The travails of the automotive industry have got all the coverage (The Telegraph, above), but various sectors of the Indian economy are in deep slump, as Narendra Modi bloviates about making India a $5 trillion economy.
(How many zeroes in a trillion? 12, actually.)
Eight key core sectors of the economy–including electricity, natural gas and petroleum refinery products–have had their lowest growth in 50 months, according to official data (Deccan Herald, above).
In just the last two days two industry bodies, of tea and cotton (above), have bravely issued advertisements announcing the huge job losses that are on the anvil.
Britannia CEO Varun Berry‘s quote that consumers were hesitating to buy a Rs 5 biscuit packet hits the nail on the head. But the big picture is even more revealing of the state of the economy under the much-vaunted “Gujarat Model”.
Here are 30 screenshots from the last 15 days of The Economic Times, each headline providing a peek of the oncoming truck.
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Only three companies show what might even be considered positive signs:
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As Kashmir provides the distraction, West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra is the outlier. 
churumuri 
Good collection Curumari
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The cool aid of Gujarat miracle is so widely and readily consumed that the janata has very little regard for factual data. Consider this:
If you rank the states in India by per capita GDP, Gujrat ranks 14, after Goa, Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra to name just a few.
In terms of Human Development Index, which is a better index of the economic welfare, Kerala, Chandigarh, Goa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Haryana are comparable to High Human Development nations of the world.
Among the states that can be compared to countries with medium development countries, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Uttarkhand, and Nagaland out rank Gujrat that finishes in the 21.
But then illusion is more comforting than reality.
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There are short term &long term remedies for these type of chronic economic problem by policy shifts only
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Excellent piece Shoma. What has also been badly hit because of the slump in Auto sector is the truck rentals, I I don’t have numbers to substantiate it, but the situation there is grave as these trucks are designed specifically to haul new vehicles from factories, these haulers are out of business as they cannot carry any other load like any ordinary truck would do. With flight of capital from India and its ‘not much to write about global image’ India is in for a long lasting slowdown.
A nugget that may interest you – I was traveling from Delhi to Raipur, the gentleman sitting next to me was director of a power sector PSU he told me that they had to divert the services of their civil engineers to build ‘shauchalays’ (toilets) and had to put on hold many critical civil engineering jobs for months in their power plants.
Regards
Samiran
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