[<<Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter on Wednesday to deliver a caustic denouncement of the Narendra Modi government by saying "the wings have fallen of our plane" so the country needs to fasten its seat belt and "take brace position".>> (Excerpted from the report at sl. no. I below.)
<<The words “imminent crisis”, “economic collapse” and “serious downside risks” are floating around. Supporters of the government, including one that has been put on the new advisory council, have pointed out that this year’s GDP figures are unlikely to match even the bad years of the previous government. Experts point out that all four growth engines of the economy are sputtering. Others are going back to look at what went wrong.>> (Excerpted from the comment at sl. no. II below.) <<However, even as the Modi government denies the crisis publicly, it seems it is slowly waking up to it privately. The Union government reconstituted the Economic Advisory Council, a United Progressive Alliance body that was abolished by Modi in 2014. There is also talk of a stimulus package to prop up the economy. However, given the scale of the crises, a disjointed response will not be enough. The Modi government must acknowledged the hole the country is in now and clearly tell the peoples of India how he plans to help it get out of it.>> (Excerpted from the comment at sl. no. III below.)] I/III. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/rahul-gandhis-caustic-tweet-on-state-of-economy-under-modi-fasten-your-seat-belt-wings-have-fallen-off-our-plane/articleshow/60852354.cms Rahul Gandhi's scathing tweet on state of economy under Jaitley: 'Fasten your seat belt...wings have fallen off our plane' TIMESOFINDIA.COM | Updated: Sep 27, 2017, 12:39 IST HIGHLIGHTS Rahul was referring to a scathing indictment of the BJP-led government and of finance minister Arun Jaitley by one of the BJP's own - Yashwant Sinha Sinha then said, among other things, that demonetisation was "an unmitigated economic disaster" he also said the the Goods and Services Tax rollout was "badly conceived and poorly implemented" Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. (TOI Photo) Rahul Gandhi's scathing tweet on state of economy under Jaitley: 'Fasten your seat belt...wings have fallen off our plane' NEW DELHI: ***Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter on Wednesday to deliver a caustic denouncement of the Narendra Modi government by saying "the wings have fallen of our plane" so the country needs to fasten its seat belt and "take brace position".*** [Emphasis added.] Rahul was referring to a scathing indictment of the BJP-led government and of finance minister Arun Jaitley by one of the BJP's own - Yashwant Sinha, a former finance minister himself. Sinha wrote an article for a leading national daily criticising Modi and Jaitley. "I shall be failing in my national duty if I did not speak up even now against the mess the finance minister (Jaitley) has made of the economy," was Sinha's opening sentence. Sinha then said, among other things, that demonetisation was "an unmitigated economic disaster" and the Goods and Services Tax rollout was "badly conceived and poorly implemented". Then Sinha delivered his denouement. "The Prime Minister claims that he has seen poverty from close quarters. His finance minister is working over-time to make sure that all Indians also see it from equally close quarters," concluded Sinha. That's what Rahul was referring to in his tweet, in which he also named the finance minister (FM). His tweet said: "Ladies & Gentlemen, this is your copilot & FM speaking. Plz fasten your seat belts & take brace position.The wings have fallen off our plane". Sinha called Jaitley "a lucky finance minister", said PM Modi is "worried" and added that his own views reflect "the sentiments of a large number of people in the BJP and elsewhere who are not speaking up out of fear. " Earlier, another former finance minister took to Twitter to talk about Sinha's column - the Congress Party's P Chidambaram. Follow P. Chidambaram ✔ @PChidambaram_IN Yashwant Sinha speaks Truth to Power. Will Power now admit the Truth that economy is sinking? 8:19 AM - Sep 27, 2017 242 242 Replies 1,335 1,335 Retweets 2,646 2,646 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy Chidambaram said Sinha's "first truth" was about what the latter thinks is the actual growth of the country - lower than what the government has been touting. Follow P. Chidambaram ✔ @PChidambaram_IN TRUTH 1: "The growth rate of 5.7% is actually 3.7% or less " says Yashwant Sinha. 8:30 AM - Sep 27, 2017 252 252 Replies 2,695 2,695 Retweets 4,254 4,254 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy Here's what Sinha wrote about that: "And please note that the methodology for calculation of the GDP was changed by the present government in 2015 as a result of which the growth rate recorded earlier increased statistically by over 200 basis points on an annual basis. So, according to the old method of calculation, the growth rate of 5.7 per cent is actually 3.7 per cent or less." Sinha's "second truth" according to Chidambaram, was the former saying is the "raid raj" the Modi government is establishing. Follow P. Chidambaram ✔ @PChidambaram_IN TRUTH 2: "Instilling fear in the minds of the people is the name of the new game" says Yashwant Sinha. 