Best of BS Opinion: Why India's growth looks strong but feels hesitant

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

India’s private sector is sending mixed signals as growth ambitions rise. Balance sheets are the strongest in decades, credit is available and profits are healthy, yet investment remains cautious. That puzzle sits at the heart of the first editorial as across policy, markets and institutions, the question is no longer whether companies can invest, but why they are choosing not to. Data show unlisted firms borrowing mainly to refinance, hoarding cash and shifting towards financial assets. Unlike the 2010s, this is not a financing constraint but uncertainty over demand, consumption, exports and policy execution is now holding growth back across the economy. As the World Bank warns, without a revival in private capex, India’s high-income aspirations will remain out of reach. 

Regulatory attention is also shifting in the digital economy. Our second editorial looks at the government’s move to discourage “10-minute delivery” promises in quick commerce. Prompted by gig worker protests and safety concerns, the intervention acknowledges the pressure such benchmarks place on delivery workers. While platforms argue speed is driven by technology, workers often absorb the risks through penalties and falling incentives. Given the sector’s scale and employment footprint, enforcement under India’s new labour codes will determine whether growth and worker protection can coexist. 

Meanwhile, writing in his column, T T Ram Mohan urges scepticism toward ‘expert forecasts’ after 2025 turning out to be a year of repeated misjudgments. From the resilience of the US economy under high tariffs to India’s stronger-than-expected growth, and from Pakistan’s diplomatic recovery to Israel’s regional assertiveness, 2025 exposed how often confident predictions fail. The lesson, he argues, is not that forecasting should stop, but that it should be treated with far greater humility. 

And financial fragilities beneath reassuring headlines are the focus of the column by Prasanna Tantri and Sarath Ramakrishnan. They caution that optimism over the rupee’s real depreciation masks risks for firms with foreign currency debt, now exceeding $700 billion. Hedging strategies are often partial and complex, leaving borrowers exposed beyond certain thresholds. Foreign exchange reserves can prevent a systemic crisis, but not firm-level stress, particularly when financial institutions are involved. They argue that better disclosure and stress testing by RBI are essential. 

Finally, Aditi Phadnis reviews 50 Years of the Indian Emergency: Lessons for Democracy edited by Peter Ronald deSouza and Harsh Sethi, which treats the Emergency not as an aberration but as a warning. By examining how institutions enabled authoritarian rule, and how many of those conditions still persist, the book argues that democratic failure is not a closed chapter. Its most unsettling conclusion is simple, that institutions failed once, and they can fail again. 

Stay tuned!