Do it yourself

Politicians have always been famous for manipulating the truth or lying by telling the truth. For example, consider this. A journalist asked a minister, “Have you provided employment to the youth as per your election promise?” The minister answered, “we have given employment letters to 70000 youth last week”. Here the minister is telling the truth (70000 employment letters given), without answering the question. He did not even clarify whether these 70000 youth have actually been given jobs or just been promised a job in the future. In this way, the minister lied by telling a plain truth- manipulated it to suit his convenience. A similar pattern often plays out in economic statistics, where data may be technically correct but presented in a way that conveys a misleadingly optimistic picture. The blockbuster GDP data for 1QFY26, released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) last Friday, prima facie appears an example of manipulated truth . According to NSO, the Indian economy ...

The current results season (1QFY26) has been rather underwhelming so far. The market expectations for this quarter were already muted. The consensus estimates projected 1QFY26e Nifty50 revenue and profits to grow around 5% yoy, while the broader market earnings were expected to grow at a better 11-12% yoy rate. However, the results declared so far indicate an aggregate revenue growth less than even the nominal GDP growth of ~10%. Besides, the 1QFY26 season reflects a patchy recovery. Select large-cap and government-driven sectors (infrastructure, defense and PLI beneficiaries) have reported decent numbers and growth, while several small and midcap, IT, consumer and media companies have reported below expectation results. In their post results commentary, the management of IT and consumer companies in particular, have highlighted global and macro challenges they are facing, sounding cautious about near-term growth. Banking & Financial Services and IT Services are the most crit...