Opposition Demands Pegasus Debate In Parliament, How Long Will This Unity Last? | News Today

but tonight our top story is the snoop gate showdown that has led to a lockdown in parliament the opposition led by the congress is unrelenting at the moment insisting that the modi government fully debate the issue of the pegasus spy gates scandal the center has hit back calling the opposition protests a desperate bid to stall the working of parliament all of this comes on a day when mumtab energy has been shoring up opposition unity by meeting several opposition leaders let's take a look at anand patel's report at the very top ruckus sloganeering [Music] that's wednesday's proceedings in parliament in a nutshell the center and opposition are in a relentless face-off at the center of it all the pegasus spy gate scandal congress mp rahul gandhi chaired a meeting of opposition leaders on wednesday 14 opposition parties came together to move adjournment motion notice over pegasus as a united opposition forced adjustments there are indications that 10 opposition mps may be suspended for their unruly behavior what even though the opposition has opened multiple fronts against the modi government over issues ranging from pegasus to farm laws the unity is shaky the absence of trinimul congress at rahul's meet has raised eyebrows the tmc claimed its leaders are busy organizing mamta banerjee's meeting in the capital meanwhile the west bengal chief minister who is on a mission to unite the opposition met congress president despite opposition mps stepping up their efforts to stall proceedings the government has managed to pass bills in both the houses ahmed in so while a discussion over pegasus snooping looks unlikely it has certainly brought the opposition parties together much to the discomfort of the bjp with camera person paramindr sharma this is anand patel in new delhi for india today and the breaking news that's also coming in from parliament the information technology crucial parliamentary committee meeting this afternoon was called off the meeting was set to take up snoop gate this is because the bjp mps have now decided to not not cooperate with the committee which is headed by shashi tharoor bjp mp nishikan dubai now has gone public claiming that congress mp mawa moitra called him a bri gunda the bjp mp claims that tmc leaders insulted people from bengali speaking states his scathing charge came after tmc mp mawa moitra objected to dubai's attempt to remove shashi tharoor as the i.t parliamentary party chairman calling it a desperate attempt by the bjp to prevent the i.t panel from grilling the home ministry and the telecom ministry on the pegasus scandal let's go straight across first to mawa moitra the tmc's firebrand mp joins me appreciate you are joining us ms boitra since nishikan dubai your colleague has now gone public and said that you have attacked him and called him a bihari gunda during that i.t parliamentary standing committee meeting you need to respond is it true that this meeting unprecedently was called up because there was no quorum and no telecom or home ministry officials who you had summoned were allowed to come to the meeting and you in turn called nishikan dubai a bihari gunda rajib i'm very amused at this i've already tweeted about this and i'm glad you asked me up front about this now the iit committee meeting has 29 members the sending committee two of which have become ministers so it's 27. quorum is 10. out of 10 there were nine members present and signed in none of the bjp members not one were signed in and therefore they were not present now i'm supposed to have called somebody a name please check the attendance sheet if that person who i reclaims i have called him a name if he were present then it would have been the tenth he would have been the tenth name if he had been the tenth name there would have been a quorum and the meeting would have continued no are you telling me no no no no no no no one minute let the audience understand this to understand are you telling me that the bjp mps who are part of the standing committee on it attended the meeting refused to sign the register because they wanted the meeting to be called off on pegasus so that there was no forum they were not there they were not there please check the attendance register the quorum did not happen there are nine people present i was present was present was present now hussein was present was present was present and uh was present and about two others natarajan was present and one more person was presented these were the nine members who were present and whose attendance has been recorded on the sheet because we were one short we could not we fell short of the quorum and the meeting did not take place it is another thing altogether that the three uh it ministry telecom ministry and ministry of home affairs who were supposed to sell their secretaries did not send them but we fell short of one member are you telling me are you telling me ma'am that the i.t ministry and the home ministry refused to send officials to a parliamentary committee which has summoned them on pegasus correct that is correct they are in contempt if you if you do not have written permission of the chairman and the people who were supposed to uh who were supposed to attend was actually the telecom secretary and the i.t secretary and an additional secretary from the minister of home affairs they had confirmed attendance and the agenda list was sent out an hour before the meeting they informed the the chairman they were not coming they did not take his permission that is actually content of the lok sabha because if you're in content of a standing