India in uproar over rupee's fall


DIVYAKANT SOLANKI/EPA - An Indian vendor counts Indian rupee notes at a roadside shop in Mumbai. The rupee slumped to an all-time low on Aug. 19 despite measures to arrest the currency's decline even as government bond yields hit five-year highs.

By Rama Lakshmi,

New Delhi — The Indian rupee is in a free fall, and the nation is aflutter.

Almost every day, Indians are waking up to alarming headlines about their currency hitting a “historic low” or a “lifetime low.” Last week, on what was dubbed “Black Friday,” the currency sank to a record level, and Indian media carried pictures of workers in Mumbai’s financial district clutching their heads in dismay.

With the country’s stock market tumbling, the rupee fell further Tuesday. It is down about 15 percent against the U.S. dollar since May — from more than 53 rupees to the dollar to more than 63.

The currency has become a powerful metaphor for India’s rapidly sliding economy. The rupee has triggered countless jokes and political mudslinging, and like everything in India, it has generated astrological speculation, too.

Some superstitious Indians have blamed the slump on the new symbol for the rupee, which was unveiled last year. Experts on vastu shastra, an ancient Indian design practice similar to feng shui, say that the symbol debuted on a day inauspicious for the stars and that the horizontal line across the symbol appears to “slit the throat” of the currency.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indi...7014_story.html

Thanks for the post.

Zitat

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The currency has become a powerful metaphor for India’s rapidly sliding economy.
. . .
Some superstitious Indians have blamed the slump on the new symbol for the rupee, unveiled last year.
. . .
Some economists, meanwhile, blame the rupee’s recent misfortune on plans by the U.S. Federal Reserve to begin scaling back its massive effort to stimulate the U.S. economy, which has tended to keep the dollar weak compared with other currencies.
. . .
And some blame the Indian government’s mismanagement of the economy.
. . .
Five years ago, the rupee’s value was rising as never before, propelled by a soaring economy. What was described in the media here as the “roaring rupee” became a symbol of a nation’s proud march toward its economic ambition of becoming a global powerhouse.

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It's not mentioned in the article, but I wonder how much is related to the India's becoming a 'global powerhouse' at the expense of workers in the US and other first world countries. India exports its people as 'guest workers' to the US, etc where they suppress the availability or jobs and salaries in once high paying STEM fields. India also, like China, supplies cheap labor to factories moved to India. Now that the US economy is down the proverbial tubes taking jobs and a market for Indian imports with it.