The stock market has dropped to its lowest level in 15 months & the Centre for Management of the Indian Economy has cut economic growth projections half a percentage point, from 8.6 percent to 8.1 percent.
Speaking to CNBC-TV18 CMIE MD & CEO Mahesh Yvas said “We are still kind of little edgy over the numbers we have got for commissioning of projects. We anticipate there could be some further down-scaling of the commissioning. Many of these are coal-based power projects which can get delayed. And that can further impact our forecast. So, there is a small negative bias to this,”
A Finance Ministry statement last month cut agricultural growth projections from 3.2 percent to 2.2 percent. Inflation continues to exceed 9 percent, prompting fears of another rate hike by the Reserve Bank of India, feeding another downward spiral.in growth.
Outside India the world is in a funk with US economists talking openly of a double dip recession while the Euro zone flounders from one debt deadline to the next.
All the evidence is that we live in uncertain times; times when governments are expected to act decisively and the media, which prides itself on being their watchdog, holds politicians to the straight & narrow.
Instead turn on Indian TV or skim newspaper headlines and you are treated to a feeding frenzy; an entire nation transported long stock & barrel to Tihar Jail. With everything else blanked out by some unspoken Civil Society diktat, the stock market mauling barely makes it into the news, the slowdown in growth is completed ignored.
This might not be so bad if the phenomenon were restricted to the media.alone while the organs of state went about work as usual. But the unrelenting focus on Anna & the game of political one-upmanship it has spawned has hardened the political deadlock in Parliament, the body expected to push through anti-corruption legislation, and drawn attention away from other urgent legislation on a whole range of issues.
It is nobody’s case that corruption be ignored.
Indeed it is a major contributor to both inflation & a slowdown in growth as black money often squeezes out white when competing for resources while the bribes that generate it increase the cost of doing business. So anything that can reverse corruption is welcome.
The question that all of us, both stormtroopers of Anna & the government & bystanders caught in the Lokpal storm, should be asking ourselves though is can legislation, no matter how well-intentioned or foolproof, draconian or benign, stop corruption overnight.
And even if it could, is the singular focus on this one issue advisable when other rooms of our house are on fire.
Baljit Singh, Team India may dent India Shining, Contributor.yahoo.com