committee you're in contempt of the lok sabha no but make sense again make sense please make sure your people understand this please make sure yes who if i if i'm supposed to have called someone x or why well all i can say is if the shoe fits wear it by all means but how could i have called someone a name when that person wasn't present if that person were present he would have been the tenth they would have been quote um and the meeting would have happened ma'am you know the reason happened what i'm getting to understand from what you're saying is what has happened in parliament is almost unprecedented that a standing committee has called home ministry and telecom ministry office presumably to discuss just a minute presumably to discuss the fallout of pegasus or ask questions and they one hour before the meeting said they were not coming is that what you are telling us today that's exactly that's exactly what it is not one person to pose but where does this leave where does this leave therefore the whole pegasus issue because we were told that shashi taru yourself and a few others were keen that the i.t standing committee would discuss the issue possibly of spying on people of spyware and now none of that will be discussed because you are claiming that bjp mps attended the meeting refused to sign the register and government officials are not cooperating absolutely that's exactly what happens i'm not claiming this is the truth there is nothing of my claim and counter claim or anything like this this is where fact none of the three ministries additional secretary minister of home affairs secretary telecom secretary i.t were on the agenda they confirmed attendance an hour before did not show up no officials turned up but besides that we had 19 we were supposed to have a quorum of 10 nine people came i've even named you the one who were not there and we didn't have quorum because we didn't have the tenth person so anyone who claims he's been abused like i said if the shoe fits please wear it but i couldn't have a view someone who was technically not there what is this where does this where does this leave the whole process of parliamentary scrutiny that i you know what i what what is worrying me is the battle now the government is claiming you're being obstructionist the government says that the opposition is being obstructionist insisting that pegasus or no do you parliament when the 2g scan went on the entire winter session the bjp had uh completely washed out had completely stored parliament at the end of it they got a jpc into the 2g scandal now the pegasus issue is the biggest issue right now the pegasus issue is the biggest issue right now and we would be falling way short of our responsibilities as opposition members if we did not want to address this suppressing the pressing issue of not just us it wasn't just parliamentarians and opposition leaders who were stooped upon rajv there were media people on the list there were army people there were raw people this is an issue of national security on day one every single opposition party given adjournment motions every single opposition party every day we have said all we need is a discussion on pegasus we need the home minister or the prime minister in the house and we need a discussion the speaker the poor speaker i feel sorry for the poor man he keeps calling us in and he keeps saying i'm very sorry my hands are tied they will discuss everything but pegasus you want to discuss kobet we can you want to discuss you're telling me the speaker you're telling me the speaker himself has told you all that they will not discuss that they will not discuss pegasus everything's on the table except for pegasus and by the way i can tell you on record yesterday when they learned they couldn't stop it they filed a fake privilege motion against the chairman of the i.t committee that didn't hold because i have already filed a privileged motion against the i.t minister and since he's coming to the house there's no way a privilege motion against mr through will hold so yesterday they were so desperate because we had 10 people for the cbfc meeting they were calling up actually the two ministers two senior ministers of the bjp were calling up bjp allies and scaring them and telling them that you better tell your people to stay away from the i.t committee meeting when subway subhash chandra came in today and there's video footage of that when he came into the iit committee meeting to sign he was physically prevented from coming in unless he go lest he goes in and signs no no you're you're making no no that's another you are telling me that subhash chandra who is pegasus this cctv all over the parliament house annex he came into his car he was actually leaving then mr tarou and i were waiting for our car so this is all on record there's nothing to hide all the press people saw him so you see how desperate this government is they will not discuss it in parliament and they are accusing us of obstructing parliament unless we discuss pegasus there is nothing else to discuss we are sorry i'm going to ask you a final time i am going to ask you therefore are you saying that pegasus is going the way of 2g that the fact is that the opposition has decided if the bjp blocked an entire session of parliament over 2g we're going to block parliament on pegasus until the prime minister presumably comes to the house and discusses the issue am i correct yes of course we are very clear on this every single party every day the bhujapi puts out some feel about how it's opposition disunity and so-and-so called a meeting and so and so didn't agree today we were in the well of house and we we were chanting