Will 2023 be any better?

All indicators point to a challenging year ahead for the world, including India

For the world’s economy and polity, 2022 has been a bad year. It had begun with promise, with Covid waning and fairly strong economic recoveries registered during 2021 in most large economies from the pandemic’s ravages in 2020, propelling global economic growth to a high of 5.8 per cent at market exchange rates. Early in 2022, inflation surged in the US and some European economies, triggering an almost synchronised tightening of monetary policies after many years of loose, accommodative stances. Inflation (and the associated monetary tightening) was aggravated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine towards the end of February, which