Is India's economy in free fall? Growth numbers are down, industrial production is down, auto sales are also down, while new data shows poverty may have actually gone up. This week, India's largest public sector bank State Bank of India said Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth will slow down further to 4.2 per cent in the second quarter of this year, after it hit a six-year low of 5 per cent in the first quarter. SBI has also rolled back its forecasts for India's GDP growth for the current fiscal from 6.1 per cent earlier to just 5 per cent now. The telecom sector is facing a huge crisis, but there is some hope for them after indications that the government could step in to bail them out. A report in Business Standard newspaper showed that consumer spending has fallen in 2017-18 for the first time in more than four decades, primarily driven by slackening rural demand, which experts say points to a rise in poverty, according to data complied by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
