Cartoon truth

At least one interesting take on the government’s single-minded focus on raising investor confidence and “animal spirits” has come from, of all things, the cover image of a second-quarter earnings report. The Q2 report from Motilal Oswal features a cartoon of a giant firecrackers stall named “India fireworks”. Sitting on one side is the recognisable figure of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, assisted by Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan; on the other is Finance Minister P Chidambaram, helped by Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Ahluwalia. With big smiles, they’re all selling firecrackers labelled “digitisation”, “FDI”, “divestment” and “roads”. And, investors seem to be lining up, too, celebrating wildly. (On Chidambaram’s side, they’ve even broken their queue.) Take a closer look, though, and something odd emerges. All the investors in line are brown-haired. Some are carrying suitcases marked “$”. Meanwhile, on the fringes, black-haired men carrying suitcases marked “Rupee” look on doubtfully. The title of the report says: “Fired up?” Quite.