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Grams Econweekly Editor Krishna Raj Associate Editor Rajani X Desal Assistant Editor M S Prabhakar Editorial Staff Colin de Souza, K Vijayakumar Manager J K Thakkar Advertisement Manager R Venkteswaran THE economy today is characterised by a number of contrary trends. The prospect of a second successive year of good agricultural production, the building up of a substantial stuck of foodgrains, the apparently impressive rise in the index of overall industrial production, the dramatic improvement in the foreign exchange reserves position and, above all, the claim that inflation has been halted and reversed give the impression of a decisively favourable economic situation. These favourable developments have naturally received a great deal of publicity. Nevertheless, doubts persist that tin these are short-term surface developments which convey an over-optimistic picture of the basic economic situation and the prospects of longer-term growth. These doubts are supported by the evidence of low real levels of investment in high priority capital and consumption goods industries, growing unemployment, largescale lay-offs and even incipient re-emergence of inflationary pressures.