Bank Mergers Are No Silver Bullet for India
The benefits won’t be felt for years, while Modi’s government is staring at an economic crisis now.
Indian new-car sales plummeted in August, worsening fears of a slowdown.
Photographer: Robert Nickelsberg/LIFE Images Collection/Getty
With every passing day, India’s economic indicators are turning a little bleaker. The situation is bad enough to warrant using the word “crisis,” arriving just as the government’s fiscal ammunition is spent.
The announcement Friday of 5% GDP growth in the June quarter showed the economy growing at its weakest pace in six years. On Sunday, the top six carmakers reported a 29% drop in August sales, stoking fears that the slowdown could get still worse. The 982 billion rupees ($13.7 billion) collected in August via the goods and services tax, the main tax on consumption, was the smallest in six months.