There isn't enough sand for all Indians.

"India's factory output entered negative territory in March after a gap of 21 months, contracting 0.1% to signal a slowdown in consumption, as well as in investment." In February, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP)  grew by a meager 0.1%.  "The IIP print surprised analysts because data released on 30 March showed the eight infrastructure sectors, which constitute 40.3% of the IIP, has recovered to post 4.7% growth in March" and "data released last month by the commerce ministry, which showed exports growing at double digits". "Indian exports hit a new high of $331 billion in the last financial year" and in March, "exports expanded 11% to reach $32.5 billion, the highest in a month in recent years". Unfortunately, cumulative imports grew "to a soaring high of $507.44 billion", so that "India's trade deficit reached a record high of $176 billion in 2018-19". India is running at a loss. Fortunately, remittances from non-resident Indians (NRIs) was the highest in the world at $79 billion, according to the World Bank. If March was bad, "The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), declined to 51.8 in April from 52.6 in March". Above 50 shows expansion. And also, "Nikkei India Services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) dropped to 51 in April from 52 the previous month." Soft earnings growth in March showed that the economy has slowed down in 2018-19, "because of declining growth in private consumption, tepid increase in fixed investment and muted exports" according to the finance ministry's 'Monthly Economic Report'. So, while commerce is bragging about record exports, finance finds it "muted". Extraordinary. "Consumption is sputtering across a range of products including cars, two-wheelers, air travel and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). with volume dropping to multi-quarter lows." "You can't say FMCG is recession proof but it is recession resistant," said Hindustan Unilever Chairman Sanjay Mehta. Oh please, don't mention the 'r' word when the government was predicting economic growth in excess of 7.5% in 2018-19. Growth in the FMCG sector is likely to remain weak because "households may have gradually reduced consumption due to insufficient income growth". "One reason is the dearth of jobs, along with job insecurity and meagre wage hikes," wrote D Tripathi. Consumer demand may pick up if the monsoon is good. According to R Roy, "India could soon get ensnared in the middle-income trap". "The risk, Roy said, now runs deeper; the possibility that India will remain stuck in the middle-income range has now started appearing more and more real, which indicates that India will never be another China or South Korea but could begin replicating basket cases like South Africa or Brazil where large swathes of poor population are powering not growth, but crime." No wonder the government has been frantically cooking GDP data. The government would love us to bury our heads. With 1.3 billion people there isn't enough sand.