Comment by Riaz Haq on September 2, 2026 at 10:28am

Former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg says there is a lot of distress among the wage earning class where incomes don't seem to have grown in real terms over the years. The other really sad development is 8 to 9 crore crore youth are out of the employment market. Therefore there is a new to investigate whether GDP is actually growing at the rate officially claimed.


https://youtu.be/ReWkJTEcQd4?is=1i5gdFSEk81oH5ih

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Subhash Chandra Garg
@Subhashgarg1960
I explain analytical base of my conclusion that GDP growth in Q1 in 2026-27 in current price is 2.6% and in real terms close to 0. There are still messier distortions in sectoral performance with manufacturing and consumption witnessing negative growth.

https://x.com/Subhashgarg1960/status/2095074164814258439?s=20

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@Manoj_216

Last year, Q1 2025-26:
Nominal GDP was ₹86 trillion (everyone celebrated)
It was then conveniently revised down to ₹80 trillion (almost a 7% downward revision) (after celebrations were over).

This quarter, Q1 2026-27:
Nominal GDP is ₹88.27 trillion rupees.
This may also get conveniently revised down later after the celebrations are over.

Compare unrevised (₹86 trillion) vs unrevised (₹88.27 trillion), we have grown only by 2.6%

Oops! too much of a number game going on !

https://x.com/manoj_216/status/2094990270337290344?s=46&t=Uy6jy...

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India's 20 years of GDP misestimation: New evidence

Abhishek Anand (Madras Institute of Development Studies), Josh Felman (JH Consulting) and Arvind Subramanian (PIIE)
Working Paper 26-3
March 2026
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Amit Dave


https://www.piie.com/publications/working-papers/2026/indias-20-yea...


KEY TAKEAWAYS

India’s annual economic growth during the boom years between 2005 and 2011 may have been underestimated by about 1–1½ percentage points on average, and subsequent growth between 2012 and 2023 may have been overestimated by about 1½-2 percentage points.
The first methodological issue leading to the misestimation is that the economy’s formal sector has been used as a proxy for the vast informal sector, even though the latter was disproportionately hit after 2015 by demonetization, the introduction of the goods and services tax, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The second methodological issue causing misestimation is that the deflators for many sectors have been based on commodity prices, which have moved sharply relative to others.



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Ex-finance secretary raises concerns
Former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg told India Today that the real GDP data in the new series for the first quarter of the financial year 2025-’26 was not available as it had been released based on the old series at the time.

“So, the number which has now been used as a base for 2025-’26 Q1 is the number that [the government] has come out with for the first time,” he said. “Therefore, comparing it with that base should be taken with a little bit of a pinch of salt.”

Garg said that the GDP growth analysis is done in terms of current prices and that the government had “drastically revised” the gross domestic product at current prices for the first quarter of 2025-’26.

“It’s such a massive, drastic reduction in the base year’s Q1 GDP at current prices that the growth is now 10.3%,” he told the news channel. “If you had taken the numbers – and the current prices don’t change – which were put out last year as the GDP at current prices, the growth would be less than 2.5% in current prices – nominal GDP.”

https://scroll.in/latest/1095427/pms-economic-adviser-denies-allega...

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 3, 2026 at 8:43am

@PraveshParas


Former Finance Secretary Subhash Garg is right to question the 7.8% GDP growth figure. Last year’s first-quarter GDP at current prices was first reported at ₹86 lakh crore. It was later revised down to rupees 80 lakh crore. This year’s figure is rupees 88.27 lakh crore. Compare that with the original rupees 86 lakh crore and nominal growth is only about 2.6%. After inflation, real growth almost disappears.
Imagine a kirana shop. Last year the owner said April-June sales were rupees 86,000. This year they were rupees 88,270 just 2.6% more. Now he says last year’s sales were actually only rupees 80,000. Suddenly this year looks like a 10% jump. The extra growth came from changing last year’s number, not from selling much more. That is what happened with GDP. People feel the difference in weak jobs, slow spending and tight household budgets. The government must explain the rupees 6 lakh crore revision instead of celebrating a number that looks better only on paper.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Govt may be right in their perception but even common man feels there is no changing his life or prosperity then what is the point of GDP growth. Even in stock market, investors are big shark , they understand every bit of financial growth, they are good in numbers, so why have market fallen for three consecutive sessions after announcement. However no anchor looked me convincing on understanding of GDP and its calculation so they were also throwing ball from one side to another. @DILIPtheCHERIAN @iamnarendranath @bainjal @rohini_sgh @vijaita @suhasinih @ShereenBhan @suchetadalal @latha_venkatesh @sanjayuvacha @Subhashgarg1960 @NKSingh_MP @MishraPrac @maryashakil


https://x.com/praveshparas/status/2095425807321895313?s=61&t=mg...

