The bigger the pot, the more there is to go around.

 "The business of mobile phone assembly is a rare Make-in-India success story. India had two mobile manufacturing units in 2014. By 2019, there were over 200. The number of mobile handsets produced shot up from 60 to 290 million in the same period; the value of handsets produced jumped 10 times to $390 billion," Impressive. But, "China exported phones worth over $100 billion in 2019; Vietnam over $35 billion. India exported less than $3 billion in 2018-19." Export is a must as India itself is a small market. "Our per capita income is about $2000 as compared to China's $10,000 or Korea's $32,000," said Hari Om Rai of Lava. "Macroeconomists and politicians in general have invested too much in the idea of GDP growth without considering its quality," wrote R Jagannathan. "The fact is that growth does not significantly improve underlying economic strength, as it can be driven by any factor of production, and post-2000, it has been driven mostly by automation." The government gets "no pats on the back for the long-term investments made in improving social indicators -- toilets, electricity connections, pucca homes, financial inclusion, and piped water for all households". "GDP is an important measurement for economists and investors because it is a representation of economic production and growth." "The government's ambitious Swachh Bharat Mission has resulted in annual benefits to the tune of more than Rs 53,000 (727 US dollars) per household in rural India, including through reduced diarrhea incidence and from sanitation access time savings, according to an international study." "Slum residents have been hit hard by the pandemic, arguably harder than people in similar circumstances in rural areas. Having exhausted their savings, piled on debt at ever-higher interest rates, and mortgaged or sold their meager assets, slum families find it hard to cope," wrote Prof A Krishna and Emily Rains. In Mumbai, "An army of women and men, from domestic workers to store-clerks, staff of small manufacturing and service units to delivery staff and drivers, has been without their fixed income for seven months. Their salaries were too meager for a savings cushion which is now frayed, if not gone." How to help the millions of poor without growing the economy? Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently said that India has to shed its "socialist baggage" from Nehru's days. India has a plethora of social schemes to help the poor, so what does the minister want to shed? And, why? Because, fiscal deficit in the first half of the financial year has reached Rs 9.1 trillion, when it was projected to be below Rs 8 trillion in this year's budget. To help pay for the poor the government needs money. And that can only come from growth. Distribution of poverty does not help the poor.