Choked off momentum

Faster vaccination a must for durable economic rebound

Important new macro-economic data was released on Monday, providing a fuller picture of India’s economic recovery from the pandemic and the degree to which it has been stalled by the recent second wave of cases, alongside the fiscal space available to the government to deal with the emergency. The Union Ministry of Statistics released its provisional estimates of national income for the completed financial year 2020-21, alongside the regular quarterly estimates of that year’s fourth quarter from January to March. The headline number, gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the pandemic year of 2020-21, contracted less than expected, at only