Key economies in sharp slowdown; India set for decade-low growth; How Syria shut off the internet; India has too few wealth-creating tycoons

1 Key economies in sharp slowdown (BBC) A string of major economies have reported disappointing data. Economic growth slowed in India in the third quarter, while in Canada and Brazil it dropped surprisingly sharply. Meanwhile in the eurozone, unemployment hit a new high of 11.7% in October, as German retail sales fell unexpectedly and French consumer spending dropped. And in the US, citizens saw their incomes stagnate in October, while spending fell slightly, in large part due to disruption from Storm Sandy.

US personal incomes rose less than 0.1% from a month earlier, according to the Commerce Department, while spending fell 0.2%. Other recent data from the US has pointed to a strong rebound in the world's biggest economy, including a surprise upward revision of the country's third quarter annualised growth rate from 2% to 2.7%. North of the border by contrast, Canada's economy fared far worse over the summer.

2 Eurozone joblessness at new high (David Jolly & Jack Ewing in The New York Times) Unemployment in the euro zone rose to a new high in October, according to official data. But the head of the European Central Bank tempered the bad news by predicting that the region’s economy would begin to recover next year. Mario Draghi, the ECB president, cautioned that, “We haven’t gotten out of the crisis yet.” But he said, “The recovery for the entire euro zone will no doubt begin in the second half of 2013.”

That was a firmer forecast than Mr. Draghi gave earlier last month, when he said only that growth next year would be weak. And it came as separate data indicated that inflation continued to fall, giving the ECB more leeway to pump cash into the economy if needed.

To be sure, many economists remain skeptical. Mr. Draghi acknowledged that austerity measures by various governments would inevitably bring “a short-term contraction in economic activity.” But he repeated the central bank’s vow to do “everything necessary” to maintain stability in the euro zone. The central bank has promised to buy debt from countries like Spain in any amount necessary to hold down their borrowing costs, provided they agree to conditions.

3 India set for decade-low growth (The Guardian) The Indian economy extended its long slump in the quarter ending in September, with lower-than-expected growth keeping it on track for its worst year in a decade and underscoring the urgency of politically difficult reforms to spur a revival. Quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) grew 5.3% from a year earlier, below the 5.5% posted in the three months ending in June.

The number matched the performance of Asia's third largest economy in the January-March quarter, which was the weakest growth rate in three years. "The growth is bottoming and we will see an improvement from here, though not a very strong improvement," said Robert Prior-Wandesforde, director of Asian economics research for Credit Suisse in Singapore.

Growth was dragged down by subdued manufacturing output growth of 0.8% on the year and farming output of 1.2%. The number was lower than indicated by the finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, last week when he warned that India faced "a difficult situation" and needed innovation to boost output.

4 How Syria shut off the internet (Caleb Garling in San Francisco Chronicle) In the classic analogy of a highway, the Internet has points where the information exits into a particular country. Electronic checkpoints allow one country's exit to interface with the greater Web highway, like the stoplight at the end of an exit. If the country's Internet service provider - a private business that manage the nation's network - barricades the exit, the country loses connectivity with the rest of the world.

Few outside of Syria know the exact sequence of events that led the country to go dark. But, it's probably as simple as a phone call or two from someone in authority. Syria has one Internet service provider, Syrian Telecommunications Establishment (Syriatel). In light of the advancing rebels, a call from President Bashar Assad (or one of his staff) could tell Syriatel, a company that is virtually an extension of the government, to turn off the Internet.

This is not unlike what the world saw when Egypt cut off access in 2011. Wired noted that when the country went digitally silent, it wasn't in one fell swoop, but staggered over a short period of time. Egypt has more than one telecom company. The cascading drop in Internet activity - to zero - likely reflected the government phone calls to each of them. An Internet shutdown of Syria's proportions would be very unlikely in the US, says Jim Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

Syria's shutdown comes ahead of a UN summit next week set to discuss new international rules for the Internet. Other repressive governments have tried their own ways to control the masses with digital constraints. China has spent billions of dollars on "The Great Firewall," a sprawling network of censorship tools that filter content within the country and from abroad. Iran has gone so far as to start building its own Internet - somewhat like a company intranet - despite the concerns of human rights groups and skepticism from technical experts.

5 India’s pain: Too few wealth-creating tycoons (Sadanand Dhume in The Wall Street Journal) As the argument goes, like Mark Twain's America, India is a rapidly industrializing country marked by deep chasms of inequality. The large number of Indian billionaires—61 by Forbes magazine's count, up from none before the advent of reforms in 1991—underscores the unsustainable glitz of the times.

The emergence of dazzling wealth in a country that was long a byword for poverty is certainly noteworthy, but the "gilded age" metaphor can potentially mislead. To begin with, in per capita terms late 19th century America was already one of the richest countries in the world. The International Monetary Fund ranks India 130th of 185 countries on this score. Similarly, in terms of technology, 19th century America gave the world the telephone, the electric bulb, and much else. Even the loudest India booster can't claim that it occupies an analogous place in the front ranks of innovation.

After its election in 2004, the India government assumed tax revenues will keep rising. It ignored wealth creation by postponing structural reforms, and instead focused on redistribution through a rural jobs guarantee in 2005 and, now, a proposed food security bill. This political turn has affected the legitimate ways India's world-class companies were creating wealth. The economy can't hope to prosper without their active cooperation, but faced with policy drift and corruption many are choosing to invest overseas rather than domestically. The Mumbai-headquartered Tata Group, for example, now derives nearly 60% of its $100 billion in revenues from abroad.

In practical terms, this means finding ways to combat cronyism without adding to the woes of a private sector already overburdened by red tape and lackluster decision making. In philosophical terms, it means recognizing that India's problem isn't too many Ponty Chadhas, but too few Ratan Tatas. Only then can India hope to truly enter a gilded age.