First thing I really want to say is that Allah SWT created anxiety and created stress and created fear and created all of the emotions that we feel, including depression and sadness and happiness and joy and everything in between. And so it's really important to know that anxiety is something that actually a small amount of is healthy and important. Why? Because it actually helps us kind of jump into place and deal with and respond to emergencies the way we are right now. Every day has been different for the last several days now. There have been new rulings that have come out but related to this virus and what you're supposed to do and not do and go and not go and work and schools have shut down and places outside have shut down. So that small amount of is a healthy anxiety that helps you get into shape and actually figure out your meal plans and figure out your buying essentials and figure out how to do activities with kids and how to work from home and all the rest that goes to an emergency response. However it's the anxiety and stress that's over that amount that becomes problematic that we need to talk about how to actually cope with and deal with it appropriately. So InshaAllah I hope to share with you five steps that are practical, that can be put in place and used InshaAllah to respond to the feelings of stress that we're all experiencing right now. Number one is to talk and listen. What I mean by talking is it's really important that you actually share with other people how you're feeling. Even though this discussion of the coronavirus is being widely discussed publicly, it's really important that you personally discuss this.  Why? Because this is a very overwhelming situation. It's a novel and new situation and talk to people that you trust that you're able to be vulnerable with and open up and share how you're actually feeling. That helps the other person also be vulnerable and open up and share how they're feeling. And then there is a shared sense of we're all in this together that brings down that sense of anxiety. Now talking, the flip side of that is listening. And I really think it's important that we also listen to those who are the most impacted by this virus. Think about our elders, for example, who are hearing really scary news about how they're most likely to be susceptible and potentially even mortality from this virus. So we need to reach out to our elders, ask them how they're feeling, especially those who are in isolation because we don't want to get them sick and they're feeling really lonely. Reach out and talk with them and listen to how they're doing and feeling about this. Let's talk to our children too. A lot of people think maybe the children don't quite understand, but that's not true. It turns out that children actually reciprocate and mimic our own emotions. So we role model our emotions and behavior to our children. If we're really anxious, so are they. And if we're calm and collected, those for the most part feel the same way as well. And the reason I say check in with them is because that way you'll never know actually what they're thinking and what mistakes and fallacies they have in their mind or how scared they really are unless you actually talk with them and listen. And it's really important to remember that we all deal with anxiety differently and trauma and news and grief differently. So be sure not to judge and be sure not to assume that how you're feeling is exactly how someone else is feeling or the opposite. And also don't be flexible. Don't shame somebody else because of how they're feeling. Try to be as supportive as possible. Number two, as much as possible try to moderate your news intake. Now I know things are changing not just day by day anymore, but hour by hour things are being updated and changing. And so for me to say don't watch the news so regularly, I know is a big ask. But I do want to say it's really important to unplug every so often in the day. And you need to take these moments where you're not kind of being washed over by news that's all very scary and most of it is actually bad news. So you want to make sure that you do the alternatives instead. And here I want to encourage us to really use these moments that a lost pod data has given us. And kind of we're all quarantined and meant to stay at home as much as possible and social distancing for people who are not immediate family members. And to think about what that means for our family members and those who we live with closely. It means more time with them. But that time can either be time of difficulty in fighting and whatnot or it could be time of quality time and really having face-to-face and direct conversation and really opening up. And whether these are adults or children, it's really wonderful to spend this time to actually talk about the reasons why lost pods data brought this to us, to humanity. Now, we don't know all the reasons, but it's helpful to think about stories, for example, from the Sita. For example, take the story of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam who directly was impacted by likely a virus. And what I mean by that is think about how both of his parents, mother and father in different years passed away because of the fever of Medina. And they were both, it was a contagious fever, possibly virus, that they were both impacted by, died from and he was twice orphaned because of. Think about that had directly impacted him Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Think about the companions or the Sahaba that dealt with plague, right? And the all-threat Muslim history and how the Muslims developed the rules related to that. Think about the rules we're hearing about washing our hands all the time and making sure they're clean. Think about how we as Muslims have rules of purity where we're supposed to wash our hands constantly in Wudu and we wash in Isdindja after washing using the bathroom and before we eat and after we eat. And we wash our hands and all through Islam is a religion of