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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Festive Surge

India’s bazaars have glittered this Diwali with the unmistakable glow of consumer confidence. The country’s festive sales crossed a staggering Rs. 6 lakh crore with goods alone accounting for Rs. 5.4 lakh crore and services contributing Rs. 65,000 crore. More remarkable still, the bulk of this spending flowed through India’s traditional markets rather than e-commerce platforms. After years of economic caution and digital dominance, Indians are once again shopping in person and buying local....

Festive Surge

India’s bazaars have glittered this Diwali with the unmistakable glow of consumer confidence. The country’s festive sales crossed a staggering Rs. 6 lakh crore with goods alone accounting for Rs. 5.4 lakh crore and services contributing Rs. 65,000 crore. More remarkable still, the bulk of this spending flowed through India’s traditional markets rather than e-commerce platforms. After years of economic caution and digital dominance, Indians are once again shopping in person and buying local. This reversal owes much to policy. The recent rationalisation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which trimmed rates across categories from garments to home furnishings, has given consumption a timely push. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s September rate cuts, combined with income tax relief and easing interest rates, have strengthened household budgets just as inflation softened. The middle class, long squeezed between rising costs and stagnant wages, has found reason to spend again. Retailers report that shoppers filled their bags with everything from lab-grown diamonds and casual wear to consumer durables and décor, blurring the line between necessity and indulgence. The effect has been broad-based. According to Crisil Ratings, 40 organised apparel retailers, who together generate roughly a third of the sector’s revenue, could see growth of 13–14 percent this financial year, aided by a 200-basis-point bump from GST cuts alone. Small traders too have flourished. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) estimates that 85 percent of total festive trade came from non-corporate and traditional markets, a robust comeback for brick-and-mortar retail that had been under siege from online rivals. This surge signals a subtle but significant cultural shift. The “Vocal for Local” and “Swadeshi Diwali” campaigns struck a patriotic chord, with consumers reportedly preferring Indian-made products to imported ones. Demand for Chinese goods fell sharply, while sales of Indian-manufactured products rose by a quarter over last year. For the first time in years, “buying Indian” has become both an act of economic participation and of national pride. The sectoral spread of this boom underlines its breadth. Groceries and fast-moving consumer goods accounted for 12 percent of the total, gold and jewellery 10 percent, and electronics 8 percent. Even traditionally modest categories like home furnishings, décor and confectionery recorded double-digit growth. In the smaller towns that anchor India’s consumption story, traders say stable prices and improved affordability kept registers ringing late into the festive weekend. Yet, much of this buoyancy rests on a fragile equilibrium. Inflation remains contained, and interest rates have been eased, but both could tighten again. Sustaining this spurt will require continued fiscal prudence and regulatory clarity, especially as digital commerce continues to expand its reach. Yet for now, the signs are auspicious. After years of subdued demand and inflationary unease, India’s shoppers appear to have rediscovered their appetite for consumption and their faith in domestic enterprise. The result is not only a record-breaking Diwali, but a reaffirmation of the local marketplace as the heartbeat of India’s economy.

Bahubalis at loggerheads

Updated: Oct 30, 2024

Ahilyanagar

Mumbai: Two arch rivals in Maharashtra politics have stood before each other to prove their supremacy. A slugfest between Congress’s Balasaheb Thorat and BJP’s Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil has directly entered the arena at Ahilyanagar (formerly Ahmednagar). As the selection of candidates is still underway in many constituencies, the fracas between Thorat and Vikhe-Patil has intensified the campaigning.

Political tensions erupted in Sangamner after BJP local leader Vasant Deshmukh made controversial remarks about Jayashree Thorat, daughter of Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat, during a rally attended by former BJP MP Sujay Vikhe-Patil.


The incident sparked violence in Sangamner and the surrounding area where an angry mob attacked vehicles belonging to Mahayuti leaders. Congress workers staged a sit-in protest outside the police station for seven hours until authorities registered a First Information Report (FIR) at approximately 5am. The protests even continued on Saturday morning, with demonstrators demanding Deshmukh’s arrest.


The Vikhe-Patil family pioneered the state’s strong cooperative movement. Vithalrao Vikhe- Patil, Radhakrishna’s grandfather, formed India’s first cooperative sugar factory. His son, Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil, was a Congress MP, who in his initial years joined a rebel Congress faction with former Congress CM Shankarrao Chavan. Radhakrishna, is Balasaheb’s son. Even he has switched between parties. Radhakrishna was elected as a Congress MLA when in 1997, he joined the Shiv Sena and was inducted as an agriculture minister in the Manohar Joshi-led Shiv Sena-BJP state government.


Later that year, Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil too switched to the Shiv Sena and was elected as an MP on a Shiv Sena ticket in 1998. He joined the National Democratic Alliance government first as a minister of state for finance and later as heavy industries minister. Both father and son after a while returned to the Congress party.


On the other hand, Vijay aka Balasaheb Thorat is Congress loyalist has won the assembly elections consequently eight times from Sangamner. His father Bhausaheb Thorat was also a member of legislative assembly. A political feud that has lasted three generations has shaken the foundations of the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in this district that’s the “sugar bowl” of Maharashtra. Though the tiff continued for long among Thorat and Vikhe-Patil, this was the first time the scuffle directly went on to the streets.

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