From Kashmir to Northeast & Economy to Politics: Expectations for the New Year

About the economy, there is no pressure to perform on the government. We can say this because a decline in GDP growth has been noted since January 2018 and it lasted two years and three months before the pandemic and the first lockdown. So the troubles we are in have nothing to do with the pandemic.

Next year our GDP production will be the same size as it was before the pandemic, but before the pandemic we were struggling for a long time. That will go on. Two of the main reasons for this will continue to be a mystery to economists. First, the fact that India’s employment rate (workers or job seekers) is among the lowest in the world. Second, private consumption, by far the largest component of GDP, remains at pre-pandemic levels and shows no signs of recovery.

Politically we have a lot of action. States that will have new assemblies include Gujarat, Punjab, Goa, and Uttar Pradesh. The BJP has had a permanent majority in Gujarat for a quarter of a century and has over 40 percent of the vote in the UP, which means there is a good chance it will keep the state. The presidential elections are also this year, shortly after UP.

What else? The central Vista will be dedicated, or at least part of it, and considerable work will have been done on the temple at Ayodhya. There will be more pomp like we saw in Kashi earlier this year for those who like that.