Faltering growth

Challenges mount for new finance minister

New Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will have to hit the ground running because there is little doubt that the Indian economy is slowing markedly. There have now been three successive quarters of a slowdown. According to the data released by the Central Statistics Office on Friday, gross domestic product, or GDP, grew by only 5.8 per cent in the last quarter of 2018-19, between January and March. This is considerably less than was expected. After 8 per cent growth in the first quarter of 2018-19, the economy then posted growth of 7 per cent in the second quarter, between