Passports to cars.

"Seventy-five years after Independence, 7.2% of India's population owns a passport with a majority having availed one in the past decade. As of mid-December, 9.6 crore (96 million) Indians held passports, and the number is set to cross the 10-crore (100 million) mark in the next few months." This must be a sign of rising prosperity leading to aspirations of seeing the world and enjoying new adventures. Unfortunately, as Indians learn more about the outside world they develop a rising urge to escape. "The Sri Lakshmi Visa Ganapathy Temple is a few miles north of the airport in Chennai (formerly Madras)" and "This 'visa temple' has surged in popularity among US visa seekers over the past decade; they can be found in almost any Indian city with a US consulate." ET. There are temples in India where devotees offer toy aeroplanes to the deity in the hope that they would be able to travel abroad. India TV. Not as tourists, but as immigrants. "India is set to be the world's fastest growing major economy in the year ahead, as a post-pandemic retail boom and recent bank balance-sheet repairs lure new investment, fueling hot demand for everything from cars to televisions, coal to airliners." Reuters. "Air India, for example, is looking at landmark orders for as many as 500 jetliners worth tens of billions of dollars from both Airbus and Boeing," but, "Unemployment remains elevated at an average of 7.4% over the last 12 months till November compared with 6.3% in 2018-19 and 4.7% in 2017-18, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy estimates." "Banks have written off Rs 11.17 lakh crore (Rs 11.17 trillion) bad loans from their books in the last six years till financial year 2021-22, Parliament was informed." ET. Loan write-off is not a bonanza for borrowers, claimed the Finance Minister. "FM Nirmala Sitharaman...told Parliament that borrowers remain liable to repay loans despite a write-off by banks." TOI. But, surely limited liability means that shareholders and promoters of a company are not liable for its debts in case of bankruptcy? "While a shareholder can participate wholly in the growth of a company, their liability is restricted to the amount of investment in the company, even if it subsequently goes bankrupt and has remaining debt obligations." Investopedia. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." wikipedia. Some Indians have surely made it. "Creating wealth at an unprecedented speed of Rs 1,612 crore (Rs 16.12 billion) per day, Gautam Adani has more than doubled his wealth in the last one year to beat Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the world's second-richest man, according to IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022." ET. Yah boo to Bezos. Blaming high taxation on cars and poor bureaucratic policy, Maruti Chairman RC Bhargava said, "We (India) are at around 30 cars per thousand people. This has been going up by one person per year in the last five years. If we have to reach China's level of 170 cars per thousand people, it will take us 140 years. Draw your conclusions." Why wrack your brain? Go to a visa temple.