lost jobs in July, prompting traders to scale back Federal Reserve rate-hike bets and pushing Treasury yields and the dollar lower. A Reuters poll of 40 economists forecast India's annual consumer price index, or CPI (consumer inflation gauge), would rise to 4.50% in July from 4.38% in June. The Reserve Bank of India kept policy rates unchanged last week, though analysts at ANZ expect at least two 25-basis-point hikes beginning in December 2026. The RBI also cut its core inflation (price growth excluding volatile food and fuel) forecast by 40 basis points to 4.3% for the current fiscal year and trimmed its headline inflation projection by 10 basis points to 5%, while Governor Sanjay Malhotra said the central bank would provide sufficient liquidity in the banking system.