8:30 AM - Sep 27, 2017 72 72 Replies 886 886 Retweets 1,458 1,458 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy TOP COMMENT Congress has already crashed the plane several times so no big issue if the wings are lost. Srinivas Injeti "The government has asked the income tax department to chase those who have made large claims. Cash flow problems have already arisen for many companies specially in the SME sector. But this is the style of functioning of the finance ministry now. We protested against raid raj when we were in opposition. Today it has become the order of the day... Instilling fear in the minds of the people is the name of the new game." Click here to watch the video II/III. https://scroll.in/article/852067/dismiss-yashwant-sinha-as-a-case-of-sour-grapes-but-you-can-t-ignore-industry-and-data INDIAN ECONOMIC GROWTH Dismiss Yashwant Sinha as a case of sour grapes, but you can't ignore industry and data The former finance minister might just be enjoying attacking Arun Jaitley, but he is only echoing what top business leaders are saying. by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan Published Yesterday · 01:04 pm Dismiss Yashwant Sinha as a case of sour grapes, but you can't ignore industry and data World Economic Forum/Creative Commons Former finance minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha minced no words in an op-ed published on Wednesday. Writing in the Indian Express, Sinha said he would be “failing in my national duty if I did not speak up even now against the mess the finance minister has made of the economy”. Claiming his views were shared by many within the BJP who might be afraid to speak out, Sinha said that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had wasted a golden opportunity and instead steered the Indian economy into crisis. “Economies are destroyed more easily than they are built,” Sinha wrote. “The prime minister claims that he has seen poverty from close quarters. His finance minister is working over-time to make sure that all Indians also see it from equally close quarters.” The former finance minister also pointed out that things are worse even than they seem. While the 5.7% Gross Domestic Product growth figure for the quarter ending June may have been the lowest in three years, he brought up the fact that under the previous GDP methodology, it would have been 3.7%. “A revival by the time of the next Lok Sabha election appears highly unlikely. A hard landing appears inevitable. Bluff and bluster is fine for the hustings, it evaporates in the face of reality.” 🤔 pic.twitter.com/VW7LpESm0L — Kabir Taneja (@KabirTaneja) September 27, 2017 Sour grapes This is not the first time that Sinha is speaking out against the current government, which early on decided not to include him in the Cabinet despite his experience. In January 2016, for example he said Modi and his government would be “consigned to the dust” by the people of India in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, although he later backtracked. He has criticised the government for its handling of Pakistan and China, as well as the Kashmir issue. And in 2015, along with fellow sidelined senior BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, Sinha issued a statement blaming the party’s Bihar loss on its top leadership, a reference to Modi and BJP President Amit Shah. In this, Sinha echoes Arun Shourie, another former minister from the BJP who few in the current dispensation listen to. Shourie, despite his earlier support for Modi, has spent the last few years attacking the government, calling it “Congress plus cow”. While many in the Opposition latched on to these remarks, they gained little currency within the BJP or indeed, with the public at large, seen by many as sour grapes from past-their-prime leaders being sidelined by a younger administration. Actual data But Sinha’s comments this time might be different, even if they are also tinged with schandenfreude aimed particularly at Arun Jaitley. For one, the former finance minister is talking about actual data, not taking a moral or political position against the government. The administration might spin its way around the following remarks, but it would be hard to actually debunk any of this. “So, what is the picture of the Indian economy today? Private investment has shrunk as never before in two decades, industrial production has all but collapsed, agriculture is in distress, construction industry, a big employer of the work force, is in the doldrums, the rest of the service sector is also in the slow lane, exports have dwindled, sector after sector of the economy is in distress, demonetisation has proved to be an unmitigated economic disaster, a badly conceived and poorly implemented GST has played havoc with businesses and sunk many of them and countless millions have lost their jobs with hardly any new opportunities coming the way of the new entrants to the labour market.” Second, the government has itself acknowledged this. After six consecutive quarters of declining growth, proof from the Reserve Bank of India that demonetisation has not been worth the pain and costs it inflicted on the economy and signs of discontent from the people, Modi has assembled a set of five economists to be part of the reinstated Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council. By itself this is an admission of Modi and Jaitley’s failure to boost the Indian economy even at a time of benign global conditions. Not alone Third, it is not just Sinha saying it. Of course, many in the Opposition will happily jump on his remarks and assert that they have been saying the same all along. Yashwant Sinha speaks Truth to Power. Will Power now admit the Truth that economy is