NEW DELHI: A group of more than 100 experts sounded a pre-election alarm Friday over Indian economic data, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of tweaking or burying unwelcoming numbers. The warning comes after India’s central bank chief quit in December in a spat over alleged government interference. The 108 economists and social scientists said in an open letter that Indian statistics were “under a cloud for being influenced and indeed even controlled by political considerations”. The letter also questioned a revised growth rate of 8.2 per cent in 2016-17, “the highest in a decade!”, that “seems to be at variance with the evidence marshalled by many economists”. “Quality of data has deteriorated and governmental interference has created an atmosphere where we don’t have an objective assessment of India’s economic growth,” Ashutosh Datar, an independent economist, told AFP.

Source: Pakistan Today March 15, 2019 10:52 UTC