While tax has proved Nirmala Sitharaman’s strong suit, there have been policy negatives as well, including under-performance on privatisation and failure to fix banking mess.
Swadeshi has found a new wind in Indian politics as a form of popular resistance to China. But raising barriers to Chinese imports only affects those lower down the income pyramid.
Share of Indian export to Asian countries has dropped in the past decade despite forging major free trade alliances but it has gone up in traditional markets like US and Europe.
To boost exports, India must accept its challenge is internal, even though it keeps raising fingers at unfavourable external factors like trade protectionism.
A theme has not yet emerged for BJP & people see lack of a contest, which makes it unexciting. For all these reasons, 2024 is turning out to be an unexpectedly theme-less election.
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