slogans in six different languages when we said you met peace from the punjab and the south were shouting when we were when it was in tamil we were saying it so there was complete unity every single opposition party is united on this the parliament cannot function and you and the congress are on the same you and the congress are on the same page 200 every single opposition party in the interest of national security in the interests of the safety of our citizens or on the same page we need to discuss pegasus the government needs to explain what happened who uh okayed it and what's the way forward okay if this is done not done there's no way forward if this is okay mawa moitra you've been very plain you've told us exactly what's happened the sequence of events and really this is going to create a bit of a stir because i don't think this has happened in parliament for a standing committee this kind of uh we've never had people we've it's never happened before because we've not had people as shameless and as desperate before what we saw today was such a thing of desperation we didn't have that before okay let's leave it there mawa moitro for joining me and at the very top of the show thanks very much let me therefore now widen this debate how long will opposition unity then last mawa moitra says opposition is united on the issue of pegasus is this parliament session therefore a total washout as ms moitrow has claimed is the government stonewalling the pegasus debate and unwilling to discuss it just some of the issues we'll raise let's get a bjp viewpoint from guru prakash the bjp spokesperson and the congress viewpoint from supriya shinee to you mr guru prakash you've just heard mawa moitra saying that the bjp is behaving in a shameless and desperate manner you didn't even allow an i.t standing committee to meet today by not allowing a quorum you physically stopped some of the members from attending it this is unprecedented your response rajiv ji at the very outset we must have a sense of perspective and a background on day zero of monsoon session honorable prime minister of the country has said and i quote is always productive and it's important to have a constructive discussion so it was a he welcomed it that you must come and discuss today in the business advisory committee there was a discussion and congress party and all the other opposition leader were asked you come and discuss but this sort of pandemonium this sort of cluelessness by the congress party and the other opposition leader it is historic in nature sir that sir let me so i just need to ask you this are you telling me that the government of india is ready to discuss pegasus because the government has very clearly said on more than one occasion that they are not going to discuss this issue what the i.t minister said is sufficient what is the government hiding what are you running away from on pegasus rajdeep ji there is no question of it this question in itself is misleading and you need to have a conducive atmosphere you need to have a positive atmosphere you cannot have any discussion before the session started my friends from the opposition they said [Music] is the prime minister and the home minister ready to discuss pegasus in parliament if the opposition the government has said we are ready to discuss all issues opposition is saying we want to start with pegasus government is saying we will not discuss pegasus you tell me i want a clear answer is the government is the prime minister ready to sit in the house and answer clarified doubts did the israeli spyware company sign a contract with the government of india sir your question is value loaded i am saying this time and again in the business advisory committee the opposition is ready to raise any issue including pegasus so i don't understand this pointlessness i don't understand this when the entire purpose of the opposition is to derail the monsoon session since day zero france said please come and have a discussion on any issue but today the theatrical intervention of mr raul gandhi the nation must know that mr rahul gandhi is now talking about the spirit of constitution he has no right he has no local standard he is coming from a political institution he is coming from a structure there is nothing democratic not even an iota of congress is democratic in nature and now they are giving us lessons for democracy this is unacceptable if you give me if you give me time it should give me time nso and so as far as nso is concerned they are categorically said that the list is not a list of target it's not a list of potential target so you don't believe nso you don't read the government of india you don't believe any institution you don't believe the democracy you don't believe in the constitution you only believe what washington post on your kind okay the principal argument against the congress is this is obstructionism that what is happening is that at a time when there are issues like covet fuel prices farm laws that you originally went wanted to discuss you've now decided pegasus or nothing you know rajdeep firstly i want to shatter this myth that the bjp tries to spread and then i will tell you step by step of how much they lie and how blatantly they lie firstly this uh investigation by top-notch 17 news investigative agencies from le mans of france to guardian of the united kingdom to washington post of the us and several others these are marquee names and news investigative journalism people that the bjp in the past have quoted when they were in the opposition let me remind you anyways this has spread across 45 countries and many of those countries have launched a probe on the basis of what