Indian markets shrug off war clouds and pandemic with merry disdain

WHO would have thought that a double whammy of war clouds looming ominously over the Indo-China border and the panic over the coronavirus pandemic would send the Indian stock market careening dizzyingly on an upward trajectory, while the global economy languishes in the sink.

Call it an absurdity of the globalised economy that when millions of people are losing their jobs and the World Bank expects the global economy to shrink by more than 5 per cent this year, the wealthiest players on the stock markets are only growing richer.

Take the case of India, whose economy is expected to contract by 3.2 per cent in the 2019-2020 financial year, and whose domestic companies' bottom lines are being hammered.