India's COVID-19 count reaches 10,38,716 with a spike of 34,884 cases

New Delhi, May 27: India’s fourth recession since Independence, first since liberalisation, and perhaps the worst to date is here, according to rating agency, Crisil.

CRISIL sees the Indian economy shrinking 5 per cent in fiscal 2021 (on-year), because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first quarter will suffer a staggering 25 per cent contraction.

About 10 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in real terms could be permanently lost. "So going back to the growth rates seen before the pandemic is unlikely in the next three fiscals", Crisil said.

Crisil has revised its earlier forecast downwards. "Earlier, on April 28, we had slashed our prediction to 1.8 per cent growth from 3.5 per cent growth. Things have only gone downhill since", it said.

While we expect non-agricultural GDP to contract 6 per cent, agriculture could cushion the blow by growing at 2.5 per cent.

In the past 69 years, India has seen a recession only thrice as per available data in fiscals 1958, 1966 and 1980. The reason was the same each time a monsoon shock that hit agriculture, then a sizeable part of the economy.

"The recession staring at us today is different," it added. For one, agriculture could soften the blow this time by growing near its trend rate, assuming a normal monsoon. Two, the pandemic-induced lockdowns have affected most non-agriculture sectors. And three, the global disruption has upended whatever opportunities India had on the exports front.

Economic conditions have slid precipitously since the April-end forecast of 1.8 per cent GDP growth for fiscal 2021 (baseline), Crisil said.

On the lockdown extension, it said that the government has extended the lockdown four times to deal with the rising number of cases, curtailing economic activity severely (lockdown 4.0 is ending on May 31).

The first quarter of this fiscal will be the worst affected. June is unlikely to see major relaxations as the Covid-19 affliction curve is yet to flatten in India.

"Not only will the first quarter be a washout for the non-agricultural economy, services such as education, and travel and tourism among others, could continue to see a big hit in the quarters to come. Jobs and incomes will see extended losses as these sectors are large employers," Crisil said.

CRISIL also foresees economic activity in states with high Covid-19 cases to suffer prolonged disruption as restrictions could continue longer.

A rough estimate based on a sample of eight states, which contribute over half of India's GDP, shows that their 'red zones' (as per lockdown 3.0) contributed 42 per cent to the state GDP on average regardless of the share of such red zones.

On average, the orange zones contribute 46 per cent, while the green zones where activity is allowed to be close to normal contribute only 12 per cent to state GDP.

The economic costs are higher than earlier expectations, according to Crisil. The economic costs now beginning to show up in the hard numbers are far worse than initial expectations.

Industrial production for March fell by over 16%. The purchasing managers indices for the manufacturing and services sectors were at 27.4 and 5.4, respectively, in April, implying extraordinary contraction. That compares with 51.8 and 49.3, respectively, in March.

Exports contracted 60.3 per cent in April, and new telecom subscribers declined 35 per cent, while railway freight movement plunged 35 per cent on-year.

"Indeed, given one of the most stringent lockdowns in the world, April could well be the worst performing month for India this fiscal," it said.

Added to that is the economic package without enough muscle. The government recently announced a Rs 20.9 lakh crore economic relief package to support the economy. The package has some short-term measures to cushion the economy, but sets its sights majorly on reforms, most of which will have payoffs only over the medium term.

"We estimate the fiscal cost of this package at 1.2 per cent of GDP, which is lower than what we had assumed in our earlier estimate (when we foresaw a growth in GDP)," it said.

"We believe a catch-up to the pre-crisis trend level of GDP growth will not be possible in the next three fiscals despite policy support. Under the base case, we estimate a 10 per cent permanent loss to real GDP (from the decadal-trend level), assuming average growth of about 7 per cent between fiscals 2022 and 2024," Crisil said.

Interestingly, after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), a sharp growth spurt helped catch up with the trend within two years. GDP grew 8.2 per cent on average in the two fiscals following the GFC. Massive fiscal spending, monetary easing and swift global recovery played a role in a V-shaped recovery.

To catch-up would require average GDP growth to surge to 11 per cent over the next three fiscals, something that has never happened before.

The research said that successive lockdowns have a non-linear and multiplicative effect on the economy a two-month lockdown will be more than twice as debilitating as a one-month imposition, as buffers keep eroding.

Partial relaxations continue to be a hindrance to supply chains, transportation and logistics. Hence, unless the entire supply chain is unlocked, the impact of improved economic activity will be subdued.

Therefore, despite the stringency of lockdown easing a tad in the third and the fourth phases, their negative impact on GDP is expected to massively outweigh the benefits from mild fiscal support and low crude oil prices, especially in the April-June quarter. "Consequently, we expect the current quarter's GDP to shrink 25 per cent on-year," it said.

