A cruel 2025 merits a brief look at the state of India. Public spending has crowded out private investment and net FDI is approaching zero as earlier investors have cashed out given the uncertain political climate and policy flip-flops. The infrastructure push has produced photo ops, chest thumping nationalism, wide angle drone shots, collapsing bridges, sinking highways and cratered roads...not growth or jobs. The reckless development spree in the pristine Himalayan regions has increased the possibility of natural disasters exponentially. The election process, social conflict and GDP data have produced skepticism not confidence, everything is either fudged, manipulated or destroyed. Foreign Policy has been a disaster from the word go, diplomacy has not produced strategic partnerships, only enemies and geopolitical angst. Economic (mis)management has built a nation of distressing inequity with 75 per cent citizens struggling to survive and 150 million going to bed hungry every night. This while the richest 10 per cent of Indians hold 80 per cent of the country's wealth. In brief, India has been pushed back to 1990 as an economy with ‘great potential’ not much else. But hey, we are the fourth largest economy in the world.
