A scenario depends on who is looking.

Economists at the World Economic Forum (WEF) used scenario planning in 2006 and predicted that "India's growth would accelerate for a few years and and then it would decelerate if increasing inequalities were not addressed with good politics, and institutions of governance were not improved. This has actually happened," wrote A Maira. Scenario planning involves collecting information from all departments of government and then formulating bold strategies to deal with them. That is not possible in India. "Under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's NDA-1 government, while India saw the pace of market-friendly economic reforms pick up, development seems to have left the poorest out of the country's growth story," wrote Prof Ila Patnaik. Hence, Prime Minister Narandra Modi resorted to handing out free gas connections, free healthcare, free cash and other benefits to win 2019 general election. Prof VA Nageswaran finds that "we Indians sweat the small stuff too much. This includes myopia, staking egos on small priorities and a genuine inability to see the big picture." The government quickly withdrew "provisions in its labor codes making it possible for employers to retrench up to 300 workers without prior government approval". The Budget increased customs duty on a range of items, including gold, apparently to support local industries. The present government's policy of import substitution "will take economy down from turnpike to dirt road", wrote Prof A Panagariya. Increased taxes on gold has made smuggling enormously more lucrative. Gold smuggling from Myanmar is estimated at Rs 90 billion in 2017-18. Why is economic growth slowing in India? "Because India is a high-cost economy that cannot compete with its Asian peers. India has among the highest-cost land, labor, capital, electricity, railway freight rates, air freight, corporate and income taxes," wrote SA Aiyer. Modi has to realise that we have to compete with "China and other competitors like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. They all have lower costs and faster export growth." A few days back founder of Cafe Coffee Day VG Siddhartha committed suicide by drowning because of increasing debt and harassment by tax officials. To that, the Tax officials responded that they were protecting revenue interests. They do not seem to realise that their job is not to resort to terrorism to increase tax revenues for the government but to help the taxpayer pay fair taxes. The previous Congress government asked companies to spend 2% of profits on social causes but this government has not only made it mandatory but has passed an amendment which punishes companies with fines and prison terms for managers. The perversion of forced charity is hard to comprehend. Private hospitals may go bankrupt because they have to serve civil servants almost for free. India's scenario is that elections can be won by pleasing poor people. The government is doing that very efficiently. Until the economy tanks.