{"text":[[{"start":6.14,"text":"As leaders from India Inc joined a forum in New Delhi last week, police outside were cracking down on protesters whose frustrations reveal some of the contradictions at the heart of the country’s growth narrative."}],[{"start":18.6,"text":"It was a striking juxtaposition as corporate grandees, gathered at the capital’s five-star hotels, hailed opportunities in the world’s most populous nation, which the IMF forecasts will have economic growth of an enviable 7 per cent this year."}],[{"start":34.06,"text":"Telecoms tycoon Sunil Mittal argued at the Bloomberg forum that India’s scale, consumer market and economic growth made it a “natural choice” for investors. N Chandrasekaran, chair of Tata Sons, told the audience the country was in “a beautiful spot”."}],[{"start":49.8,"text":"It would perhaps have been unwise, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was attending, for them to suggest otherwise, particularly in a political environment where questioning his government and India’s growth trajectory can earn economists sharp rebukes."}],[{"start":63.72,"text":"Yet the gap between corporate India’s public optimism and household and investor anxiety has become increasingly apparent on the streets and in capital markets. India’s dependence on imported crude has left it exposed to the Iran war and surging oil prices. Inflation is approaching the 6 per cent upper tolerance threshold of the Reserve Bank of India, which has been spending tens of billions of dollars to defend the rupee, one of Asia’s worst-performing currencies. The benchmark Nifty 50 equity index is down 13 per cent this year."}],[{"start":95.48,"text":"These pressures, along with the lagging of AI development — India is behind the US and China — have seen the country fall out of favour with overseas money managers along with some other emerging markets. This year foreign investors have offloaded Indian equities at a record pace."}],[{"start":111.04,"text":"Even its headline growth figures have come under scrutiny. In a report last month, Kunal Kundu, India economist at Société Générale, suggested that a recent rebasing exercise and technical effects distorted the picture, and that real GDP data “overstates the level of activity”."}],[{"start":127.8,"text":"While larger companies may be prospering, smaller and informal businesses are struggling, Kundu observed. Falling real wage growth and mounting household debt amid rising living costs have undermined consumer demand, he wrote."}],[{"start":139.72,"text":"India’s failure to create enough formal jobs despite strong economic growth is also fuelling discontent. A widely cited Azim Premji University study this year found that almost 40 per cent of college and university graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed, despite wider access to higher education."}],[{"start":158.68,"text":"That has helped transform the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party into a multipronged protest movement railing against corruption in education, the shortage of opportunities in a supposedly booming economy and, most recently, concerns about the removal of 130mn people from electoral rolls in a voter verification drive."}],[{"start":178.8,"text":"At the business forum, however, the mood was more sanguine. Nandan Nilekani, billionaire chair of IT service group Infosys, dismissed fears of AI destroying Indian jobs as “hogwash”. He argued that more work would flow to India and small businesses would generate work less vulnerable to automation."}],[{"start":197.24,"text":"But optimism about future jobs sits uneasily with companies’ reluctance to invest in creating them today. Despite business-friendly moves by Modi’s administration — from corporate tax cuts to production-linked incentives and free trade agreements, private investment remains sluggish. Government surveys show capital expenditure per enterprise falling from Rs1.8bn ($19mn) four years ago to Rs1.6bn in the last financial year. Such spending is expected to remain flat this year."}],[{"start":228.08,"text":"Manufacturing, long touted as the answer to the employment challenge, still accounts for a smaller share of the economy than when Modi came to power more than a decade ago. Economists cite reasons including ongoing challenges for businesses such as geopolitcial uncertainties, red tape and difficulty in acquiring land as well as weak domestic demand as India’s fragile middle class comes under pressure."}],[{"start":251.82,"text":"These issues are adding to India’s “vibecession”, the widening gulf between robust GDP and the lived reality of a large chunk of its nearly 1.5bn population. Business leaders urge patience. On stage last week, Mittal described the difficulties India faced as a “temporary phenomena, I would say longer-term policy stability and growth is here”. For those waiting to share in this prosperity, that is a harder sell."}],[{"start":280.52,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1792648457_4061.mp3"}