Comment by Riaz Haq on Monday

Postponing India’s census is terrible for the country
But it may suit Narendra Modi just fine

https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/01/05/postponing-indias-census-is-terrible-for-the-country


Narendra Modi often overstates his achievements. For example, the Hindu-nationalist prime minister’s claim that all Indian villages have been electrified on his watch glosses over the definition: only public buildings and 10% of households need a connection for the village to count as such. And three years after Mr Modi declared India “open-defecation free”, millions of villagers are still purging al fresco. An absence of up-to-date census information makes it harder to check such inflated claims. It is also a disaster for the vast array of policymaking reliant on solid population and development data.

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Three years ago India’s government was scheduled to pose its citizens a long list of basic but important questions. How many people live in your house? What is it made of? Do you have a toilet? A car? An internet connection? The answers would refresh data from the country’s previous census in 2011, which, given India’s rapid development, were wildly out of date. Because of India’s covid-19 lockdown, however, the questions were never asked.

Almost three years later, and though India has officially left the pandemic behind, there has been no attempt to reschedule the decennial census. It may not happen until after parliamentary elections in 2024, or at all. Opposition politicians and development experts smell a rat.

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For a while policymakers can tide themselves over with estimates, but eventually these need to be corrected with accurate numbers. “Right now we’re relying on data from the 2011 census, but we know our results will be off by a lot because things have changed so much since then,” says Pronab Sen, a former chairman of the National Statistical Commission who works on the household-consumption survey. And bad data lead to bad policy. A study in 2020 estimated that some 100m people may have missed out on food aid to which they were entitled because the distribution system uses decade-old numbers.

Similarly, it is important to know how many children live in an area before building schools and hiring teachers. The educational misfiring caused by the absence of such knowledge is particularly acute in fast-growing cities such as Delhi or Bangalore, says Narayanan Unni, who is advising the government on the census. “We basically don’t know how many people live in these places now, so proper planning for public services is really hard.”

The home ministry, which is in charge of the census, continues to blame its postponement on the pandemic, most recently in response to a parliamentary question on December 13th. It said the delay would continue “until further orders”, giving no time-frame for a resumption of data-gathering. Many statisticians and social scientists are mystified by this explanation: it is over a year since India resumed holding elections and other big political events.

Comment by Riaz Haq on Wednesday

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will seek to bolster fast economic growth and buffer the Asian nation from external ​shocks through domestic policy reforms in the latest budget on Sunday, as unprecedented global volatility weighs on the outlook.

https://www.deccanherald.com/business/union-budget/pm-modi-faces-to...

Sitharaman, economists said, faces the difficult task of restoring short- and long-term investor confidence, as uncertainty over New Delhi's trade talks with Washington has unsettled financial markets and sent the ‌rupee to a ‌record low. 

 

Foreign investors have continued to sell Indian shares after a record outflow in 2025 on stretched valuations, subdued earnings and geopolitical concerns.

 

With limited capacity to boost spending, the ⁠government is likely to focus on simplifying regulations and pushing structural reforms to attract domestic and foreign investment, said Anubhuti Sahay, head of Indian Economic Research at Standard Chartered. 

Comment by Riaz Haq on Wednesday

CNBC Daily Open: The EU-India trade deal story is not over yet


https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/cnbc-daily-open-the-eu-india-trade-...


On Tuesday, India and the European Union announced a “landmark” free trade deal that would remove or reduce tariffs on more than 90% of goods traded between them.

The deal, nearly two decades in the making, will see India lower tariffs in two of its most politically sensitive sectors, agriculture and autos. It also lands amid a growing wave of bilateral trade agreements, as countries recalibrate supply chains and commercial ties in response to Washington’s increasingly muscular use of tariffs.



That broader shift is already visible. Earlier this month, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney visited China, the first leader in his role to do so in 17 years, in a bid to expand economic partnerships with the world’s second-largest economy. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to follow with a three-day trip to China, the first by a British prime minister since 2018.

