The fundament of the economy is in danger of falling out.

"The Supreme Court today came down heavily on the government for suggesting reassessment of the huge dues owed by telecom companies -- called adjusted gross revenues (AGR) -- and saying the entire country was being misled." This was in response to an appeal filed by the government asking the court to allow the companies to pay their AGR dues over 20 years at 8% interest "fearing bankruptcy in the industry if the court's order for immediate payment is enforced". "Any immediate adverse impact on the functioning of telcos will hurt not just the economy, but also the interest of crores of customers," said the telecom department. In response the court said, "The government fought tooth and nail and suggested penalty during arguments earlier." "Are we fools? How is this not sheer contempt?" asked the furious judges. When the telecom sector was liberalised, telecom companies were required to pay licence fees in accordance with the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885. This was enacted by the British who also enacted the Sedition law in 1860. Since the licence fees were too high companies often defaulted  on their payments, so the previous BJP-led NDA government introduced the National Telecom Policy in 1999, under which telecom companies are required to pay a certain percent of their gross earnings. The problem is that an earlier government wanted a slice of earnings from non-telecom business and in 2007-08 the Congress-led UPA government went to court. Prime Minister Narendra Modi accuses the Congress Party of being most corrupt so he could have shown himself to be different from the Congress by reaching an out-of-court settlement with the companies allowing them to stagger their payments. But he didn't, probably believing the fictitious economic growth figures of 7-8% calculated by his minions. Indeed, in August 2019 the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) levied a fine of Rs 30.50 billion on the companies and appealed to the court to ask the companies to pay Rs 926.41 billion. In October last year the Supreme Court delivered its judgement in favor of the DoT and asked the companies to pay Rs 1.3 trillion within a period of 3 months. The GDP growth rate fell to 4.5% in the second quarter of last year and unemployment rate rose to over 7%. The companies appealed for relief to the Supreme Court but were savaged by the court in February 2020 and threatened with jail term for contempt. "If India is to become the sort of entrepreneurial superstar that its government hopes it will, then the telecom sector is obviously going to be central to that plan," wrote Mihir Sharma. India is in real danger of being trapped in a low middle-income trap, wrote Anees Soz. Then came the coronavirus. No matter. The fundamentals of the Indian economy are  strong, said Modi. Thank God. We thought that the fundament had dropped out.