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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.

Deep Discontent in Congress, candidate calls Patole RSS agent

Updated: Dec 2, 2024

RSS

Mumbai: All is not well in the state Congress after the debacle in the assembly election. Bunty Shelke, a Congress candidate who lost from Nagpur Central constituency, has accused state Congress chief Nana Patole of secretly working for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), BJP’s ideologue.


Shelke accused Patole of conspiring against him and blamed him for his defeat. Shelke lost the poll in a close contest with BJP candidate Pravin Datke, by 11,632 votes. Speaking to reporters, Shelke said, “Nana is a RSS agent and destroyed the party. It is because of him that Congress slipped to fifth position in the state. In my constituency he had directed the local leaders not to support me. He even did not recommend my name despite the fact that I lost the seat only by 4,000 votes in 2019”.


Shelke also said that Patole’s entire focus was on how to become the chief minister if the MVA comes to power. Shelke’s allegations virtually created flutter into the political circle. So far Patole has not issued any clarification over these accusations. Shelke was elected as a corporator in 2017 from the constituency that houses the RSS headquarters and the residences of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and union minister Nitin Gadkari.


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As the state Congress party reviewed the reasons for its poor performance in the Assembly polls in an introspection meeting at its office, the top leadership faced serious accusations from its workers.


Meanwhile, Nana Patole, after meeting the newly-elected MLAs as well as the defeated candidates accused the election commission of robbing the people of their votes by pointing at the last-hour rise in voting percentage.


Referring to the data released by the election commission, Patole said that the voter turnout at 5pm on polling day was reported as 58.22 per cent. By 11:30pm, the same night, it increased to 65.02 per cent, and by the next day, November 21, it rose to 66.05 per cent. This shows a clear increase of 7.83 percentage points, or 7.6 million. “The rise is doubtful, and the poll body should release video footage from the polling centres where such a rise was recorded,” he demanded.


As many as 85 candidates of Congress were defeated in the assembly elections, with 17 candidates losing by more than 50,000 votes.


It may be recalled that the Congress had in its manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha election mentioned the “efficiency” of EVMs. The setback for the Congress-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in the Maharashtra election, which has sparked the latest controversy, shouldn’t have come as a surprise, at least to the Congress. Internal surveys for the Congress suggested that the BJP-led Mahayuti was gaining over the Congress-led MVA. Now the party leaders have trained their guns on the Election Commission.

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