The times are not unbridled.

"India's economy gathered momentum in May driven by pent up demand for services and higher output from industries as reopening continued from pandemic restrictions," ET. "Five of the eight high-frequency indicators compiled by Bloomberg News showed improvement, pushing the needle on a dial measuring 'Animal Spirits' to 6, from 5, for the first time since July and the first upward move in less than a year." "The Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue for the month of June surged by 56% on an annual basis to nearly Rs 1.45 lakh crore (Rs 1.45 trillion) as against Rs 1.4 lakh crore in May, revealed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman," ET. "The GST council had recently announced an increase in rates." "Hindustan Unilever (HUL) chairman Nitin Paranjpe said India is going through the most difficult economic situation and persistent inflationary pressures are beginning to weigh on demand," ET. "In the case of rising inflation, manufacturers usually opt for shrinkflation. Instead of hiking the price of any product, companies reduce the size of the item keeping the price of the product untouched," abp live. Prices have surged and "This is causing a drastic decline in consumption across the board." GST is a tax based on consumption of goods and services, wikipedia, so how can it be increasing when demand is falling? The economy was much better in 2021-22 than it was in 2020-21 so some rise in GST collection could be due to that but inflation is also responsible, wrote Vivek Kaul. "The wholesale inflation in 2021-22 was at 13%. It has been in double digits since April 2021. Even retail inflation was at a relatively high 5.5%. This inflation has pushed up GST collections to some extent." "These are extraordinary times, oil prices internationally are unbridled," said Sitharaman. Not really. Crude oil had reached $145 per barrel in 2008 and remained around $100 a barrel until 2014, macrotrends, when this government came to power. In December 2021, Sitharaman told Parliament that the government had earned Rs 8 trillion from taxes on petrol and diesel, NDTV. In April 2022, the Congress calculated that the government has earned Rs 27 trillion from taxes on fuel in the previous 8 years, Times Now. Taxes are addictive and they must be suffering withdrawal symptoms. "The government on Friday raised export duty on diesel by Rs 13/liter and that on petrol by Rs 6/liter, ET. Tax on the import of gold was raised to 12.5% from 7.5%, which, along with taxes on export of fuel, is to support the rupee which has been falling against the dollar, ET. "The Centre's raft of measures to improve the trade balance will unlikely arrest the rupee's fall with India's current account deficit, or excess imports over exports, set to more than double in FY23," ET. "Economists forecast the rupee to breach the 80-per-dollar mark soon." High inflation means falling buying power of the rupee and this is squarely due to the RBI's reluctance to raise rates because of its mythical belief that low rates will increase growth. If the rupee tanks, inflation will surge and growth will plummet. Reward for karma. Irresistible.