New Delhi, May 7 -- In 2019, Arvind Subramanian, India's former chief economic advisor, argued in a Harvard working paper that Indian GDP had been overestimated by 2.5 percentage points a year from 2011-12 to 2016-17.

His central exhibit was a chart of 17 economic indicators, 11 of which had turned negatively correlated with GDP after 2011. The starkest case was the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for manufacturing, at minus 0.78.

Extend the data by seven years using the same method. IIP-manufacturing now correlates with GDP at plus 0.92.

The vanishing indicators: Of the 11 indicators flagged by the 2019 paper as negatively correlated, 10 have not merely turned positive, but strongly positive. The flagship of the case has reversed...