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3 September 2013, Outlook

Lucid Haze: What Did You Dream About Yesterday?

Outlook published Executive Director Manjeet Kripalani's article on India's economy and failings of the 'Dream Team'. She argues that the government has put politics and polls ahead of economy and prosperity.

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When a nation starts to descend into a crisis, the satire and ironic humour of its hapless citizenry begins to blossom. India is at that stage. Quiz questions like “What will hit Rs 100 first, a kg of onions, the dollar or a litre of petrol?” and funnies like “Nowadays, Indian exporters meet at Vivanta and importers at Sukh Sagar” and “If money is the root of all evil, then the rupee is the square root” are doing the rounds in Mumbai, our financial centre. On social media, adverts for engagement rings have replaced diamonds with onions, and jokes abound about the onion being a monetary unit larger than a trillion, and the rupee being replaced by the onion as legal tender.

The desperation of the citizenry is clearly lost on the pol­i­cy­­makers in Delhi, whose every action is intensifying the country’s financial misery and dark humour. The economic misma­n­agement of the past four years has been exacerbated in the last month by the raising of short-term interest rates, the bond market sell-off, mounting debts absorbed by the public sector banks, the food security bill, capital controls, gold import restrictions and the absurd taxes on imported television sets, among other actions

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