has come to a knowledge in public domain from hungary mexico morocco israel the israeli defense minister has gone down to meet the french president because they're obviously very upset about what has happened we are perhaps the only democracy in the world where the government of the day wants to turn a blind eye and wants to shut up everybody who's raising these questions who's denying is saying the i.t minister has already spoken why are you insistent that the prime minister and the whole minister come yes i will come to that i insist on that because this is perhaps the biggest snooping scandal in independent india and it is not just eavesdropping your phone conversations it is your entire digital print from your photos videos camera mic your bank transactions everything is in the hand of a foreign firm and not and not in the hands of normal people remember this is chief justice of india this is the election commission this is leader of india's principal opposition this is the cbi director this is people from finance people from banking corporates who have been left from the snooping gate so this is actually a military great spyware the government government is very clear that this is not an issue they are willing to discuss the government is very clear this is an issue they are not willing to discuss in parliament they are saying there are other foreign their their claim is that at the moment there are issues the it ministers responded national security is involved this is not an issue and they are saying please provide us verifiable evidence before we move on so you know the the government of the day needs to be reminded each time when they begin lying so firstly let me point out till about three days back and i was debating this issue every day including on your network till about three days back every bjp spokesperson said why are you creating a ruckus we are willing to debate this we are willing to discuss this have a full-fledged discussion now you want that chapter to be closed because your neck is on the line of fire guess what it is not as simple and not as easy 10 phones from india have been forensically found to have pegasus software and its remnants the reality is that the scandal is right at the doorstep of the home minister right at the door so what do you want right now so what do you want cannot turn up ma'am ma'am i want to understand what is it that you want security involved what is it that you want the raul gandhi says he wants a supreme court monitored probe i hear sitharam actually saying there's a jpc has ordered her own two-member judicial commission what do you want no firstly i don't think this attempt to say that the opposition is divided and is asking for different voices the opposition in one voice wants the prime minister to answer the questions that the country is seeking answers to did you or did you not use pegasus and the reality raj is if you did you have to give an explanation of why you were using it endangering treason and national security and if you did not do you not want to know who was using it in your country is that how shallow national security and charges of treason can be we want a debate in parliament we want the prime minister to answer the question and of course there should be a supreme court monitor probe into every allegation that has been raised because these are very serious charges of treason and official secrets act being breached the i.t act the right to privacy stalking of women there are various acts that have been pulled into this the prime minister cannot run away from this debate he genuinely has to come to parliament and answer every question that this country answers you know guru prasad the prime minister comes once a week usually on thursday mornings to the rajya sabha beyond that he is not seen in parliament the home minister also has been mostly absent during this session the government is passing bills in a din when you are in the opposition you objected to this way of parliamentary intervention in fact arun gately at that time of course had said that obstruction is a way to in a way communicate the government's uh the opposition's concerns when the government when the opposition now does it they are accused of obstructionism is the government reluctant to have a debate on this issue is there something in this pegasus issue that troubles the government sir there is no question at all and when the honorable i.t minister has made a detailed statement he has categorically said that there is no substance to this kind of sensationalism and whatever the congress party is suggesting it's just preposterous without any proof rajdeepji you tell me what is the guarantee that if there is a supreme court monitored inquiry the congress party would not raise question mark on the integrity and even ask your supreme court like they have done in the republic uh matter it is in front of eyes of the people of india and who is the congress party to give certificate to media authorities that this is a top notch this is not a top notch this is uh the government media this is simply and has no basis the people of india still remember the theatrics and the respect mr rahul gandhi has for the palink convention when he tore the ordinance of his own party prime minister mr manmohan singh in front of the people of india what do they want to suggest they have no respect for parliament they have no respect for parliamentary convictions so i think this this this this debate is misleading when the country should be having the constructive discussion on issues like corona no why why why no no no guru prasad why is national security not an import if your government has