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 15, 2026 at 8:10pm

India is undergoing a major democratic reckoning centered around youth-led protests, mass detentions, and intense disputes over electoral integrity under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. [1, 2]

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/democratic-reckoning-india


Key Elements of the Reckoning
Voter Roll Purges & SIR: Protests erupted following the Election Commission of India's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and draft electoral rolls released in January 2026, which led to the removal of nearly six crore (60 million) voters across 12 states and Union Territories—drawing accusations of structural manipulation. [1, 2]
Mass Protests & State Crackdown: Youth and student groups (including the "Cockroach" movement) alongside opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi have taken to the streets in New Delhi. The government deployed over 40,000 security personnel, shut down metro stations, disrupted mobile internet, and detained more than 7,000 protesters, drawing criticism from bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Office. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Economic & Social Discontent: Beyond elections, the movement channels broader youth frustration, including graduate unemployment hovering near 23 percent and a sharp slowdown in white-collar job growth. [1]
Broader Institutional Concerns: International and domestic watchdogs—such as Freedom House and various political analysts—have increasingly characterized India's trajectory as a shift toward a hybrid regime or electoral autocracy, while Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) defends the administrative legitimacy of the voter roll cleanup. [1, 2, 3]

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@KenRoth

"The mass protests that have unfolded in Delhi since July and flared again this month are nothing less than a contest over the foundations of the Indian state and whether it lives up to its constitutional commitments."


https://x.com/kenroth/status/2110786861404701174?s=61&t=mgTxrmI...

Comment by Riaz Haq 3 hours ago

Opinion | I Went to India and Found It Has Lessons for Us All - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/opinion/india-modi-students-prot...

She (Majumdar) never did get to march that day. A few minutes after I spoke with her and her friends, a column of police officers decked out in camouflage descended on the students, manhandling them into a waiting bus. The officers drove them 40 minutes north of the city center and held them in a police station until after dark, eventually letting the women go; only when they refused to leave did the officers also release the men.

So great was the threat these students presented to Modi’s rule that his government reportedly deployed over 50,000 security personnel to the streets, shut down dozens of metro stations, blocked long-distance trains from arriving in Delhi and threw up yellow steel barricades across the capital, leaving its usually teeming streets eerily deserted. Majumdar was one of thousands of people detained that day by the authorities in an all-out attempt to quash the protest.

Despite these efforts, Modi appears more vulnerable than at any time since he was first elected prime minister. Young people like Majumdar, educated, middle-class and Hindu — the children of a generation that rocketed him to power — are in open revolt, incensed by the government’s derogation of education and democracy. Willing to risk detention and the baton blows of the feared lathi, they are setting out to make Modi, who has carefully managed his image as a civilizational figure who will lift India into glory, an object of fun. Majumdar, undeterred by her detention, joined another protest the very next day.

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Even a bachelor’s degree from a prestigious college is no guarantee in a country where graduate unemployment is at nearly 40 percent for those ages 15 to 29 and starting salaries are abysmally low. Food delivery drivers often earn more than entry-level tech workers with engineering degrees. To improve Sanskriti’s chances in life, Sharma said they are considering sending her abroad for a master’s degree. That would probably cost $100,000, an unfathomable sum that would require them to go into debt.

Young people across the country increasingly see this as a fool’s bargain, a debt-filled dead end. And they are not afraid to say so, loudly and publicly. Aditi (she goes by one name), the 29-year-old president of the students’ union at Jawaharlal Nehru University, is emblematic. Her parents are stalwart supporters of the B.J.P. But like many members of Gen Z, she rejects the empty promises of Hindu nationalism. “People have gotten bored with Modi’s narrative,” she told me. “Young people have tasted blood.”

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Modi has also discovered that despite his efforts to project global leadership, his power quickly fades at the water’s edge. After promising to elevate India to great-power status, he has found himself stuck, subject to the mundane gravity of global events over which he has little control. He has suffered a series of embarrassments on the world stage, especially at the hands of the Trump administration.

 

 

What’s more, the pressure valve of migration is tightening. On the upper end of society, the dream of sending a child abroad, especially to the United States, is dying. On the lower end, uncertainty in the Persian Gulf is making migrant labor there a shakier proposition too. For a country that is the world’s largest receiver of remittances, amounting to roughly 4 percent of gross domestic product, that’s a big problem. That’s before you consider rising prices for fuel and tariffs on exports.

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