Still, the India-EU pact, memorably dubbed the “mother of all deals” by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, has yet to clear its most unpredictable hurdle: U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump, who has slapped punitive tariffs on friends and foes alike, has yet to weigh in on the India-EU agreement. His silence is notable.

In August last year, the U.S. imposed higher levies on Indian goods over India’s oil purchases from Russia, days after imposing a 25% duty on New Delhi.

With Trump’s recent escalating rhetoric toward the EU, including threats tied to Greenland, his response looms as a persistent cloud over the “historic” deal. And that cloud darkened further when U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent criticized the EU for forging a trade agreement with India in an interview with ABC News on Sunday.

But perhaps it’s not all doom and gloom, as the U.S. and India are at “a very advanced stage” of finalizing a highly-anticipated deal, India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri told CNBC Tuesday.

Another cloud weighing on investors’ minds is the U.S. Federal Reserve, which concludes its policy meeting Wednesday. Rates are widely expected to remain unchanged, but Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks will be closely parsed amid renewed political pressure on the central bank.

Comment by Riaz Haq 18 hours ago

Ajay Kamath
@ajay43
The INR has fallen 6% against the Pakistani rupee over the past few weeks. It has literally collapsed against the Euro. Not one policy maker has an explanation, not one media outlet is asking questions, and
@iam_juhi
and
@SrBachchan
aren’t making jokes

https://x.com/ajay43/status/2016795856419357022?s=20

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sahil bhadviya
@sahilbhadviya
INR is not just falling against USD. It is falling against all major currencies. A euro trip is now 20% more expensive in last 1 yr. UK trip is 12%-14% expensive.. this is crazy. I fail to understand what is happening.

https://x.com/sahilbhadviya/status/2016772489519779916?s=20

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Pakistan becomes latest Asian country to introduce checks for deadly Nipah virus | Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pakista...

Summary
India confirmed two infections in late December
India says no outbreak, no need for screening at its airports
A number of Asian nations have tightened screening
Nipah has high mortality rate but not easily transmitted
LAHORE/HANOI/HYDERABAD, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Authorities in Pakistan have ordered enhanced screening of people entering the country for signs of infections of the deadly Nipah virus after India confirmed two cases, adding to the number of Asian countries stepping up controls.
Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam have also tightened screening at airports. But an Indian official said there were no plans to introduce screening at the country's airports and said there was no sign of any outbreak.

The Nipah virus can cause fever and brain inflammation and has a high mortality rate. There is also no vaccine. But transmission from person to person is not easy and typically requires prolonged contact with an infected individual.
PAKISTAN SEEKS TRANSIT HISTORY
"It has become imperative to strengthen preventative and surveillance measures at Pakistan's borders," the Border Health Services department said in a statement.
"All travelers shall undergo thermal screening and clinical assessment at the Point of Entry," which includes seaports, land borders and airports, the department added.

The agency said travellers would need to provide transit history for the preceding 21-day period to check whether they had been through "Nipah-affected or high-risk regions".
There are no direct flights between Pakistan and India and travel between them is extremely limited, particularly since their worst fighting in decades erupted last May.
In Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital's health department on Wednesday also ordered the screening of incoming passengers at Noi Bai airport, particularly those arriving from India and the eastern state of West Bengal, where the two health workers were confirmed to have the virus in late December.

Passengers will be checked with body temperature scanners.
"This allows for timely isolation, epidemiological investigation," the department said in a statement.

That follows measures by authorities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's largest city, who said they had tightened health controls at international border crossings.
NO OUTBREAK, NO WORRY, SAYS INDIA
India's health ministry said this week that authorities have identified and traced 196 contacts linked to the two cases with none showing symptoms and all testing negative for the virus.

The two infected people are health workers, with the male patient doing well and likely to be discharged from hospital soon, while the female patient remains critical and under treatment, the chief district medical officer in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal told Reuters on Thursday.
Indian health authorities have repeatedly sought to reassure people that the infection has been contained and that there is no reason to fear an outbreak. Federal health authorities also said there was no need to screen passengers at Indian airports.

