top of page

By:

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.

Beijing’s Invisible Hand

The failed prosecution of Englishmen Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry underscores how Chinese espionage exploits the gaps in Western legal and investigative frameworks to operate effectively in plain sight.

Christopher Berry (L) and Christopher Cash have been accused of passing secrets to China.
Christopher Berry (L) and Christopher Cash have been accused of passing secrets to China.

When Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, laments the collapse of a high-profile espionage prosecution, his frustration reflects a deeper anxiety within Western intelligence communities that China’s espionage machine - diffuse and increasingly sophisticated - has learned to play the long game. The dropped case of Christopher Cash, a parliamentary researcher and Christopher Berry, a former civil servant, who were accused of spying for Beijing, underscored the disquieting truth that the reach of Chinese intelligence has become both harder to prove and harder to contain.


This mirrors other high-profile cases. Australian authorities in 2023 charged multiple academics for covertly funnelling research to Chinese institutions, while U.S. prosecutors have repeatedly targeted tech specialists suspected of aiding China’s state-backed industrial espionage programs.


For decades, Western intelligence regarded Chinese espionage as a plodding, bureaucratic cousin to Russia’s more flamboyant operations. Soviet and later Russian tradecraft relied on ideology, disinformation and the occasional theatrical poisoning. The Chinese model has been more patient and systemic: the quiet harvesting of information through academic exchanges, cyber intrusions and the cultivation of influence networks that blur the line between diplomacy and espionage.


McCallum’s admission that MI5 had disrupted another China-related plot in the past week suggested how pervasive the threat has become. The number of state-based investigations in Britain is up by more than a third in a year. The tempo mirrors trends across Europe, Australia and the United States, where the contest with Beijing has evolved into a struggle not just for military or economic supremacy, but for informational dominance.


To grasp the modern scale of Chinese espionage is to understand its origins. When Deng Xiaoping declared in 1978 that China must “hide its strength and bide its time,” his dictum applied as much to intelligence as to diplomacy. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Ministry of State Security (MSS) built a vast network of collectors: students, scientists, and businesspeople who, knowingly or not, became conduits of technology transfer. In the age of globalization, espionage ceased to be confined to shadowy operatives, becoming industrial policy by other means.


The result has been an espionage ecosystem both disciplined and decentralized. Chinese intelligence does not depend on spectacular agents embedded in the heart of Western government. Instead, it relies on a mosaic of sources - cyber hacks on government servers, insider leaks within technology firms, data scraped from social media, and pressure on diaspora communities to inform or influence.


That makes it particularly difficult for prosecutors to build cases that meet the standard of proof in open court. In espionage, much of what is known cannot be said; much of what can be said cannot be proved. The collapse of the Cash and Berry trial exposes this paradox. Intelligence can disrupt, but the law must convict. Between the two lies a chasm that Beijing has learned to exploit.


The United States has tightened scrutiny of Chinese students and researchers. Australia has passed sweeping foreign-interference laws. Britain is following suit, with new national security legislation expanding the definition of espionage to include ‘preparatory acts’ of foreign interference. Yet the more governments harden their systems, the more Beijing presents these measures as proof of Western paranoia and hypocrisy.


For China, espionage is not merely about stealing secrets but about shaping narratives and perceptions. Its intelligence apparatus is now intertwined with influence operations targeting media, think tanks, and even local councils. The objective is not only to know what others think, but to shape what they think about China. Espionage, after all, is not an aberration in China’s rise but an integral feature of it.


If the Cold War was fought in shadows cast by ideology, the new one is fought in the half-light of information. China has mastered that terrain. The West, still bound by the transparency it cherishes, must learn to navigate it without losing its way.

Comments

bottom of page