purity. Talk with our children and our adults too about this concept or come at it from a different perspective of Fiqh and talk about how, you know, people were really amazed when they were hearing the Mu'addin and the part of the Adhan where he would say, you know, Hayyal-e-Sala or come to prayer instead of saying, pray in your homes and people were really amazed by that. They never heard something like that. But it turns out that these are rules that are actually right in our Fiqh books in the chapter of prayer related to inclement, whether it were difficult times. And so really reviving the knowledge of Islam that we maybe don't know related to all of these things. This would be a great time to talk about how humans, the laws of love puts it in place of how humans should deal with the animal kingdom. Right? This is a zawadically transferred illness. So human interaction with the animal kingdom and animal cruelty and things of that nature. These would be wonderful times to talk about these concepts with our family members. And when you're done and tired of talking, this would be a great time to then do some of the other things like playing and laughter. Pull out the board games and the puzzles and the bucket of Legos that hasn't been touched in some time. Dust it off and play with your family members. Use humor to dissolve the tension that's in the home as much as possible. Not overly, but to some extent. It's a healthy coping mechanism and then spirituality. And that brings me to number three. Number three is to take time.  Make sure that you're taking breaks all throughout your day. For many of us, we've never worked from home before or had children and work all at home all at the same time. Figure out how to break up the day. Figure out how to make sure you're eating healthy and sleeping well because those also help your immunity from the virus and help you calm your anxiety down. Make sure that this is not a time to just binge watch, for example, with the extra moments that you have, but rather use the extra moments in spiritual connection. As Muslims, we have these beautiful worship in our faith that allows us to turn to Allah at times of need, like the prayer of Hajr, the prayer of need. We also have the concept of Atikaf and women are able to do Atikaf in their homes and you're able to do spiritual seclusion, which is a strong Sunnah, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And even if it's not a formal Atikaf, you're able to sit on the prayer rug a few times a day with each of your prayers and actually make du'rah.  Think about how this little invisible thing, Allah brought it, but also has the ability to take it away. So think about these things spiritually. And I also want to remind you that one of my spiritual teachers would say that the Atikaf is like a valve on a pressure cooker that allows the steam to get out. And if you don't have that valve, it'll explode. So take these times to really focus in and contemplate on Allah SWT and why He brought this to us. And to remember things like how it says in the Qur'an, لا يكلف الله نفسا إلا وسعها but Allah SWT will never burden a soul more than it can bear. So clearly He believes we can bear this. He also says قُلَّ يُصِبَنَ إِلَّا مَا كَتَبَ اللَّهُ لَنَ that Allah will never send us something except that it's already written for us. So clearly this has been written for us too but we need to really reflect on the wisdom of why it's here. Number four is to take action. And what that means is to be actionable and that really helps a lot of people reduce their anxiety. Basically, think about all the people who are vulnerable in the community, who need help. Think about the elderly who nobody is checking in on them. Maybe this is a time to be able to call them or to even FaceTime with them. Even the grandparents who the children can't visit because we don't want to get them sick. You know, do video conferencing with them and check how they're doing. The elder sister or brother who's in the master that you used to know about that nobody really is checking in on, you call and check in on them, right? Figure out how you can actually help all of those who are needing groceries or meal trains. These are all things that actually help people reduce their anxiety, including children, involve them in this because it actually, when you feel a sense of control in helping to plan for these things, it brings your anxiety down. And also remember, you know, this is a time to think and teach children about the lessons of all the things that we have been stockpiling, for example. You know, and the Islamic lessons related to not hoarding and sharing. This would be a wonderful time to be able to take the extra bag of rice and extra bag of beans and extra sanitizer and extra wipes and put together a care package for the person who doesn't have a shelter and is going to be more immunocompromised than us because they can't stay home because they don't have one, right? To be able to drop off these care packages to the person who is homeless or living paycheck by paycheck or to give Sadaqa, right, charity in these times and in the wonderful campaigns that are out there helping folks that need extra assistance in this time. Number five is to get help. And by that I mean the first four things that I mentioned are going to help so many of us spring down our anxiety. But the fifth one is really for all of us who have more anxiety than the four things that I mentioned can help. Maybe that because there's already an underlying mental health condition, anxiety or depression, or maybe it's because we're just simply super overwhelmed with everything that's happening. You have to know that mental health professionals are here to help and they're trained to help. And yet Khadil Center, we actually have converted the majority of our sessions to be online through web therapy, which means that they're more available to everybody than ever before. And I really want to make sure that you connect with us to make sure that