Pulled economy out of morass, 'jobless growth' an opposition construct: Modi
New Delhi, July 2: The NDA government in 2014 had got the economy in a much worse condition than expected, so much so that making its details public would have been widely damaging for the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, stressing that his government worked hard to bring the economy back on track bit by bit.
In an interview with the "Swarajya" magazine published on Monday, Modi also debunked the opposition's allegation of "jobless growth", pointing out that if state governments had been claiming of creating lakhs of jobs, how could one say the Centre was creating joblessness.
Asked why his government did not bring out a White Paper on Indian economy in 2014, as was being expected by many, Modi said: "The details about the decay in the Indian economy were unbelievable. It had the potential to cause a crisis all over. In 2014, the industry was leaving India. India was in the Fragile Five. Experts believed that the ‘I' in BRICS would collapse. Public sentiment was that of disappointment and pessimism.
"Now, in the midst of this, imagine a White Paper coming out giving intricate details of the extent of damage. Instead of being a mollifier, it would be a multiplier of the distress."
The Prime Minister said what the new government led by him saw (of the economy's condition) left them "shocked" as things were "terrible" and even the budget figures were "suspicious".
He said there were several "landmines" laid in various sectors and his government accepted this uncomfortable truth and hit the ground running from the very first day to stabilise things so that the Indian economy could be strengthened for the long haul.
Modi said the positive results of government's approach are for everyone to see.
"Today, India is the fastest growing large economy of the world with strong fundamentals to propel further growth. Foreign investment is at an all-time high, GST has revolutionised the tax regime, India is an easier place to do business than ever before and, most importantly, we are seeing unprecedented levels of trust and optimism," he said.
On the lack of jobs -- something that the opposition has been vociferously alleging to corner the government, Modi blamed a "lack of consistency" in the political debate around job creation.
"We have data put out by state governments on employment. For example, the previous Karnataka government claimed to have created 53 lakh jobs. The West Bengal government said it created 68 lakh jobs in the last term.
"Now, if states are all creating a good number of jobs, is it possible that the country is not creating jobs? Is it possible that states are creating jobs but the Centre is creating joblessness?" Modi asked.
He said that more than a lack of jobs, the issue was a lack of data on jobs.
"Our opponents will naturally exploit this opportunity to paint a picture of their choice and blame us...no one has an accurate data on jobs," Modi said.
He said that the traditional matrix of measuring jobs is "simply not good enough to measure new jobs in the new economy of New India".
"For example, there are close to three lakh village-level entrepreneurs who are running Common Service Centres across the country and also creating more employment. Start-ups are working as job multipliers and there are around 15,000 start-ups which the government has helped in some way, and many more will be operational. Aggregators of various kinds employ thousands of youth.
"If we look at numbers for employment, more than 41 lakh formal jobs were created from September 2017 to April 2018 based on EPFO payroll data," Modi said.
The Prime Minister pointed out that job creation in the formal sector could have a "spinoff effect" on job creation in the informal sector too, which constitutes "around 80 per cent of all jobs".
He also reiterated that his government had a "four-pronged strategy" to double farmers' income -- decrease the input costs, ensure proper prices for the produce, ensure minimal harvest and post-harvest losses, and create more avenues for income generation.
"Not only will the farmers get minimum support price of 1.5 times their cost, they also have more avenues to get the right price with the help of e-NAM (the electronic National Agricultural Market, which provides price, production and market information to farmers)," Modi added.
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BharatPe fraud case: Delhi HC quashes lookout circular against Ashneer Grover, wife
New Delhi, Nov 12: The Delhi High Court has ordered cancellation of a lookout circular (LOC) issued against Ashneer Grover, the former MD of payment app BharatPe, and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, noting that the FIR lodged against them over allegations of cheating and forgery has already been quashed.
Justice Sanjeev Narula passed the order on Monday after the court was informed that another bench of the high court quashed the FIR on the same day.
The FIR was quashed by Justice Chandra Dhari Singh after considering a plea moved by the Grovers stating that they have arrived at a settlement with the fintech company.
In his order, Justice Narula said, "Although the copy of the order (quashing the FIR) is not available as of now, the aforenoted fact is not disputed by the counsel for the parties.
"In light of the fact that the underlying FIR has been quashed, the LOC issued by respondent No. 3 (Bureau of Immigration), in the opinion of the court, will not survive."
The LOC was issued by the Bureau of Immigration at the instance of Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in view of the investigation against the Grovers in the cheating and forgery FIR.
The court was hearing a plea moved by Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover seeking quashing of the LOC issued against them in connection with the investigation into the cheating and forgery case.
"Accordingly, the present petitions are disposed of with a direction to the respondents to cancel the LOC against the petitioners in their records," the court noted.
Earlier, the Grovers claimed that they were informed about the LOC for the first time when they were detained at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here on November 16, 2023, while they were scheduled to travel to the US.
After being detained, they were informed that the LOC was operational from November 6, 2023.
In May last year, the EOW filed an FIR against Grover, his wife Madhuri, and others under eight sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 467 and 468 (forgery), and 471 (using forged documents as genuine) for an alleged Rs 81 crore fraud after a complaint was lodged by BhartPe, the fintech unicorn.
In its complaint, BharatPe alleged that Grover and his family caused damages to the tune of Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through pass-through vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input tax credit and payment of penalty to GST authorities, illegal payment to travel agencies, forged invoices by Madhuri, and destruction of evidence.
Madhuri was the head of controls at BharatPe before she was fired in 2022 after a forensic audit revealed several irregularities.
Subsequently, Grover resigned as the chief executive officer of the fintech firm in March 2022.
