At a time when every day brings in gloomy tidings, the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC) has cheerful news. It has estimated the Indian economy will grow by 7.5% in 2009-10 (see Page 4). It has pinned its hopes on inter-national growth reviving from mid-2009, something it feels will boost the Indian economy.

The projection, released on Friday, is in marked contrast to the pessimism displayed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. In a recent interview to BBC, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn had painted a bleak economic outlook for the world.

He said IMF would issue a downward growth forecast for the world economy. Strauss-Kahn mentioned a cut of 0.5-1% in global growth from IMF’s earlier estimates. India, China and Brazil, he said, would “experience very slow growth”. The world would not begin recovery before 2010.

EAC has issued a forecast that is not only unrealistically optimistic, but its timing of the recovery too seems to be way off the mark.