you do get the help of trained professionals if you feel very overwhelmed despite everything I mentioned. And lastly, we also have these videos that we're producing every so often so that you're able to also help learn practical coping steps and mechanisms to really put in place throughout your time. I hope that was useful and may Allah protect me and you and all of our families and the Ummah and all of humanity and may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala lift this difficulty from us insha'Allah and make us stronger because of it. In my last parting words to you, I just want to remind us that if Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala brought this virus to us, he has the ability to bring it away from us insha'Allah. Wa Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa As-Salaamu Alaa Sayyidina Muhammad Wa Ala Alayhi Wa Sahbih As-Salaamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh


Hello and let's talk once again about the economy. The past few days, we've seen a lot of discussions about the GDP after those disastrous numbers came out. There's been no shortage of experts saying that the situation is really not so bad and that this is all due to the pandemic and is a flash in the pan. Others are of course, happier focusing on drug rates and CBI investigations. But we do know that there are deeper structural issues with the economy. The pandemic and the lockdown worsened what was already a crisis and this crisis was created by years of flawed government policies. Now it's no surprise that the government does not seem to have any answer to all these developments and this crisis because it caused it in the first place. In today's episode, we take a look at a sectoral breakdown of this crisis after the GDP numbers came out. Are any sectors doing better? There was a lot of celebration about agriculture having registered growth. What does this mean? We talked to journalist Orindya Chakravarty to find out. Orindya, thank you so much for joining us. So over the past few days, we have seen of course a lot of discussion around the GDP numbers, a lot of breakdowns. So let's maybe take a look at the sectoral breakdown in a bit in detail. And what do you think regarding, how do you analyze the kind of decline that has happened in the various sectors? Is there anything surprising in this or was it as expected? I think that we knew that certain sectors will be very badly hit. Obviously, manufacturing was going to be one of them because factories were closed during the lockdown. And that's down in terms of value added in manufacturing. That's down 40% compared to last year, the same quarter, last year. Construction is down, I think, about 50% or a little more than that. Mining is down quite sharply, again, around that 40% mark. There's several services which are down sharply. But the surprising part, or maybe not the surprising part, is that banking, the financial services, now they come clubbed in the GDP numbers. And I'm sure that maybe if one goes to the Ministry of Statistics, they'll probably give you a break up of that. But the data that is released and the press release, financial services comes clubbed together with real estate services, which is and also other professional services. I think those include things like lawyers and stuff like that, right? And regular professions that we have. Now, maybe doctors as well. I'm not very sure, but I think that's part of it. Now, if you look at it, that is down by just 4%, 4.3% in real term. There's an inconstant 2011-12 prices. And if one looks at it in today's prices and current prices again, around 5% or so. Now, the overall economy has declined by 24%. GV has gross value added and the economy is down by about 22-23%. But the financial services, real estate and other professional services is down by just 4%. Now, we know that real estate surely was down to what, 20% of what it could have been. No one was buying homes, no one was renting homes. So real estate services surely was down quite sharply. So if you account for that, I suspect that financial services have actually expanded, which again, shouldn't be surprising given that we've seen the kind of interest in the stock market. Stock markets have boomed in this period, right? So brokerages have gone up sharply and also another thing that everything that the government is doing is essentially a loan mailer. So the great stimulus is essentially a loan mailer. So it's being routed through banks. So again, banking services would have expanded as a whole. So we're essentially seeing a overall slowdown where agriculture has gone up because there was no, there was virtually no lockdown there. And agriculture has gone up in value added terms. And financial services would have definitely gone up, I suspect in this period, brokerages and banks specifically. Absolutely. So we'll come to the agriculture sector, of course. But to continue with the specific, the financial sector specifically. This is something we talked about earlier, of course, one aspect of the stock market. But in general, it also shows a shift in the economy, which has been definitely going on for some time across the world. But yet another instance that we see in India. Are there any risks or downsides to the shift? Well, the point is that there's been a financialization of the economy since the 80s of the global economy. It came to India maybe a little late. And we know that the completely deregularized, there was no regulatory oversight. That increased towards the late 90s in the US. And expanded under the Bush administration even more, right? George Bush, junior administration even more. The 2001 to 2007, eight period where there was virtually no regulatory oversight of the financial sector, finance capital had a free run across the world. And in 2008, the global financial collapse made us feel that maybe there will be some kind of regulation on them, they'll be reigning. But of course, none of that happened. We were back to the great CEOs and CFOs getting