As the rupee speeds towards 60 ... hey, retirement age!

India's economic situation and the worsening rupee are beginning to consume my attention, which is not good news!

The Financial Times editorial notes that the situation is quite serious:

Not so long ago there was excited chatter in India about the possibility of the country overhauling China to become the world’s fastest growing large economy. But the Indian tortoise, far from gaining on the Chinese hare, is going backwards. Growth has not edged into double digits. Instead it has sagged back towards 6 per cent. In recent days, three investment banks have downgraded their view of India’s prospects. Morgan Stanley says the slowdown, the result of policy paralysis and a worsening external environment, could be deep and prolonged.
The symbol of India’s fall from grace is the rupee. It has sunk more than 17 per cent against the dollar this year to its lowest level on record. That ought at least to have helped exports. In fact they have shrunk, along with industrial output, which fell 3.5 per cent in March.

 Remember all the time and the effort that went into selecting a symbol for the rupee?  The focus ought to have been on the substance and not merely a symbol.  Well, hey, the new sign is fast losing its shine!

If foreign investors take fright, India’s balance of payments situation could quickly deteriorate. Standard & Poor’s has warned it may downgrade the rating on India’s sovereign debt unless Delhi can get the fiscal deficit under control. India also needs faster growth to help bring hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty.
Mr Singh, who used to be lauded as the architect of economic reforms, is now routinely derided. More than a prime minister, he is characterised as an errand boy for Sonia Gandhi, the Congress party leader. Indeed, the 79-year-old Mr Singh seems to have lost all ambition, as well as any grip over the administration he might once have had.

Singh has become a punchline--an awful way to be finally remembered in history!

But, forget all the words of the commentators; editorial cartoonists distill them well into a neat image, like this one:

Sometimes, I wonder if Indians are way too intoxicated by their cricket obsession to even notice the deterioration.  An outright ban on cricket might be the best fiscal policy, eh!