sinking? — P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) September 27, 2017 But you would expect that from them. Maybe the voices that speak louder here are from industry, which tends to usually stand behind the government in power unless absolutely pushed into a corner. L&T Group Executive Chairman Anil Manibhai Naik said that the economy is unlikely to revive for the next two years. Rural markets have yet to recover from the hit of the Goods and Services Tax, demonetisation and volatile commodity prices, said Hindustan Unilever Managing Director Sanjiv Mehta, quoting research agency Nielsen. The State Bank of India in a report said that the “free fall” of GDP numbers was not transient, as some in the BJP have sought to suggest, but structural. L&T Chief Financial Officer Shankar Raman said he does not expect to see the private sector coming back for the next couple of years. ***The words “imminent crisis”, “economic collapse” and “serious downside risks” are floating around. Supporters of the government, including one that has been put on the new advisory council, have pointed out that this year’s GDP figures are unlikely to match even the bad years of the previous government. Experts point out that all four growth engines of the economy are sputtering. Others are going back to look at what went wrong.*** [Emphasis added.] Clearly, Sinha is not alone. In fact, he seems almost late to the game, building on all that has already been said about the economy, and simply adding both an attempt to lay blame – at Jaitley, and through him, Modi – as well as indicate that this criticism is also emerging from within the BJP, though most are afraid to say so openly. In that sense, Sinha this time is not tipping us off to something that has been an undercurrent, he’s simply putting on paper what others have been saying for a while. And that should worry the BJP. III. https://scroll.in/article/852169/the-daily-fix-the-modi-government-must-stop-being-in-denial-about-the-economic-crisis The Modi government must stop being in denial about the economic crisis by Shoaib Daniyal Published 4 hours ago Own up On Wednesday, former Union finance minister and Bharatiya Janata Party member Yashwant Sinha’s published a scathing indictment of the Central government’s economic policy. While Sinha might have been motivated in part by pique for having been sidelined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there is little doubt that the argument he made and the data he presented was sound. Curiously, there was little enthusiasm from the BJP to respond to Sinha’s points. Union home minister Rajnath Singh countered simply by saying, “The whole world admits that India is the fastest growing economy in the world. No one should forget this fact”. This “fact” was in fact denied by none other than the International Monetary Fund, which in January of this year announced that – thanks to demonetisation – India was not the world’s fastest growing economy any more. This is not the first time the BJP has simply denied that the country is undergoing an economic crisis. Union finance minister Arun Jaitley explained away the slow down in growth during the first quarter of 2017-’18 as due to the pre-Goods and Services Tax destocking of goods. BJP President Amit Shah in turn fobbed off the slowdown by saying it was due to “technical reasons”. However, the slowdown is quite real. Growth has been falling continually since the quarter ending March 2016. In fact, as per the old method of calculating Gross Domestic Product, the growth in the first quarter of 2017-’18 was a paltry 3.7% – a far cry from the 7-8% India had got used to under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Private investment and exports have fallen precipitously. Defying Prime Minister Modi’s “Make in India” mantra, manufacturing has ground to a halt. It grew by 1.2% in the first quarter of 2017-’18. Agriculture is in distress across nearly every state in the Union – leading to multiple farmer agitations. The crises in employment is acute. Alarming for a country of India’s size and youth bulge – 12 million people enter the workforce each year – the nation is actually losing jobs on a net basis. So bad is the slowdown that Indian industry – which rarely makes statements that could be construed as political – has spoken up to complain. Fast moving consumer goods behemoth Hindustan Unilever’s Chief Executive Sanjiv Mehta said that rural India is yet to recover from the blow of demonetisation while Larson and Toubro’s chief was clear that there would be no recovery for at least the next two years. What makes the Modi government look even worse is that this downturn is occurring against the backdrop of low crude oil prices globally. Yet, rather than build on this stroke of good luck, the Union government shot itself in the foot with first demonetisation and then the Goods and Services Tax. ***However, even as the Modi government denies the crisis publicly, it seems it is slowly waking up to it privately. The Union government reconstituted the Economic Advisory Council, a United Progressive Alliance body that was abolished by Modi in 2014. There is also talk of a stimulus package to prop up the economy. However, given the scale of the crises, a disjointed response will not be enough. The Modi government must acknowledged the hole the country is in now and clearly tell the peoples of India how he plans to help it get out of it.*** [Emphasis added.] -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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