these million dollar deals and bonuses and going off in their parachutes, it was back by 2008, 11, we all know that. Now, the point is that the financialization of the global economy is one of the reasons why COVID-19 has hit us as bad, right? Because look at it, if capitalism of a different kind had existed. Then we might have had a very different response to COVID-19. And I'm not talking about socialism of any kind. I'm just saying capitalism of an industrial kind had been around. Yes, there would have been a lockdown. But I suspect we would have had better access to health. Things would have worked in a more organized fashion. The entire idea of government completely getting out of the economy. This is a very financial sector driven notion. And that has kind of affected the globe in terms of COVID as well. A different society would have approached it differently. Now, another thing is that when the COVID-19 has only improved the situation of the financial sector, in my opinion. Because just when global central banks are thinking that, okay, we need to rein these guys in, again, that's heating up, there's a bubble. COVID-19 has come. So once again, you're seeing a free flow of money. The governments and states only look at interest rates. They only look at the stock market. If the stock market fluctuates a little bit, they immediately enter and try to, you know, assuage their fears. So the way in which money, the fact that the financial sector in India must have grown. As I'm saying, the data is clubbed together, real estate is, I'm certain has gone down. So the only answer is the financial sector has gone. Suggest that there is a transfer of income flows even further towards the financial sector, towards finance. Now Prashant, you know, there's corroborating data coming from the employment side. Now, if you look at the data collected by CMI and compiled by Mahesh Vaz. In one of his articles, which are about 20 days old, I'm sure that he's going to update that data. And these are the relatively earlier days of corporate results. Now, for our viewers, let me just explain that all companies which are listed in the stock market, which sell their shares, they have to give their results, their financial results every three months, every quarter they have to declare it. So it coincides with the data that we're getting from GDP. And in this first quarter, the overall wage bill of the manufacturing sector has gone down by 7%. So that is a combination of two things. One is people have been sacked, right? They've been downsized and also they've been pay cuts. This is an overall manufacturing space. And we know in textiles it's down by, I think, 30%. And across the board, there is a decline of about 20% to 30%. And even in services, there's been a large decline. Auto, mobile, the wage bill has gone down by 19%. Auto ancillary is by 21%. So across the board, we've seen wage bill cuts. Wage bill cuts are a combination of downsizing. Fewer number of people and wage cuts, salary cuts. Look at what has happened in brokerages and banks. Banks and brokerages have actually seen an expansion of the wage bill in the middle of COVID-19. So the wage bill of banks has gone up by 16.6% and now brokerage is by 13.5%. This can only mean that as this has expanded, people might have actually got hired in the financial sector or been given big bonuses again. Or the salaries have been increased because the financial sector is doing well. So I'm saying that the fact that, again, we're seeing the transfer of wages, even the balance of overall wages, we're seeing the transfer taking place towards the finance sector. So we can say that whatever happens, finance capital's rule continues. And what is, what in my mind is dangerous is that this leads to a bigger political control of finance capital. And push for deregulation. Push for deregulation, move against fiscal spending, interest rate focus, inflation targeting. I mean, what is the RBI today? The RBI's job appears to be only to keep inflation in check, nothing else. No worry about where credit should flow, is there certain sector where, which needs more money, which needs more credit, RBI virtually does nothing of that. It constantly says our only concern is to ensure that inflation doesn't go. This kind of a mindset is essentially a financial sector mindset. And that is only going to increase as we know that when a sector becomes economically powerful, it becomes politically powerful. So that is a big danger that we're going to see. Prashant. Absolutely right. So on the moving on to agriculture, there's been quite a bit of discussion about how the agriculture sector has not declined this in a small growth and how this is the one right spot amidst all the gloom that is the GDP numbers. So has there been any concrete benefit to farmers as this just numbers again? You know, let me pardon my French, but this is actually rubbish and poppycock. It's just that. You've seen growth, of course, you can say there's been overall contraction in the economy. So if agriculture has grown by 3.4%, then that's very good. But the truth is there was virtually no lockdown in the agriculture sector. The government also said that you can, because this is the harvesting season, so you have to allow harvesting. And we know that there's been a record and a bumper crop. The question that did farmers get the prices that they deserve for it. Now, the way to look at it is to my mind too. One is let's look at the nominal GDP growth in money terms in today's term. And we see that that has gone up by just 5.7%. 