Licence to fry pakodas.

"US inflation cooled even as the job market remained resilient," as "The latest job data showed a labor market undergoing a controlled cooling, illustrated by solid hiring, slower earnings growth and more people returning to the workforce." ET. "India's economy shined in its latest report card on strong services growth and a modest pickup in manufacturing despite still-high interest rates." "Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for services declined to 60.1 percent in August from 62.3 percent in July." DH. "Robust services sector growth led to 7.8% year-on-year expansion in India's gross domestic product (GDP) in April-June quarter." "As per the survey conducted by rating agency S&P Global, in August services firms indicated the sharpest upturn in new export business since the series started in September 2014." "S&P Global's Manufacturing PMI for India rose to 58.6 in August from 57.7 in July, the highest since May." ET. "The survey also  showed that job creation was at a four-month low and cost-inflation surged to a one-year high." India's economy may have "shined" but not for everyone. "Data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) shows that the total number of employed fell from 412.7 million in 2016-17 to 387.2 million in 2020-21, and then rose to 405.8 million in 2022-23," wrote Madan Sabnavis. "Evidently, lost ground has not been recovered so far." Share in employment of 15-39 years age group fell from 50% to 37%, while the share of 40-59 years age group went up from 42% to 59%. "The share of women in the total employed came down from 13.1% to 9.4%." "The share of persons with a graduate and above degree was steady at 12.5%." If there is a shortage of those with higher education then unemployment will get much worse as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning gradually replace human labor. "Severe import restrictions on hitherto freely importable laptops and personal computers (PC) were announced in August to come into effect on 1 November," wrote Indira Rajaraman. "Starting 1 November, bulk imports will be open only to holders of valid import licenses." "The ostensible reason for this nightmarish return to the 1950s' import regime is India's push to replace imports with domestic production, without violating the terms of Information Technology Agreement (ITA)-1, under which India cannot levy tariffs on 250 electronic items." Cannot export software without the latest laptops and PCs. A clear throwback to the 'Licence Raj' of India before 1991 (indiabefore91.com), which led to the balance of payments crisis in 1991 when India had to pledge 67 tons of gold to avoid a default on its foreign loans. wikipedia. India's average growth rate has been less than 4% from 2020 to 2023 and youth unemployment exceeded 23% last year, wrote Prof Kaushik Basu. "Furthermore, the benefits of this growth are going almost entirely to the rich." "In countries where it (cronyism) is rampant, international actors realize they can cut some of their best deals (from their point of view), because they must please only the wealthiest and a few leaders. Whether the deal is good - or even neutral - for the rest of society is irrelevant." Indian citizens lose as political cronies and foreigners make money. So what to do if there are no jobs and no money. Fry pakodas, of course.