The Reserve Bank of India warned of a global currency war on rising trade tensions and said it did not want to add to the risk profile of India's growth as it hiked its key lending rate by 25 basis points to 6.5 per cent.

"We already had a few months of turbulence behind us and it looks like that this is likely to continue. For how long, I don't know. But the trade skirmishes evolved into tariff wars and now we are possibly at the beginning of currency wars," RBI Governor Urjit Patel said at a press conference.