| (The Editor's Pick is a new newsletter from The Hindu that provides a snapshot of the most important stories from today's edition of our newspaper, along with a note from our top editors on why we chose to give prominence to these stories.)
India's GDP contracted by 23.9% in the first quarter of the 2020-21 financial year, which is expected to contribute to an annual contraction of anything from 5 to 10 %. This will make 2020-21 the worst financial year for India, post-Independence. Senior economists say they expect the contraction to carry on for the next three to six quarters, taking the economy into uncharted territory. The economy has contracted both on the production and the consumption side, with the only bright spot being an uptick in the agriculture sector. The sharpest fall has been in the construction sector, which shrunk by 50%; but the most crucial number is the 26.7% fall in private consumption, which carries a higher weightage in the GDP calculations. Economists expect the real situation to be worse as a big chunk of the Indian economy is in the informal sector, which is not reflected in GDP numbers. The numbers show that the government's final expenditure grew 16.4%. The question is whether that is a big enough number, as some economists say it is government expenditure that is expected to see the economy through to the other side. However, this may mean that the fiscal deficit target takes a hit. On its part, the government is pointing to better data from core infrastructure sectors to suggest a "V-shaped recovery" path for the economy. This playoff between government expenditure and the return of economic activity in shoring up the numbers and, of course, the unprecedented state of the economy, are what make this story important. | 
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