The Wall Street Journal today published a report that said that the World Bank had suspended the publication of its annual Ease of Doing Business ranking because of certain discrepancies in the data. According to the report, the data of four countries – China, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – could have been inappropriately altered. It is pertinent to note that all 4 counties that are now under scanner ranked higher than India in the report released in 2019 Ease of Doing Business Rankings by the World Bank.
The report thus insinuated that the ranking of the 4 countries – China, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – could have been manipulated to show the ranking as higher than they actually deserved.
Since all 4 countries whose data seems to have inappropriately altered rank higher than India currently, it is entirely plausible that after the World Bank audits the reports it has released of the last 5 years, India’s ranking may actually improve from where it stands today.
However, the “liberals” who have seamlessly transitioned from hating Prime Minister Modi to hating India, immediately jumped the gun and started to insinuate that the improvement in ranking that India was so proud of may as well be a farce since the data was manipulated, according to the WSJ report.
The Hindu report, Suhasini Haider who is also the daughter of Subramanian Swamy, took to Twitter to completely misrepresent the WSJ report.
As the @WorldBank @WorldBankSAsia suspends its own Doing Business (EoDB) rankings due to rigged data issues, worth re-reading this investigation @HuffPost on how the govt lobbied, gamed, changed priorities in order to improve rankings here 2014-2018https://t.co/6qmL51r91L
— Suhasini Haidar (@suhasinih) August 28, 2020
In her first tweet, she wrote, “World Bank suspends `ease of doing business’ report: According to the now-withdrawn WB report, the economies with the most notable improvement in Doing Business 2020 were KSA, Togo, Bahrain, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, China, India and Nigeria”. And in the second, she plugged a report that supposedly insinuated how India lobbied with the World Bank.
However, the WSJ report does not even mention India. In fact, it does mention most of the countries that Suhasini has quoted, like Togo, Bahrain, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, India and Nigeria. The report is not pointing a finger at the countries whose ranking improved notably but 4 specific countries – China, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. That Suhasini felt the need to drag India into it only points towards the fact that she is trying to peddle an agenda without really telling people what the report actually says.
There were others who joined the bandwagon, misrepresenting the WSJ report and insinuating that this would mean India’s ranking could drop eventually.
Rupa Subramanya, who fancies herself as an economist went on to quote the World Bank statement and say that it is a blow to India since it “bragged about its improved performance, never mind the ground reality”. She further asked, “What will the Modi govt do now”.
Frankly, the Modi government will do nothing at all since it is not even one of the countries that is under the scanner. The World Bank statement mentions no country specifically. However, the WSJ report does mention 4 specific countries. Of the 4 countries, China is one of them, and India is not.
Thus, to allege that India would somehow be affected adversely by the audit that is about to be conducted by the World Bank seems to be wishful thinking by those who miss the gravy train they were on before the Modi government came to power.
Show Swain, the career propagandist responded to Rupa saying that while Modi made a big deal about India’s improvement, World Bank has suspended the report due to wrong data. The tweet against insinuated that it was India’s data that was wrong and gave no indication that there are 4 specific countries, including China, that are currently in the dock.
Another journalist, Mahesh Langa, also wondered if India’s ranking would be adversely affected.
Interestingly, while the “liberals” wondered whether India would trip and fall, none of them mentioned the 4 countries explicitly that are under the scanner, including Saudi Arabia and China.
It is not surprising that the “liberal journalists” would shield China or use the opportunity to target the Modi government, however, it is quite remarkable to note how their hate for the government has translated into their hate for the country, where they, almost with bated breath, hope and wait for the country to be shamed.