Comment by Riaz Haq 9 hours ago

The fast-growth mirage of Modinomic

https://asiatimes.com/2026/01/the-fast-growth-mirage-of-modinomics/

World Bank and IMF laud India’s rising GDP but Modi’s economic policies have in reality widely missed their mark

By BHIM BHURTEL

Bhim Bhurtel

@BhimBhurtel

II Faculty of Development Economics and Global Political Economy II Freelance Columnist II

Kathmandu
In the hushed corridors of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), a comforting refrain echoes: India, they insist, is the world’s unstoppable economic engine.

Their quarterly reports and growth projections paint a picture of relentless momentum, a beacon of hope in a fragile global economy. It is a narrative eagerly amplified by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, a central plank of its “Modinomics” branding.

But when you travel beyond the glass facades of Mumbai’s corporate towers and Delhi’s corridors of power, a different India emerges — one of endless queues for subsidized rations, university graduates hawking SIM cards on sweltering street corners and a profound, simmering anxiety.

Here, the much-touted boom is not just leaving people behind—it is a statistical illusion masking deep, structural rot.

A closer inspection of India’s economy reveals not a powerhouse but a patient in critical condition. The so-called vital signs, such as GDP (gross domestic product, meaning the total value of goods and services produced in a country), are being artificially sustained while the underlying organs fail.

Three crucial and often overlooked indicators tell the real story: a shockingly narrow tax base (referring to the small proportion of the population that actually pays significant taxes), an exclusive capital market (where access to equity investment is limited rather than spread broadly) and a persistent exodus of the rich (sometimes referred to as capital flight, where wealthy individuals and their assets leave the country).

Together, they expose an economy marked by dangerous levels of inequality and limited readiness for the dual challenges of US protectionism and technological change.

Comment by Riaz Haq 9 hours ago

The fast-growth mirage of Modinomic

https://asiatimes.com/2026/01/the-fast-growth-mirage-of-modinomics/


Not so shiny India

The foundational myth of “Shining India 2.0” is that of broad-based prosperity. The reality, laid bare in the nation’s own tax data, is an economy of breathtaking concentration.

For the 2024-25 fiscal year, the Indian government proudly notes that it has issued approximately 800 million Permanent Account Numbers, or PANs, a key identifier for financial transactions such as opening bank accounts, filing income tax returns and making high-value purchases.

This is hailed as a triumph of formalization, the process of integrating economic activities into transparent, regulated systems. The reality lies in the payments. Of those PAN holders, only about 30-35 million individuals — a meager 2% to 3% of the total population —constitute the entire cohort of meaningful income taxpayers, meaning those who actually pay income tax based on their earnings.

Over 90 million other returns filed result in zero tax liability, where individuals file returns but owe no tax. Wealth concentration is even more stark. By February 2025, only 468,000 people reported annual incomes exceeding 1 crore rupees, or about US$120,000, and only 10,184 reported incomes of about $688,130, a level considered extremely high by Indian standards.

This is not an economy; it is a feudal estate with a digital gloss. The celebrated GDP growth rate, often near 7%, is driven almost entirely by the consumption and investment of this microscopic elite and the sectors that serve them: high-end services, luxury goods and speculative finance. It is a closed-loop circuit of prosperity.

Meanwhile, the Indian agriculture sector remains perennially in distress, manufacturing looks anaemic, the economy is unable to absorb the millions of young Indians entering the workforce and real wage growth for most Indians is stagnant.

This is the devastating failure of Modinomics. Policies, ranging from generous corporate tax cuts to the relentless favoring of a handful of cronies have turbocharged wealth at the top while systematically eroding the earning capacity of the middle class and bottom 40%.

The result is a dystopian paradox: a nation the IMF calls the world’s “fastest-growing” economy, where nearly 800 million people, or more than half the population, rely on government-provided free food grains to avoid hunger.

