Another in a long list.

"First came the corona(virus) pandemic; then wars began to break out, and now there is an energy crisis. The decade is turning into a decade of disasters for the world," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in the Netherlands," (HT) where he was speaking to the Indian diaspora during his latest foreign tour. It is easy to blame everything on global events when our problems were created by how the government responded to those events. "On 25 March 2020, when India had reported only 500 cases, the country went into what was one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. This first set of curbs remained in place till 14 April and was extended four times, each time with gradual relaxations." HT. As a consequence, "India's economy suffered its worst slump on record in April-June, with the gross domestic product (GDP) contracting by 23.9% as the coronavirus related lockdowns weighed on the already-declining consumer demand and investment." TNIE. And yet, when so many millions were dying of Covid in 2021 that crematoriums had to create pyres in car parks (BBC), there was no lockdown. In May 2021, "India's holiest river the Ganges, has been swollen with bodies in recent days." BBC. Consumer demand and investments were declining because of an ill-considered demonetisation of Rs 1000 and 500 banknotes on 8 November 2016 with just 4 hours notice (wikipedia) so the GDP growth rate fell from 8.3% in 2016 to 6.8% in 2017, 6.5% in 2018 and a dismal 3.9% in 2019, the last full financial year before the Covid pandemic struck (worldometer). One theory was that it was designed to hamper the campaigning ability of opposition parties before the assembly election in UP which the BJP won in a landslide with 312 seats out of a total of 403 (elections. in). The medium, small and micro enterprises (MSME) which operate mainly in cash, constitute 45% of the country's output and employ 60 million people, were badly hit. ET. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) played an active part by choosing masterly inactivity when retail inflation was at a scorching 6-7% (RI) well above the government mandate of 4% with a margin of 2% on either side (ET). The RBI cut its "short-term lending rate on 22 May 2020, in an off-policy cycle to perk up demand by cutting the interest rate to a historic low." It kept the rate unchanged 11 times at 4% till April 2022. zeebiz. com. Retail inflation was at 6.28% in May 2020 when it took its disastrous decision. Rising prices mean a falling value of the rupee. The rupee was at 70.96 against one dollar in January 2020 but had fallen to 73.78 by December. Thomas Cook. The rupee is flirting with 96 to one dollar this morning. xe.com. Mr Modi has asked people for austerity, telling them to work from home, to use public transport, not to buy gold and not to use cooking oil. ET. A report by Brickwork Ratings said that austerity could save $37.8 billion for the government. "The report argues that voluntary demand reduction across fuel, gold and fertilisers may offer the government fiscal breathing room at a time when its ability to absorb oil prices pass-through is thinning." ET. But, could this be another blunder on the part of this disaster-prone government? "Austerity programs employed after the 2008 financial crisis in Greece, Italy and other European countries led to long recessions in many of these countries. Similar experience was reported by Latin American countries that went for austerity after the commodity price collapse of 2014-15 fared poorly too," wrote Prof Himanshu. Is Mr Modi preparing Indians for a depression, with spiking inflation and a collapsing rupee by blaming everyone else and relying on his zombie Bhakts living in an alternate reality (DH) to swallow his bluff as they have been doing all these years? The end could really be nigh. For Indians.