<b>Letters:</b> By the numbers?

The sigh of relief coming out from all quarters after the latest release of gross domestic product data was quite amusing. Indeed, if one asks a businessman or an economist if he has full faith in the competence and processes of India's statistics department, the sigh quickly takes on another character - all this in the home of Aryabhatta and Ramanujan. Hearteningly, India is perhaps not the only guilty party here; we often hear of China fudging its numbers. What is perhaps less known or understood is the fudging of numbers at the department that puts out America's inflation statistics. Their practice of adjusting the real inflation numbers by factors of technological advance or innovation has severely understated the true extent of inflation in everything from pumpkins to facials. They have convinced themselves with a straight face that the average American's costs are up by a mere 10 per cent in aggregate since 2008. Now, if only you could find a living American who actually believes that.

Ultimately, in our data-driven age, the statistics department of every country needs to be separated from the state. Perhaps nations will then find, to their relief, that if they invest a reasonable amount in the sanctity and probity of their statistics, they can do away with their Ivy League finance and economics departments.

Rohan Soares Mumbai

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