actually been spying on opposition leaders how can you say it's not an important issue it's scandalous it will be seen as a disfiguring of our democracy how can you say that it's not an important issue where is the evidence you give me an iota of evidence and we would ensure that there's seven seven phones [Music] how can the nso nso is the company which has been exporting the spyware if algeria if france if israel itself can announce order an inquiry what is stopping the government of india we are a democracy even autocracies are announcing inquiries and we are not willing to do so algeria we don't we don't need lessons on democracy from anyone sir this government the people of india have reported faith in the leadership of prime minister narendra modi repeatedly in 2014 and 2019 and i can give you so many state elections but a democratic government would not have boycotted a democratic government would not have done what they did at the i.t standing committee today you stopped you stopped officials from even coming before the committee you did not allow a quorum what kind of democracy is this you are passing bills without even having a discussion [Music] and he also values he gives a lot of importance to the suggestion from opposition on the days of the monsoon session and the behavior and the pandemonium orchestrated by the opposition party why are they not transferable for it i agree with you that anything and everything under the sun can be discussed on the floor of the parliament right this is no behavior mr rahul gandhi shows this kind of utter disrespect for parliamentary convention he must come ahead and answer for it okay final word to supriya where does this lead at the end of the day the people of this country will need answers you will argue on hacking and you are insisting that that is the issue in parliament you have every right but outside parliament people are worried about fuel prices they are worried about the covet situation they are worried about the about job losses have you all decided that this parliament session all these issues are being put on the back burner no absolutely not and i'm quite amazed that the bjp suddenly wants to discuss corona why have only 9.8 people in this country being vaccinated in the country 140 mr guru prakash why has india's growth target been revised lower by three percentage points to nine and a half percent from twelve and a half percent why is there ten percent uh in this country mr guru prasad i have just one thing to say this spying scandal is an erosion of electoral democracy in this country it's an attack on independent institutions it's an attempt to infiltrate independent institutions and weaken our democracy we are not going to turn a blind eye and we will not look the other way foreign let's leave it there let's leave it there because this we can go endlessly clearly we are reaching the stage where we are heading for a complete washout of the parliament monsoon session it's happened before but it's now happening at a time where clearly both the opposition and the government appear unrelenting in their respective stance thank you both very much for joining us let's take a breather now one of the concerns is the economy the international monetary fund has sharply cut you might have seen yesterday india's gdp forecast for 2122 from 12.5 to 9.5 percent the imf's move is in line with the reserve bank of india's latest gdp projection as well the rbi remember has also lowered the country's gdp to around 9.5 from 10 what exactly is the message that the imf is sending out a short while ago i spoke to the imf's chief economist gita gopinath here are accepts so how does one explain the imf's outlook for the world and india for 2021-22 at the moment joining me now is the chief economist at the imf dr gita gopinath always a pleasure to have you dr gopinath on the show let me turn to the concern first in india because the imf has slashed india's projected growth rate for 2122 from 12.5 in april now to 9.5 does that in a way suggest that in extraordinary times you're just not able to predict what comes next we had the second wave in march to may and that seems to have sent all the numbers into a tizzy i think always a pleasure to talk to you so if you if you recall when i did the projections in april i had wondered there were downside risks to our focus because we were just seeing the start of the uh the the second wave in india and while we had assumed that there would be localized lockdowns the lockdowns became far more widespread there were statewide lockdowns and so that's the reason why we have a downgrade of three percentage points and also coming out of it the recovery is modest because again you know there are still headwinds there i mean there could be the pandemic is not over there could be another surge so keeping all of that in mind we have a fairly modest recovery for this year no i'm sorry to sound skeptical but does that mean that you know even now these numbers could go into a tizzy should there be god forbid another wave or an increase in the number of corona cases in india so in that sense is it becoming much more difficult to give any forecast with any kind of certainty because of the number of x factors here whereas we're living in incredibly uncertain times and we have a pandemic a violence that's determining the course of uh economies so there is a lot of uncertainty here but again you know it still is the case that india had a very deep recession last year and we're seeing the kind of growth numbers that we're seeing right now it tells you something about the gap the distance that still needs to be traveled so for instance uh even by the end