The Central Statistics Office of the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released on Thursday its estimates of the gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter – that is, April to June – of the current financial year. They surprised on the downside; GDP growth during the quarter was 5.7 per cent, when many estimates had expected it to come in at between 6.5 per cent and 7 per cent, year on year. There have been several successive quarters of slowing growth now, and the government must examine carefully what it is doing wrong. It is worth noting