Green must be in the glasses of the beholder.

"India's rural inflation rate surged faster than urban inflation for the first time in 19 months in January, and economists are optimistic that signals something the country desperately needs -- a revival in demand in the rural economy." "Rural inflation rose to 7.73% in January, higher than urban inflation rate -- which was 7.39% -- for the first time since January 2018." This is good news because higher prices for farm produce provides higher income for farmers which will enable them to spend more on consumer goods and services. Since around 58% of the Indian population is dependent on agriculture, higher spending by them will increase demand, which may lead to increase in investment, and  higher tax collection. However, Prof Himanshu remains unimpressed. Food-grain inflation has climbed from 1% at the end of 2018-19 to 7.3% in January 2020. "It has also spread to other food items such as milk (5.6%), eggs (10.4%) and meat products (10.5%), most of which are not seasonal, but have been pushed up by rising feed prices." Expenditure on food has been declining for decades due to rising prosperity. "It has declined from 72.83 percent (as percentage of total expenditure) in 1972-73 to 52.76 percent in 2011-12." If a relative reduction in spending on food is a sign of prosperity, why do we have one-third of the total number of stunted children in the world? "According to the latest Commerce Ministry data, total farm exports during April-December 2019, at $26.32 billion, stood 7.9% lower than $28.59 billion for the first nine months of 2018-19. At the same time imports went up 4.1% from $16.08 billion to $16.75 billion," wrote Harish Damodaran. If we are exporting less, leaving more for domestic consumption, and importing more, food prices should be falling, not rising. There is a "consumer bias" in the government's policy towards agriculture, wrote Prof Ashok Gulati. "Any rise in domestic prices immediately leads to the imposition of market restrictions." "Annual retail inflation rose to 7.59% in January, partly driven by rising vegetable prices. December industrial output contracted 0.3%, after rising for the first time in three months in November." "India's wholesale inflation accelerated to 3.1% in January, driven up by fuel and power, and manufactured products, data released by the commerce and industry ministry showed on Friday." Rise in the cost of fuel is mysterious because the price of crude oil has fallen from $71 per barrel in May 2019 to around $55 per barrel today. According to a survey by the Reserve Bank (RBI), consumer confidence fell to 83.7, where 100 is the neutral figure, and industrial capacity utilization dropped to 69.1% from 73.6% in April-June 2019. Capacity utilization has to be over 80% before companies will invest in new projects. And yet retail inflation is surging. No problem. The Finance Minister can see "green shoots". Thank God for her colored glasses.