Letters: Effective indicators

T N Ninan's idea of a Modi index in his piece published on February 6 is a novel and sound one because it will gauge India's real growth through proxy indicators, as the Li Index does in China, by considering credit, freight movement and electricity consumption as effective proxy indicators.

India's tax collection is a good indicator; why not electricity consumption too? Investment intentions being translated into actual investments is notoriously hard to track, especially as time lag distorts the picture. We do need our own proxy indicators.

But the writer overstates the case in saying, "we are treading water, not swimming forward in the direction and at the speed needed". Are we not really in slow forward breast-stroke, when a faster freestyle pace is attainable? Or is it that the Ninan-esque "Indian tortoise" (The Turn of the Tortoise) is not programmed for anything so energetic?

Kishan S Rana, New Delhi

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