The second wave of Covid-19 has made economists less hopeful about India’s growth prospects.
At least four leading rating agencies have trimmed their GDP growth forecasts for India for the financial year ending March 2022. These agencies had initially estimated double-digit growth for the Indian economy due to a low base and revival of business activities in the country after the first wave of Covid in 2020.
For instance, Mumbai-based CRISIL, which had earlier pegged India’s economic growth for fiscal 2022 at 11%, has lowered its estimate to 8.2% in a worst-case scenario.
India’s Covid-19 struggles
These sharp revisions in estimates come at a time when India is grappling with record Covid-19 deaths and new infections. As of May 19, the new infections remain above the 250,000-mark. The pandemic-related deaths have also stayed above the 3,500-mark.
May 19, 2021
India’s messy vaccination strategy, unlike any other in the world, is now pitting its own states against each other.
After the Narendra Modi government announced a “liberalised” policy on April 19, Indian states can now directly buy Covid-19 vaccines from manufacturers. In the face of an acute shortage of doses of Covisheild and Covaxin, the two India-made vaccines currently approved for emergency use, some state governments have now floated “global tenders” shots.
States like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Kerala are trying to directly buy vaccines from international vaccine makers, in the hope that these shots would be given a fast-tracked approval in India.
May 17, 2021
Aman Trivedi was all set to pursue a master’s degree in international affairs from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin come August. When the Delhi University graduate started applying to schools abroad in September 2020, he never could’ve imagined that India’s Covid-19 crisis would spiral the way that it did.
“I absolutely did not foresee the second wave of the pandemic mainly because there was a sharp decline in the number of cases towards the later months of 2020,” the 20-year-old told Quartz. “I did not make any contingency plan and the second wave of the pandemic completely changed my plans.” Trivedi has now deferred his admission by a year, and he is certainly not alone.
May 17, 2021
Indian regulators have never liked cryptocurrencies, but the crypto community is showing all its love for the country at its time of need.
On May 13, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency ethererum, donated around $1 billion (Rs7,324 crore) to India’s Covid Crypto Relief Fund. This fund was set up by Indian cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sandeep Nailwal on April 24.
Buterin transferred 500 ethereums and 50 trillion meme coins shiba inu into the fund. Besides Buterin, Australian cricketer Brett Lee has also chipped in via the crypto route. The pacer donated one bitcoin (Rs40 lakh) to India’s Covid crypto relief fund on April 28.
"We are helping Indian hospitals and government, too. The president's house and several governments have reached out to us in need of oxygen," said Irinder Singh Ahluwalia, founder and CEO of Hemkunt Foundation.