It is not the style of this magazine to harp on what is missing and going wrong. There can be no end to that. But, as journos who move around a bit, we can’t help but notice how anxious people are about the future of India. Some of that anxiety burst forth during the Cockroach Janta Party’s recent agitation of which we had a pulsating, sweaty ringside view. There is a lot more bubbling beneath the surface which we come across all the time.
Of what good are economic indicators if they don’t reflect conditions in real life? It is the question ordinary folks are asking, far removed from the nuances that economists claim to have mastery over. The recent shindy over GDP numbers for the first quarter has done little to clarify things. How does one react to numbers which seem like make-believe — even if they are not?