Dismal sciences

Economic growth data could be a matter of perception, and its beauty or otherwise clearly lies in the eyes of the beholder. Speaking recently in New Delhi, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen recalled taking a call from a French newspaper after the euro zone recorded zero growth in June. “They wanted to interview me because ‘it’s a great thing that growth in the euro zone has stopped declining’,” he said. After two hours, he got a call from an Indian news channel asking for an interview on the “dismal” gross domestic product data for the April-June quarter. “I asked them how dismal is dismal? They said the Indian economy grew a dismal 6.1 per cent!”