Counting lockdown 4.0, Indians have had 68 days of confinement. S&P Global estimates that one month of lockdown shaves 3 per cent off annual GDP on average across Asia-Pacific.

Since India's lockdown has been the most stringent in Asia, the impact on economic growth will be correspondingly larger.

Google's Community Mobility Reports show a sharp fall in movement of people to places of recreation, retail shops, public transport and workplace travel. While data for May shows some improvement in India, mobility trends are much below the average or baseline, and lower compared with countries such as the US, South Korea, Brazil and Indonesia.

Mumbai, Feb 10: Ankita Pisudde, a resident of Hinganghat town in Wardha, was critical after sustaining 40% burns on February 3 when she was set afire, allegedly by one Vikesh Nagrale (27) while she was on her way to college.

The 25-year-old woman lecturer who was set on fire by a stalker in Maharashtra’s Wardha district last week died at a hospital in Nagpur on Monday morning, a police official said.

Ankita Pisudde, resident of Hinganghat town in Wardha, had been critical after sustaining 35 to 40% “grade III” burns on February 3 when she was set afire allegedly by one Vikesh Nagrale (27) while she was on way to her college, they said.

She was undergoing treatment at the Orange City Hospital & Research Centre here, located around 75 km from Wardha.

“Doctors at the hospital declared her dead at 6.55 a.m. today,” Hinganghat’s police inspector Satyaveer Bandiwar said.

The woman sustained deep burn injuries on scalp, face, right upper limb, left hand, upper back, neck and eyes along with severe inhalational injuries, the hospital said in a medical bulletin on Monday.

She died of “septicemic shock” after suffering from deep dermal burns along with severe inhalational injuries, respiratory distress and related complications, it said.

Around 4 a.m. on Monday, her oxygen levels deteriorated inspite of ventilator support, coupled with decreasing urine output and reduction in blood pressure, the hospital said.

As part of immediate resuscitation measures, medicines were escalated to maintain the blood pressure and all feasible steps were taken to improve the oxygen levels in blood, but the patient remained “extremely critical”, it said.

“Around 6.30 a.m., she had bradycardia and inspite of prolonged cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the patient could not be revived and was declared dead at 6.55 a.m.,” it said.

The probable cause of death was “septicemic shock”, the bulletin added.

During her treatment, she underwent tracheostomy (creating an opening in neck to place a tube into the windpipe to allow air to enter the lungs), burn dressings, debridement and escharotomies, the hospital informed.

Debridement is a medical procedure to remove dead, damaged or infected tissue, while escharotomy is a surgical procedure used to treat full-thickness (third-degree) circumferential burns.

The woman’s parents and uncle were kept informed about her deteriorating health condition and death, the hospital said, adding that the body was later handed over to police for postmortem and other formalities.

After the woman’s condition deteriorated, the hospital informed about her critical status to Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, Wardha Guardian Minister Sunil Kedar, Nagpur Divisional Commissioner Sanjeev Kumar, Police Commissioner Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay, Wardha Collector Vivek Bhimanwar and Wardha Superintendent of Police Basavraj Teli.

Heavy security was deployed in Hinganghat to avoid any law and order problem following her death, the police said.

Several locals, mostly women and college students, took out a march in Wardha city last Thursday, demanding death penalty for the accused.

Home Minister Deshmukh visited the hospital on Tuesday and announced that the accused’s trial would be fast-tracked.

The State government last week flew Navi Mumbai-based National Burns Centre director Sunil Keswani to Nagpur to supervise the woman’s treatment.

It has also appointed well-known lawyer Ujjwal Nikam as special public prosecutor in the case.

According to the victim’s relatives, Nagrale, who was arrested within hours of the incident on February 3, had been harassing her for quite some time.

Nagrale and the woman were friends till two years ago when she severed ties with him due to his “irrational behaviour”, the police earlier said.

A special team led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Trupti Jadhav will probe the case, the Wardha Police said last week.

New Delhi, Jan 31: Slamming the BJP over the Jamia firing incident, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday said such incidents were possible with the ruling party's leaders inciting people to shoot, and asked Prime minister Narendra Modi to answer whether he stands with violence or non-violence.   

Her attack on the government comes a day after tensions in the Jamia area spiralled on Thursday after a man fired a pistol at a group of anti-CAA protesters, injuring a student, before walking away while waving the firearm above his head and shouting "Yeh lo aazadi" amid heavy police presence in the area.

"When the BJP government ministers and party leaders incite people to shoot, give provocative speeches, then all this becomes possible. The Prime Minister should answer what kind of a Delhi he wants to build?" Priyanka Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

Does the PM stand with violence or non-violence, she asked.

"Does he stand with development or with anarchy?" the Congress general secretary said.