Not dead as yet.

"Donald Trump said that India will pay a penalty over and above the decided 25% for its trade with Russia despite the ongoing Ukraine war." HT. "I don't care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care. We have done very little business with India, their tariffs are too high, among the highest in the world," he said. In response, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said in Parliament that "the Indian economy will soon become the third largest in the world in terms of GDP size and is currently the world's fastest growing major economy." TOI. The biggest puzzle is that our GDP is driven by private consumption when the vast majority of our people are too poor to consume. A report by the Ministry of Finance "highlighted that the share of private consumption in nominal GDP increased from 60.2% in FY24 to 61.4% in FY25. This marks the second highest level in the last 20 years." ET. While the number of income tax returns has "more than doubled, from 33.5 million in 2013-14 to 75.4 million in 2023-24," the number of "individuals filing zero-income tax returns has also more than doubled from 16.9 million to 47.3 million over the same period." Which means that the actual number of taxpayers has increased from 16.6 million to 28.2 million. NDTV. The overwhelming majority of Indians earn too little. This is supported by the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that 813.5 million people will be provided free food grains for five years from 1 January 2024. pib.gov.in. Citing International Labour Organisation (ILO) data Mr Modi said that 950 million, or "64% of India's population received at least one social security benefit." TOI. Does it mean that 64% of our consumption, comprising about 40% of our GDP, is just government handouts? Is it productive? Should it even be counted? In the same speech, Mr Goyal also said that "the government stands firm in protecting the interests of Indian farmers, workers and entrepreneurs." ET. India's Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 2.10% year-on-year in June 2025 with food prices contracting by -1.06%. pib.gov.in. Vegetable prices have fallen by 19% and pulses by 12%, partly due to good rainfall but also because the government imported 7.3 million tonnes of pulses last year at prices lower than the Minimum Support Price (MSP) which is set by the government to guarantee (Vikaspedia) a minimum income for farmers. This resulted in lower farmgate prices while input costs have been rising relentlessly, reducing income of farmers and "mass distress is likely to intensify now", wrote Prof Himanshu. In 2023, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that "about 65% of the people in India are engaged in agriculture and allied activities directly and about 55% of the workforce is engaged in agriculture and allied activities." pib.giv.in. Farmers thus constitute a gigantic vote bank (wikipedia) and, after fleecing them to force inflation down, to please urban voters, the government doles out Rs 2,000 every four months, for a total of Rs 6,000 annually, to every eligible farming family. DD News. At today's prices this is not even chump change. When the government functions solely to win elections the economy becomes sick. Not dead as yet. Gasping may be.