India’s 2026-27 Budget Gets Cautious Welcome for Maturity from Western Media

By T N Ashok India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled her ninth budget on February 1 , a fiscal blueprint designed to sustain the world’s fastest-growing major economy at 6.5% even as Donald Trump’s tariff threats and global economic malaise force policymakers worldwide into a defensive crouch. The response from Western financial centers was decidedly mixed. While international media outlets praised India’s commitment to infrastructure spending and strategic manufacturing investments, markets and foreign portfolio investors delivered a harsh verdict: equity benchmarks tumbled as traders digested higher transaction taxes and what many deemed insufficient incentives to attract the mobile global capital…