New Delhi, June 5 -- Speaking at an event in Mumbai last week, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman called for a sharper focus on what she described as the three 'Fs'-fuel, fertilizer and foreign exchange. It was an echo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent appeal to conserve fuel and avoid discretionary imports, foreign travel and the like.

The aim is to alleviate external-sector stress in the face of global pressures from the West Asia crisis and volatility in energy markets; and the finance minister's words summed up the country's core economic vulnerability: deep dependence on imported fuel, fertilizers and the forex needed to pay for these imports.

Given that capital inflows are in decline, an outcome of weak net foreign direct ...