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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.

Ruthless Resolve

Another slaughter in Kashmir. Another sea of bodies, blood and broken promises. The massacre of more than 25 persons, mostly tourists, in Pahalgam by Islamist terrorists was a reminder, if any were needed, that the Indian state’s restraint is seen by its enemies not as nobility but as weakness ripe for exploitation.


The cold-blooded, religiously fuelled butchery of tourists was particularly chilling this time. Survivors spoke of terrorists demanding Indian victims recite Islamic verses and shooting them in the head at point-blank range when they couldn’t. This was religious extremism in its purest, most barbaric form.


Even the timing carried a strategic message. The massacre coincided with the visit of U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance to India and days after Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir’s incendiary speech against India and the Hindu community - a calculated strike designed to project instability and remind the world that Kashmir remains a battlefield of jihad.


The terrorism in Kashmir since the 1990s has never been about ‘freedom’ or ‘self-determination.’ It has been, from the first bullet to the latest massacre, an Islamic jihad, bankrolled, armed and directed by Pakistan’s Punjabi Army and executed by its network of jihadi mercenaries.


For how long must India endure this? How many more mutilated bodies will it take before the gloves come off? Be it the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley, the Mumbai bomb blasts of 1993, the 2001 Parliament attack, the carnage of 26/11 when Pakistani-sponsored gunmen turned Mumbai into a killing field or the 2019 Pulwama terror strike.


Enough. This cannot be allowed to continue. The Indian Army, one of the largest and most professional forces in the world, exists precisely to deal with such existential threats and must strike back hard to not just avenge Pahalgam but put Pakistan in its place once and for all.


For the primary enemy is not the terrorists pulling triggers in the forests of South Kashmir but the generals in Rawalpindi who have built an entire war economy on the back of jihad, using religious fanaticism as state policy.


Billions are spent on India’s defence every year. Aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, Rafale jets — all fine and necessary. But ultimately, if the nation’s enemies can kill civilians at will while hiding behind a rogue neighbour’s uniform, what good is all this power?


Pakistan’s Punjabi generals understand only one language: force. Their motto is jihad; their strategy is endless bleeding. India must now write its own reply in action, not words.


This is not a call for random violence. It is a call for relentless justice: the methodical elimination of Pakistan’s terror apparatus, piece by piece, man by man, dollar by dollar. The strike must be so comprehensive that India’s enemies must wake up each morning wondering: “Will I survive today?”


But until that day arrives, the bloodbath will continue, and India’s restraint will be written not as nobility, but as defeat.


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