Beyond green shoots: How to ensure speed and quality of economic recovery

Unless key issues are addressed, even if growth bounces back from the sub-5 per cent, it will stay lower than the already inadequate long-term average of 6.6%, writes T N Ninan

The government is probably right to argue that the economy has bottomed out. That view gets support from the quarterly growth figures released on Friday, and is broadly endorsed by economists at investment banks. International organisations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) also forecast a mild recovery for India in the coming year. The consensus is that the worst is over, and the downturn has ended. This has encouraged government spokesmen to argue that what the economy has been through is little more than a cyclical trough — abetted by troubles in the financial sector, which too