of this year india is still around eight to ten percent below where we would have projected it would have been in the absence of this pandemic so these numbers give you at least a ballpark estimate of the kinds of gaps that need to be closed and therefore what kinds of policy actions are needed now the reason i'm asking you this and i'm sorry to press you on this for a moment it's just that the growth projection the last three years seemed to be going all right because so much else seems to be happening around us at the moment so can we say with any certainty that come december january uh these projections that we you know india will witness an upsurge to 9.5 which is your latest predictions can actually come true they could go horribly wrong couldn't they if there is a third wave once again i agree with you that there is a lot of uncertainty but gradually just let's compare the numbers here we get 12 and a half percentage in in april and we're down to nine and a half i think there were people who thought that number would come down all the way to two or three percentage so we're you know these yes there are adjustments that are being made there's tremendous uncertainty there's you know epidemiological models they try to predict where the next wave will be have a huge band of uncertainty but again like i said in terms of a ballpark estimate these are good guiding numbers so you you you still remain convinced that the economy in a sense is on the path to recovery or is it only in really comparison to what was the situation pre-march uh that's pre uh march 2020 pre-covert 2020. so in a sense when you look at the numbers in the larger context the economy is still nowhere near where it needs to be so the recovery that we have right now indeed comes back after a very deep recession so a negative seven point three percent for uh last year and then we are you know there's a return to some kind of normalcy but you know if you keep in mind that india on average tends to grow at around five to six percent on an annual basis there is still a big gap in terms of where or you know where india has to would kind of where india should have been in the absence of the pandemic and you can see this in employment numbers i mean the most after the most recent wave you see unemployment rates go up but it's not just unemployment rates i'm also worried about the labor force participation rates which is you see the number of people who are even actively looking for work that number has come down uh you know significantly and so those are the gaps that still remain so again you know when you have large base effects you're going to see big very large numbers and let me show you for instance the the quarterly reading that's going to come for india for april through uh april may june that particular quarter is going to show some very blockbuster numbers but again that's keeping in mind that there was about a 24 decline last year around the same time so these numbers have to be kept in perspective so everything isn't really in comparison to what it was in 2020 uh let me you know one of the interesting aspects of your survey seems to suggest that the countries that are vaccinated faster are the ones where your growth projections are higher the u.s up by 0.6 percent you're revising your growth projections for uk by 1.7 so the worry is is the world and that seems to be one of the reasons why you're worried about india the slow pace of vaccination so is the world getting divided according to the imf by countries that are vaccinating faster so better chances of growth or better chance of coping with the pandemic and those who are struggling with the aftershocks of the pandemic because vaccination levels are slower vaccinations are a very important factor behind this divide that we're seeing in terms of some countries coming back very strongly while others are saying weak to modest recoveries and many falling behind so we have the advanced economies where on average 40 of their population has been fully vaccinated that number is 11 in emerging markets and when you go down to low-income countries for instance in africa it's less than 2 so we have this big difference and we know that for many economies the service sector is a big engine of of growth and when you're not able to engage in activities in the service sector and you cannot have contact intensive activities go to restaurants and so on travel tourism then you know that poses an important problem in the case of india i mean we should you know it is it is a good sign that we're seeing vaccinations at around 4 million people a day which if if that number if that pace is maintained till the end of this calendar year that would be a coverage of around 38 percent of the population being fully vaccinated you know that is much better than one would have thought of in january or in in those early months so there has there is pick up but again that's the area where a lot more can be done in terms of kind of exhilarating especially towards the end of the year when you're going to get more and more vaccines available now the reason i'm asking you this is that you know you're seeing in the united states a resurgence of the delta variant cases up again you're seeing a bit of that in the uk as well i'm just wondering you know with the word still oscillating from the aftershocks one possible wave after the other i come back to it uh dr gopinath is anything predictable anymore can you really give any of these growth projections with any kind of certainty or how much of this is based on the concept of hope and optimism both at the at the fund as well as an industry so i think you know we shouldn't get all