<story><title>From Underwear to Cars, India’s Economy Is Fraying</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/21/business/economy/india-economy-trade.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>brainless</author><text>I am an Indian, in India. To be honest I think our current situation is not just a slowdown. I feel the country has become largely divided when it comes to day-to-day economics.&lt;p&gt;I am sitting in a co-working space in Bangalore, I do that in Kolkata often and will head to Mumbai soon. I hardly see people talking about slowdown in these spaces. The cities seemingly are powered more by funds from outside and are alienated to the issues in agriculture or manufacturing.&lt;p&gt;Not just the government, but the well-to-do educated class have simply stopped looking at the country as a whole - that is my feeling and I am guilty of the same.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hos234</author><text>&amp;gt; the well-to-do educated class have simply stopped looking at the country as a whole&lt;p&gt;There is lot of misguided guilt-tripping that goes on in India. Misguided because it doesn&amp;#x27;t produce any outcomes.&lt;p&gt;I feel India is massive and most people including Indians don&amp;#x27;t realize how massive.&lt;p&gt;I worked on project a few years back, which required traveling around&amp;#x2F;studying just one district. That district alone had a population larger than Norway. And India has 700+ districts. Just think about that for a moment.&lt;p&gt;We might as well be talking about 700 countries when we talk about India. There are many districts doing really well and healthy and many on the other end of the spectrum. Whenever people talk about &amp;quot;India&amp;quot; as a whole they don&amp;#x27;t know what they are talking about. Get them to be specific about a district and the conversation gets much more productive.</text></comment>
<story><title>From Underwear to Cars, India’s Economy Is Fraying</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/21/business/economy/india-economy-trade.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>brainless</author><text>I am an Indian, in India. To be honest I think our current situation is not just a slowdown. I feel the country has become largely divided when it comes to day-to-day economics.&lt;p&gt;I am sitting in a co-working space in Bangalore, I do that in Kolkata often and will head to Mumbai soon. I hardly see people talking about slowdown in these spaces. The cities seemingly are powered more by funds from outside and are alienated to the issues in agriculture or manufacturing.&lt;p&gt;Not just the government, but the well-to-do educated class have simply stopped looking at the country as a whole - that is my feeling and I am guilty of the same.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>justforfunhere</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; that is my feeling and I am guilty of the same.&lt;p&gt;To acknowledge the problem is the first step towards its solution.&lt;p&gt;Your observation is very similar to what I have felt as well. There is a wide urban-rural gap.&lt;p&gt;India is primarily an agricultural country. A fairly large part of Indian population resides in villages and is directly or indirectly dependent upon agriculture sector.&lt;p&gt;The current state of economy also stems from the agrarian crisis that has been brewing for a long time now.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think this government is exclusively to be blamed for the plight of farmers, but given the mandate they got in 2014, they had the means to enable farmer friendly policies - unfortunately they did not.&lt;p&gt;I was actually traveling in different parts of India when the demonetization move happened. I saw firsthand the immediate aftermath in both the urban and rural India. There were diverse opinions, but given how simple, credulous and sheep-like most of the Indian population is, most people I talked to were ready to bear the brunt because our leader told us it was overall a good move for the country. These people didn&amp;#x27;t realize how it would come back to haunt them when they start loosing their livelihood in the coming times.&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t imagine anywhere else in the world, where people wouldn&amp;#x27;t have protested on a mass scale, if such a sudden, disastrous move would have been made on their lives without consulting them.&lt;p&gt;If you read about the history of Independent India, we still haven&amp;#x27;t settled down as a nation yet. Each decade has brought it&amp;#x27;s fair share of challenges and the churn is always on. I hope the current situation is just one of those and the idea of India, as what our forefathers deemed it to be, shall survive to fight another fight.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Grammar, Typos</text></comment>