The World Bank’s claim that this growth is “domestic consumption-led” is, therefore, an act of statistical manipulation. What consumption? The exits of automotive giants like Ford, General Motors and Harley-Davidson years ago were early canaries in India’s coal mine; they saw an Indian subcontinent with too few customers who could actually afford their high-value manufactured goods.

Comment by Riaz Haq 9 hours ago

The fast-growth mirage of Modinomic

https://asiatimes.com/2026/01/the-fast-growth-mirage-of-modinomics/

Shares for the few

The second act of this theatrical growth is the supposed democratization of capital. The Modi government points to the stratospheric rise of the Sensex and the explosion in demat (securities) accounts as evidence that ordinary Indians are becoming stakeholders in the nation’s rise.

The facade cracks, however, under the slightest scrutiny. While demat accounts—required to hold and trade securities electronically—surpassed 210 million by the end of 2025, regulator studies and market analyses suggest one-third are duplicates or dormant. The number of unique investors, meaning individuals with only one active trading account, is closer to 136 million, and of these, only a fraction are consistently active.

According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), while 63% of households are aware of market products such as stocks, bonds or mutual funds, a paltry 9.5%—about 32 million households—actively invest.

In a nation of 1.46 billion, the equity cult is confined to a single-digit percentage. Record-breaking IPOs and bull-market rallies are not signs of shared wealth creation but symptoms of massive liquidity sloshing among the wealthy, with markets acting as sophisticated mechanisms for further concentration.

This is not the sign of a healthy, advanced economy with broad-based asset ownership. It is the sign of a bubble inflating within a sealed chamber.

This extreme financial exclusivity leaves India profoundly vulnerable. Market gains are untethered from the ground reality of the overwhelming number of Indians. When the correction comes — triggered perhaps by a global shock — the collateral damage to consumer confidence and the fragile banking system linked to these investments will be severe, with no broad-based shareholder society to cushion the fall.

Wealthy exodus

Perhaps the clearest indictment of the Indian economic environment comes from its wealthy.

According to the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2025, about 3,500 high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) left India last year, taking an estimated $26.2 billion with them. This continues a grim trend, following 4,300 in 2024 and 5,100 in 2023.

Wealth migration is the ultimate barometer of confidence. The affluent do not lightly abandon their homeland, networks and cultural roots. Their departure signals a calculated assessment of risk versus opportunity—and for thousands of India’s millionaires, the calculus points abroad.

Comment by Riaz Haq 9 hours ago

The fast-growth mirage of Modinomic

https://asiatimes.com/2026/01/the-fast-growth-mirage-of-modinomics/

They cite concerns over political volatility, bureaucratic hurdles, outdated infrastructure and a punitive, complex tax environment that, paradoxically, fails to raise significant revenue due to its poor design and numerous loopholes for the ultra-wealthy.

This relentless exodus of financial and human capital is a body blow to any nation’s aspirations. It strips away investable funds, shrinks the already minuscule tax base and exports the very entrepreneurial talent needed to build future industries.

The Modi government’s constant narrative of “unprecedented opportunities” rings hollow in the face of this quiet, continuous vote of no confidence from its own economic winners.

Dangerous self-delusion

The portrait that emerges is not of a rising middle power but of a deeply unbalanced polity-economy on the brink. Growth metrics mask inequality, where prosperity is a spectacle watched by the masses but enjoyed only by a small elite, while foundations are likely too weak to withstand coming storms.

The World Bank and IMF, with their dogmatic and outdated fixation on top-line GDP, are not just mistaken; they are enabling a dangerous self-delusion. By blessing Modi’s model, they provide cover for the government to avoid needed and necessarily painful reforms in land, labor, education, taxation and governance.

So far Modinomics has been a masterclass in political narrative over economic substance. It has traded long-term resilience for short-term headlines, and equity for the concentrated enrichment of a privileged few.

As the winds of protectionism and technological disruption gather force, India’s economic miracle is being exposed for what it always was: a mirage in a desert of inequality. And when a mirage fades, all that is left is the harsh, parched and barren reality.

Comment