Everything's relative. We forget this truism, especially at times we shouldn't. The economy and almost everything that makes it up are measurably and, in some cases, hugely better off today than 20 years back.

Our expectations have grown, which is good. But that's no excuse for our analysis to resemble that of a day trader on amphetamine. We need to emphasise that our disappointments are engendered by a higher base. It seems incredible now, but post-financial crisis, many American pundits had speculated on the end of capitalism. Newsweek had run a cover, "We are all socialists now". What absolute rubbish, frankly. It's like saying "2013 is worse than 1991 for India". Read More

Jyothi Shankaran

    Jyothi’s last role was as Senior Editor with the business news channel Bloomberg TV India. He also worked as News Editor at business-standard.com, the online version of the business newspaper Business Standard. Jyothi is a chemical engineer from the Regional Engineering College, Srinagar.