Only 31% anxious. Definitely better than being half anxious.

 "India's economy probably shrank for a second straight quarter, according to a team of economists including Michael Patra, the central bank's deputy governor in charge of monetary policy, pushing the country into an unprecedented recession." A country is said to be in a technical recession if its gross domestic product (GDP) contracts in successive quarters. The Reserve Bank (RBI) estimates that India's GDP will contract by 8.6% in the July-September quarter, after contracting by 23.9% in the April-June quarter because of the lockdown. Sounds grim, but there is good news. "Moody's raised its forecast for India's growth to -8.9% for the calendar year 2020 from -9.6% and for the coming year as well to 8.6% from 8.1% earlier, in its Global Market Outlook 2021-22 report on Thursday." "Indian consumers are experiencing a significant decrease in anxiety levels, and increased in-store visits with the advent of the festive season, Deloitte's 90-day analysis of the ongoing Global Consumer Tracker survey across 18 countries said." The survey found that, compared to July and August, there is a decline in the fear of losing jobs and "anxiety levels of Indian consumers are now at 31%". "Now the problem that I am grappling with is how to produce enough to feed the market. We are operating at more than 100% capacity utilisation and still not able to feed the demand," said CEO of M&M Farm Equipment Sector Hemant Sikka. "At the end of October, the (tractor) industry has grown by 11% (this fiscal year), and this is after losing almost two months of production due to the lockdown." Although things are certainly better than in the April-June quarter, "In 17 out of 21 major economic indicators the Indian economy is still considerably worse off than a year ago," wrote Vivek Kaul. Sales of two-wheelers fell 26.2% year-on-year in October 2020 and were even lower than two years ago. "This tells us that the aspirational middle class is in trouble." Consumption of non-oil non-gold non-silver imports fell by 8.3% in October, sales of commercial vehicles fell by 30.3%, consumption of finished steel fell 2% and there has been a "huge crash" in investment in new projects with "corporates holding on to their resources".  Unemployment fell to 7% in October 2020 compared to 8.1% last year, but demand for work under the MGNREGS scheme jumped by 88.5% in September, showing that there is a lack of paid jobs. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a new job creation scheme Amanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana, under which the government will pay Employees' Provident Fund "(EPF) contributions for all new eligible employees". That's if companies hire new workers in these uncertain times. We will keep our fingers crossed. Toes as well.