Best of BS Opinion: Stock market as mirror, politics in diversity & more

Here are the best of Business Standard's opinion pieces for Saturday

Forty years ago, the combined value on the stock market of the listed companies belonging to the 30 largest business “houses” was Rs 6,200 crore. GDP at the time was 28 times bigger (Rs 1.75 lakh crore). The combined value of companies listed on the National Stock Exchange today is about 15 per cent more than GDP, which last year was Rs 197 lakh crore. There has been a fair bit of churn in the private sector. While stock market indices hold up a mirror to the changed reality, they don’t show the full picture — partly because large unlisted and often foreign-owned companies don’t get counted, writes T N Ninan

Pew survey of Indians’ religiosity tells you why Modi’s rivals have failed to challenge him: Confused secularism that’s ceded religion to the BJP, writes Shekhar Gupta

The hypothesis that healthcare was a dead political issue has now been tested as much as ever it will be. The chances are that the hypothesis will emerge vindicated, and voters, even those who have lost friends and family, will not punish their political leadership. The poor quality of public health infrastructure should no longer surprise us. It is our democratic choice, writes Mihir S Sharma

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“We expect the current lockdowns to have less of an adverse impact on economic activity than the nationwide lockdown in April 2020 because the latest restrictions have been more targeted, localised and less stringent.”

Moody's Investors Service