Are Foreign Investors Pulling Out of India?
As Narendra Modi is being pooh-poohed by every wise Indian for his repeated failures, it is believed that he is perhaps the most hated Prime Minister of India.
Under Modi’s 20-month rule, the country of 1.25 billion people has gone back by almost 20 years. Today, the people of India are suffering under the unprecedented poverty, back-breaking inflation, economic turbulence, and communal tension in all parts of the country.
There are widespread protests from common people, award-winning writers, opposition parties, and even the people who belong to Modi’s own political outfit BJP against Modi’s incompetence to run the country.
Now, as reports suggest, the first two weeks of 2016 have seen the sharpest foreign funds outflow since SEBI started keeping records in 1999. Reportedly, Foreign Portfolio Investors have taken out $700 million from the Indian markets in 2016.
[ Also Read: How Bureaucrats Are Destroying India ]
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley appear clueless on how to stop this outflow,” blames Congress, an opposition party in India.
Congress said Monday that lack of application in India’s economic strategy is evident from the latest data on Index of Industrial Production, which reached its lowest point in 4 years, contracting by 3.2% in November last year.
Capital goods, which are an important indicator of investments, contracted sharply in December by 24%. Worryingly, long-term funds invested in India are also witnessing redemptions, which don’t bode well for our economy.
[ Narendra Modi Visits Russia; Promises Jobs for Students ]
Even as our economy is staring down the barrel, the BJP government is busy doing what it does best – launch a new scheme and indulge in jugglery of numbers.
On 16th January, Government launched ‘Start up India’, ostensibly to make India a ‘start-up hub’. As usual, the Prime Minister will be claiming credit for and repackaging what the Congress had already put in place, said Congress in its statement.
Between 2004 and 2014, India received $ 90 billion in venture capital and private equity financing for 4000 companies, of which at least 2000 may well be start-ups. This had led to India becoming the third largest ‘start up’ country in the world, even before Modi coined his “Start up India” slogan.
According to Congress, Modi in his arrogance thinks that there is nothing wrong with our economy and believes that it is performing well. This flies in the face of all data that has come out in the last 2 months.
As our inflation rises, job growth stagnates and foreign funds leave our markets, we urge the Prime Minister to take charge of the Indian economy, before it’s too late, Congress suggests.
Photo courtesy: Congress
