Fool's gold or gangbusters?

"In the last 17 days since Budget was presented on July 23, Sensex is weaker by around 1,400 points or 1.7% as FIIs have been incessantly pressing the sell button almost everyday." "Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have sold Indian stocks worth at least Rs 300 billion since Budget." However, "The impact of the FII sell-off would have been much wider had it not been for the trust shown by retail and other domestic investors who have absorbed almost all of the selling." ET. "The Indian economy is at the threshold of a major structural shift, moving towards an 8% growth rate on a sustained basis, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said." "The Indian economy expanded by 8.2% in FY24, and the RBI expects the country's GDP to grow by 7.2% in the current financial year." Mint. And yet, the Indian rupee fell to a low of 83.98 to the dollar on 12 August before ending the day at 83.97 to one dollar. Zee. It has jumped to 83.86 to the dollar this morning. xe.com. Probably because, "India's forex reserves fell by $4.8 billion to $670.119 billion in the week ended on August 9." HT. RBI selling supported the rupee. However, "India's foreign exchange reserves rose by $7.53 billion to a new record high of $674.91 billion for the week ended August 2." BS. By its transactions on the currency markets the RBI made so much profits that it was able to transfer an eye-watering Rs 2.11 trillion to the government (BT) this year. "After remaining in the positive zone for three months, India's exports contracted 1.2% to Rs 2.85 trillion ($33.98 billion) in July, while the trade deficit widened to Rs 1.98 trillion ($23.5 billion)." DH. "India's exports to China dipped by 9.44% to $1.05 billion, while imports rose by 13.05% to $10.28 billion." From April-July, exports fell 4.54% to $4.8 billion, while imports grew by 9.66% to $35.85 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $31.31 billion. ET. So much for 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' (wikipedia). "The problem is that China has achieved its stupendous, world-beating export capacity through active industrial policy," so that, "In 2019, such support totaled 1.79% of GDP or $407 billion in PPP terms." It was 1.89% of GDP in 2017 and 1.79% of GDP in 2018, wrote TK Arun.  The government has stopped the release of data on goods and services tax (GST) collections from last month. BT. In July, "Nearly 46.7 million new jobs were created in India during the financial year 2023-24 taking the total number of employed persons in the country to 643.3 million, RBI data showed." DH. Li Keqiang was the Prime Minister of China from 2013 to 2023. wikipedia. "In 2010, The Economist created a 'Li Keqiang index' for the Chinese economy." "Li Keqiang liked looking at indicators like railway cargo volume, electricity consumption and loans disbursed by banks in order to get an indication of which way the Chinese economy was really headed. These numbers were real numbers and not theoretical constructs like gross domestic product (GDP)." India needs a its own Li Keqiang index, wrote Vivek Kaul. So, are the zooming share prices in India merely 'Fool's Gold' (Investopedia)? Or is the economy really growing gangbusters (Britannica)? Finding out could be painful. Very.