Modi has been very lucrative for pundits.

The last one year has been especially lucrative for pundits. Before the general elections in May last year there were raging discussions on whether there would be a hung parliament or whether the Congress would put the upstart Modi in his place. When the results showed a jaw-dropping majority for the BJP there were raging discussions on whether there was a genuine Modi wave, an anti-incumbent wave, a collective BJP wave or a spurious Modi wave, due to gullible voters falling for Modi's rhetoric. There were pundits to advise the new Prime Minister on what to do, more pundits to advise on what not to do, pundits to advise the Congress on how to revive its fortunes, others to advise Ms Sonia Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi to bring on Ms Priyanka Gandhi and others to oppose whatever everyone else said. There were bye-elections in some states in which the BJP did not do very well so the pundits denied any Modi wave but then there were elections to state assemblies in which the BJP did very well, so the Modi wave was back again. Finally, there were state visits by Tony Abbott, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and others and finally Barack Obama which allowed Modi haters to vent their bile in full. Delhi election is on 7 February followed by the annual theaters, the Railways and the national budgets. Business fellows want low taxes and lower interest rates. India has the highest rates of taxes in the world because only 35 million people, out of 1250 million, file tax returns. With so few paying direct taxes the government has to collect its revenues from indirect taxes, which make goods and services expensive, add to inflation and lower demand. The Congress started a large number of subsidies which have to be paid for so tax fellows are always looking for ways to snare individuals and companies. The government wants the middle class to give up subsidies but that is grossly unfair. The poor get all kinds of monetary benefits, such as free tuition in private schools, free healthcare in private hospitals, cheap food and subsidies on fuel while the rich know how to avoid paying taxes. The middle class has to pay for all the subsidies and gets nothing in return. The government wants to collect revenue by selling assets at high prices but that will only increase costs for us. As for interest rates that is in the hand of the Reserve Bank but the Bank will bring down rates only if it is certain that fiscal deficit will be contained. Unless rates come down real estate prices will not rise, which is where a lot of money is invested. Foreign investors have been buying Indian bonds so if rates fall too far they could sell out. On the other hand, the RBI does not want the rupee to become too strong because that makes exports expensive and reduces profits of IT companies which earn in dollars. Sounds complicated? There are pundits to explain it all. Very profitable.