Evening briefing: Rajnath Singh to celebrate Diwali with troops; Cong warns wage stagnation will hinder growth; and more

The nation's top defence brass, led by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, will celebrate Diwali with soldiers in different parts of the country on Thursday. Singh and Union minister Kiren Rijiju, who is from Arunachal Pradesh, arrived in the northeastern state's Tawang on Wednesday, on the eve of the Festival of Lights. There, they will celebrate the festival with troops posted along the Indo-China border. The ministers are accompanied by Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Upendra Dwivedi. The tradition was started by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been spending his Diwali with troops since 2014, when he came to office. Meanwhile, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Anil Chauhan, will be in Andaman and Nicobar to participate in festivities with soldiers deployed there. Navy chief, Admiral Dinesh Tripathi, will celebrate with naval troops in Gujarat's Porbandar, while Air Chief Marshal AP Singh of the Indian Air Force (IAF) will celebrate with soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir. Dig Deeper

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday said the country’s growth has slowed down in the past decade adding that there is a stagnancy of India’s consumer demand growth. “In the last ten years, India’s consumption story has now gone in reverse swing and emerged as the biggest pain point for the Indian economy”, a statement released by the Congress leader said. Ramesh highlighted three reasons for the slowdown namely stagnant wages, high inflation and inequality. “Stagnant wages: Multiple data sources, including the Government’s own official statistics such as the recently released Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) 2022-2023, have shown clear evidence that workers can buy less today than they could 10 years ago. Worryingly, these stagnant wages may have to do with a decline in productivity for India’s labourers. As labour productivity falls and real wages stagnate, families will have less additional income to dedicate to consumption”, the statement read. Dig Deeper

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Any film analyst worth their salt will tell you that it is impossible to predict what makes a film work. Some argue it's the stars, others swear by the importance of the story, while others still claim it's the presentation. Maybe it's a combination of all of it. Otherwise, how does one explain two films with the same story and characters receiving such differing receptions? One is considered a cult classic with the highest rating for any Indian film, while the other has been called one of the worst Bollywood films ever made and was a box office bomb. Dig Deeper

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(That’s all we have at this hour in our evening briefing. Catch you tomorrow morning)