* Reserve Bank of India lifts rates by 25 bps as expected

* Canada holds rates; surprises with hawkish language

* Australia cenbank signals further tightening, Aussie up

* New Zealand bucks trend as inflation lower-than-expected

* Sweden holds to gradual forecast; crown weakens

 India raised interest rates on Tuesday and Canada and Australia signaled they will tighten soon in a clear sign the global economic recovery is taking hold, pressuring more policymakers to shift their focus to keeping inflation in check.

Central banks in much of the Asia-Pacific region have been leading the world in unwinding emergency stimulus measures put in place during the global financial crisis. Their Western counterparts have seen slower and more uneven recoveries, but recent data has been encouraging.

The Bank of Canada, noting global growth has been somewhat stronger than projected given the momentum in emerging-market economies, signaled it may tighten policy as soon as June, which will likely make it the first Group of Seven member's central bank to raise rates from emergency levels. "With recent improvements in the economic outlook, the need for such extraordinary policy is now passing," it said in a statement.

India and Australia are the only two Group of 20 economies to have raised rates so far.The Reserve Bank of India raised its key policy rates by 25 basis points each, as expected, and also lifted its cash reserve ratio requirement for banks by quarter of a percentage point to drain more liquidity from the financial system as it battles near double-digit inflation.

"With the recovery now firmly in place, we need to move in a calibrated manner in the direction of normalizing our policy instruments," RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said in a policy statement, after it raised its key short-term borrowing rate, or reverse repo, to 3.75 percent.

Asia's third-largest economy is set to grow by 8.5 percent in the current financial year and 9 percent the next, and inflation is spreading beyond food to fuel prices and manufactured goods such as cars.Annualized inflation reached 9.9 percent in March, its fastest pace in 17 months.

Analysts expect the RBI to continue increasing interest rates throughout the year to bring them back toward pre-crisis levels.

Among the world's major economies, only China is growing faster, and its central bank has already moved to drain further cash from the banking system and clamp down on lending. Analysts expect it to start raising rates this quarter.

By contrast, a much slower recovery in the United States and Europe means interest rates there will likely remain on hold for some time yet. The U.S. Federal Reserve will next meet on April 27-28 and the European Central Bank on May 6.The uneven situation in Europe was highlighted by news on Tuesday that Sweden's central bank held interest rates at a record low on Tuesday and stuck to a forecast for gradual policy tightening. Weaker-than-expected inflation in the first quarter in New Zealand also prompted investors to pare back expectations of a rate increase to July from June, pushing the kiwi dollar.

But central banks in Canada and Australia, whose economies are heavily influenced by commodity prices, signaled some of the pickup in major emerging economies is spilling over into their more developed peers.The Bank of Canada kept its benchmark rate at 0.25 percent, the record low level it has been at for the past year. But after surprisingly high inflation and growth numbers, it abandoned a conditional pledge to hold rates at that level until the end of June.

Canada's central bank next sets interest rates on June 1, and then on July 20. It had previously said it would hold rates steady until the end of the second quarter, unless inflation strayed off course, but now all bets are off.