Is India already growing at 10% plus in real terms? Who knows?
Don’t laugh as yet. The economy might really be growing at a rate higher than the economists calculate! As a [bad but stupidly curious] student of economics, I know that you have a sophisticated way of measuring national income and all that goes with it. Over years so much research and development in this field has taken place that statistician-economists are supposed to know everything that is happening in the economy, even non-economic activities, and how to measure them. And they have come to a figure of about 7.2%, the rate at which the economy would grow in 2017-18. Government economists claim, if things go well, it would grow at 8% in the years to come. Opposition economists find many fundamental things going wrong and feel that the economy is somehow maintaining a growth rate that would have been higher, had right decisions been taken. NEGATIVE NEWS FIRST Take, for example, demonetisation. Many economists tell us, domonetisation would take 1-2 notches out of growth figu