flustered over here uh you know let's let's keep in mind that the vaccines still work when it comes to severe disease when it comes to hospitalizations and debts the vaccines work against all the variants we know so far so yes cases have gone up and you saw that go up really sharply in the uk despite having close to 70 percent get won those you've seen cases go up by a lot and of course they're coming down they're actually coming down fairly rapidly now in the uk but if you look at hospitalizations they've you know they went up some but not much so that's a good you know that's if we can get that in all parts of the world that is a good place to be so again getting in the u.s it's only about 50 of the population that's fully vaccinated so there's a big chunk that's unvaccinated and you're going to see cases going up but you know given that the high-risk population the adult populations have been vaccinated at least in terms of hospitalizations and debts we are not seeing the same pattern so it's not the same cycle repeating itself every single time this time we're seeing waves we're not seeing big increases in hospitalizations again in parts of the world where there's sufficient vaccine coverage so i think you know there is a hope of getting out of this tunnel but we really have to get to widespread vaccinations otherwise there can be some new variant and we will be having a completely different conversation next time around as we uh come to the end of this i just want to come back to where we started you know there is a belief that the imf is talking up the indian economy when the reality is very different i meet people on the ground who say look at how we are suffering jobs are down incomes are down we're having to close down small businesses and you tell us as the imf did in april that we are going to get into double-digit growth you know there is this alternate reality being created the reality on the ground is different what will you tell them that you know are these as i is there a huge mismatch between the reality and the hope i'll make a couple of points rajiv firstly i think when people tr read the numbers they really do have to put it in the context of a very deep recession last year a historically deep recession in india so when you add the numbers together when you kind of look at what's happened cumulatively over two years i would say that you know there is some recovery but there is a long way to go so it's not incongruous that on one hand you have a lot of people who think that they've been very hard hit and the numbers because there is indeed like i said a huge gap between where india should should have been in the absence of the pandemic and where it is now so please keep that in in context uh and and a lot more needs to be done uh in in terms of uh policies and in terms of addressing the weaknesses in the different sectors the second part i would point out is the fact that yes there are some some things that don't show up in the gdp numbers for instance in formal sector just much harder to measure and they are getting hard ahead you know there's extreme poverty there's distribution consequences i mean the stock market is booming but then there are msmes that are in very bad shape so there are all these distributional aspects that also need to be taken into account when you want to get a full picture of how the economy is doing so i mean those would be the two points i'd make in one minute if i were to ask you one two three the three things that you want to see india do right away i would say first uh provide additional support to low income households second uh would be to uh you know is some more spending on the health sector and also for uh msmes uh and i think it's very important for india to set out uh and on education i'm sorry i missed that and then i think it's very important for india to credibly communicate a medium-term fiscal consolidation strategy which is one implement now but it's a good signaling device of how they will get to lower levels of deficit and that combination will be will help propel a stronger recovery okay final question dr gupta i'm going to record this three months from now when you come up with your next sort of outlook are you up more optimistic than you are today or do you believe that there could still be those x factors i repeat the third wave a slowing down of vaccinations or non-availability of vaccinations to certain parts of the world including india is the others worry so do you believe the worst is over i think we're still in the period of of uncertain events there are some parts of the world where given the amount of vaccination they have i would say the worst is behind and this is we're in a better place again as long as you do what needs to be done we know that vaccinations work we need to get many more shots in arm and if we can do that in the next six months then we are in a you know far more durable recovery and we can put this behind us but unfortunately i don't control all the levers over here so i just don't know where this will go okay i think that's fair enough i think you are putting in enough safeguards this time and caveats and i think that is important in the times in which we leave these are uncertain extraordinary times but i appreciate dr gopinath the effort that you and the imf are putting to give us this economic outlook because it at least gives us a sense of where we stand at the moment so thank you very much for joining me here on the news today thank you thank you let's take a break at that point when we return we are turning to the crisis at the moment flash floods cloud bursts have wreaked havoc now in jammu and kashmir and