5.7%, real growth 3.4%. So 5.7% means that the price deflator, the amount, the money that has in, I mean, there have been two kinds of growth. One is output, the other is increase in price. Prices have gone up by just 2.3%. Now let's think of an average farmer, Prashant. Let's say that they spent 10,000 rupees, they earned 10,000 rupees in the same quarter last year and they spent all of it. We know that farmers actually spend more than they earn. But let's assume that they spent exactly the same amount. Earned 10,000, spent 10,000. Now, their earning would have on an average gone up by 5.7%, which is the nominal GDP growth in rupee terms in today's prices. So their earning would have gone up to 10,570. The problem here is that inflation, consumer price inflation faced by farmers, by agricultural workers and rural workers is somewhere close to 7.5%, 8% or even more. So effectively, they would have spent 10,800 rupees and earned 10,500 rupees, right? Or 10,600 rupees. So effectively, they would have this year spent more than they earned if they had to keep their consumption level exactly where it was last year, right? So there's been a drop in the average farmer's real income. This is one. Secondly, let's look at the data from CMI in terms of number of farmers who are actively working. We know that agriculture is full of disguise, right? There's a people say we are working, but they're not really needed there because they don't add anything to productivity or to income. We know that the reverse migration actually resulted in a big jump in the number of farmers. People who either hold some land or are working on share copying. This is what CMI calls farmer. Then there are agricultural workers, which data is still not available. I think it'll come out sometime towards the end of September when they collate it. But the farmer data we see has actually gone up sharply this year compared to last year, the same quarter last year when again we would have seen harvesting and the beginnings of sowing. It has gone up sharply. So on an average, again, on an average, this is again a rough calculation. Gross value added has dropped in farming, right? If I just take the total gross value added and divide it by the number of active farmers, right? This is an inaccurate number because there are agricultural workers out there and that number has to come in. But yet I think the number of agricultural workers would have obviously gone up because we know that in May, June and June, the number of agricultural workers at rural employment went up, which is again declined in August, which is the latest data that we are seeing. So given that even agricultural workers would have not just farmers who have land or sharecropping, the number of landless agricultural laborers would have also gone up. So if we take the average GVA per farmer and compare it to the average gross value added in per farmer this year, it has gone down between four to five percent. This is obviously not an accurate number. This is a false accuracy, spurious accuracy, but it is a trend. It tells you that on an average, farmers earn less or produced less, added less value in the agriculture sector even when it expanded in this quarter. Right. And finally, the usual question we often keep coming back to again and again. Any, do you see any kind of changes in the way that the government is looking at this issue after these announcements policy-wise in terms of steps to be done or is it just the same? I think it is just the same because there is no consensus even amongst economists. You look at the way in which some of the frontline economists have tried to literally lie about these GDP numbers. And you'll see that many of them were associated with the UPA, right? They were either assisting, supporting or they were writing things at that time, more or less in support of the UPA government's policies at that time. Many of them were closely associated with the finance ministry and the PMO, the entire structure and system of advisors and so on. They're all blatantly telling you lies about comparisons between the US and India in terms of they're telling you that India's situation is not that bad because US GDP declines 33 percent, which is a blatant lie. Comparatively, if you look at the way in which GDP growth is calculated in the US, India's GDP decline is actually 65 percent and not 24 percent. We know that even the IMF has now confirmed that India's contraction is the most. So the government is responding by saying that, you know, we are contracted the most because we dealt with COVID the best because our death rate is the lowest, right? Now, we know that we are now the number one in terms of every additional day, the number of new cases that are coming. We are number three, I think in the number of total cases, three number three in the case of total deaths. And people say, well, you know, that's meaningless because our population is four, five times that of, I mean, four times that of the US, 10, 11 times that of the other countries which are affected badly. That's all true. But the point is, let's look at the number of tests being done per million. Do you know what our rank is there, Prashant? As I said, that we are number one in terms of new cases, number three in number of, what is our rank in terms of tests per million? We are number 120, number 120. So it's very easy to control COVID-19 if you're not testing. We know in terms of registration of deaths in India, the 2017 data, even if it has improved, it tells us that only about 80% of deaths are actually registered on an active basis. Census figures ultimately catch up and maybe some surveys catch up, but on an active basis, only about 80% are registered. Cause of death, only 20% of the, less than 20% of the registered deaths actually have a cause of death out there. So it tells us that even if people are dying because of COVID, there's no way for us to have accurate numbers. Even if people are getting infected, we have no accurate number. So on every front, this government has not only failed, it also appears to have no idea how to deal with it. So I don't hold out any hope, Prashant, that if things get back to whatever they are, then it is going to be just by chance, not because of any design. Thank you so much, Anandya, for speaking to us. Thank you. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back on Monday with more news from the country and the world. Until then, keep watching NewsClick.