New Delhi, April 24 -- Nearly two months after the outbreak of the war in West Asia upended business activity across India, there are signs that private sector activity may be seeing a tentative rebound after witnessing a sharp fall in growth last month. India's private sector output accelerated in April, after the slowdown in March that had taken activity to its weakest level since 2022, according to the HSBC Flash Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) released by S&P Global on Thursday. Manufacturing, which had led the March slowdown, also led the recovery in April. The HSBC Flash India Composite PMI Output Index rose to 58.3 in April, up from a final reading of 57.0 in March-itself a recovery from the flash reading of 56.5. The Services PMI Business Activity Index came in at 57.9, up from a March final of 57.5. All readings remain well above 50, which signals expansion compared to the previous month. To be sure, flash PMI numbers are based on responses from 80%-90% of the total respondents that feed into the final PMI readings and serve as an early indication of how business activity is evolving. The manufacturing sector tells the clearest story of the war's impact-and of the tentative revival this month. It was goods producers who bore the sharpest brunt of the conflict in March, with the Manufacturing PMI hitting a four-and-a-half-year low of 53.8 in the flash reading that month. In April, the sector has led the rebound, with the Manufacturing PMI Output Index jumping to 59.1 from a March final reading of 55.7, and the headline Manufacturing PMI rising from 53.9 to 55.9. "Our sense is that it is a case of front-loading production. Consumers may want to purchase before retail prices are raised significantly, leading to a rise in new orders. The pump prices of petrol and diesel haven't been raised yet, and this is protecting purchasing power. Meanwhile, manufacturers may want to build inventories before energy costs rise further," said Pranjul Bhandari, chief India economist at HSBC in a note. Companies continued to report elevated costs for fuel, gas, oil and raw materials, with some also citing gas shortages. Although overall input cost inflation eased from March, it remained the second-steepest in close to three years. Firms raised selling prices again in April. To be sure, the increase in selling prices remained well below the rise in input costs, suggesting that margins continue to be squeezed as businesses are still absorbing part of the pressure instead of fully passing it on to customers. Notably, price pressures intensified in manufacturing even as they cooled in services, adding another layer of divergence to the sectoral picture. On the export front too, trends were uneven, as goods producers posted their fastest expansion in new export orders in nine months, while services firms recorded the weakest uptick in just over a year, still feeling the effects of war-linked disruptions. Meanwhile, employment growth across India's private sector reached a ten-month high in April....