India's Economy: Mixed Singnals

The Indian economy stands at a stage in its economic cycle where it is uncertain about its future trajectory. One survey indicates an uptick in private sector activity, while another points to a slowdown in industrial output growth. RBI data reveals that India's total foreign exchange reserves have hit an all-time high of $730 billion, with FCNR(B) deposits exceeding $65 billion. Yet, another survey suggests that GDP growth is decelerating, alongside rising inflation.

The Indian economy is sending mixed signals. Due to its reliance on external sources to meet its needs, the economy is becoming trapped in a spiral where the path forward is unclear. In this scenario, uncertainty will persist until government economic policies and increased investments by major business houses align in the same direction. However, there is another aspect to consider: private capital seeks both growth and security simultaneously. Ultimately, the direction lies in the government's hands.

NCLT Approves a Haircut of 99.97% for Subhash Chandra

NCLT has shown the green flag to the repayment plan submitted by Essel Group Chairman Subhash Chandra. However, people are questioning and interpreting this decision as politically nuanced. But is it really true?

It is easier to sensationalise by accusing NCLT and the Government of India of an approximate 100% haircut in this personal Bankruptcy case against Zee Group Chairman Subhash Chandra initiated by Indiabulls. But the fact is very simple. Let’s understand the case first.

Zee Group Chairman became a party to bankruptcy proceedings for being a guarantor of debt transactions with financial institutions in Essel Group insolvency proceedings. It should be noted that he didn’t borrow that money in a personal capacity. Rather, money was borrowed by the group. He is a guarantor. He is there in the case just because he is a guarantor who is eventually the Chairman of the group.

Government to Abolish Bank Guarantee Requirement for MSMEs

Abolishing the bank guarantee requirement would be one of the best forms of support the Government of India could offer to MSMEs. Most of these units operate with limited capital, making it difficult for them to even arrange working capital for day-to-day operations. Financial system unintentionally and indirectly has negative bias against small units!

This proposal would open up new business opportunities for MSMEs. The government should not only increase MSME participation in its operations but also introduce schemes like the PLI (Production Linked Incentive) for them. Implementing such measures would reduce the volume of low-value goods imported from China. This would create business and employment opportunities within India while also helping to bring the trade deficit with China under control helping balance of payments position and Indian rupee. A low trade deficit will result into strong rupee and lower imported inflationary shocks.

Surging Sugar Prices and Ethanol Blending

The government's decision to blend ethanol with petrol will prove economically beneficial for the country in the long run; however, the 40–50% surge in sugar prices over the past month is baffling to the common person.

There was already significant public resentment regarding ethanol blending, though it had not yet manifested as widespread discontent. While ethanol was a topic of discussion in the streets, it had not yet become a subject of conversation within households. Now, however, due to the rising cost of sugar, both ethanol and sugar have become talking points in homes. Women are raising questions. When women begin to express dissatisfaction and repeatedly question society or policies of the government, that discontent tends to become widespread.

Growth in 1st Quarter to remain 7.3%

Despite all headwinds, the Indian economy is expected to grow at 7.3% in the first quarter of the financial year 2026-27 ending on June 30.

Manufacturing, mining, construction & financial services, real estate & professional services would be the major growth pillars in this growth. Agriculture, public administration and trade, hotels, transport, communication & services related to Broadcasting Services will drag the growth momentum.

Among all the problems, rising inflation in the economy is the biggest challenge for the Indian economy. Inflation since March has remained elevated. Not only this, but due to a weak monsoon, crop production is expected to remain weak. Speculation relating to sugar post-ethanol blending in petrol is already a problem.

The economy is expected to grow at 7% this fiscal year. An annual growth of 7% is the new normal for the economy. Its opportune time for India when it can jump its growth rate into double digits.

Rajeev Upadhyay

Uttar Pradesh has to Build an Eonomic Ecosystem to Attract FDI

If you look at FDI received by Indian states, you would be surprised to see the distribution pattern. Uttar Pradesh contributes around 9% to India's GDP. However, it receives less than 2% of the total FDI that India receives! Maharashtra contributes about 14% to India's GDP, but it receives about 35% of total FDI!

Why?

Because, over time, Maharashtra worked on the economic environment. When India was thinking about building one-lane highways-cum-connecting roads, Maharashtra was building 4-lane highways. While states in northern India were busy promoting political fault lines and building narratives around them, Maharashtra was busy establishing manufacturing plants. They built an ecosystem. That's why almost every big politician in Maharashtra has some business interests, and unlike other states, none in Maharashtra has a problem with it. Rather, they appreciate it! They don't like unemployed politicians!

Cities on the Rise: Changing Employment Landscape in India

LinkedIn's new 'Cities on the Rise' list gives very interesting input about how the job market is changing as far as cities are concerned. Big metro cities like Bengaluru and Mumbai were the prime locations but are losing to smaller cities like Visakhapatnam, Prayagraj, Ludhiana, Surat, and Vadodara.

India's metros are choking on their own success, and the job market is finally responding to that reality. Bengaluru's and Mumbai's rents and traffic, Delhi's polluted air aren't quality-of-life footnotes anymore. They're becoming economic costs, and companies are pricing them in.

According to the basic spatial equilibrium theory workers and firms stay in expensive cities only as long as the wage premium covers the extra cost of living there. Once traffic, real estate and pollution such other factors start eating into that premium, the equilibrium breaks and people leave. This is becoming a reality in India. Visakhapatnam, Ludhiana, Surat, Ranchi, Prayagraj, and Vadodara are becoming the center of attraction for both employers as well as the employees. These cities aren't winning because they suddenly became more attractive. They're winning because metro cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi have stopped being worth the trade-off.

Chandra Shekhar and Balance of Payment Crisis of 1991

The season of winter was starting when on an arbitrary day, sweets were brought to our home for no apparent reason. At that age, nothing else was important but sweets. Simply getting as many as possible was the goal. So, I happily focused on the sweets. That very night, overhearing a conversation between my father and my two uncles, I learned that a man named Shri Chandra Shekhar who was from my birthplace, Ballia, had become the Prime Minister of India. I learnt that he was also the Member of Parliament for Ballia. From their talk, I gathered only that the Prime Minister was the highest-ranking official. When I asked, my grandfather explained in simple words that the Prime Minister was the country's king! Those were the days when my mother or grandmother would tell us bedtime stories about kings and queens every night. At the time, I actually imagined that Chandra Shekhar had killed the king and seized the throne! That was my first real political awakening outside the realm of fairy tales! Later, after the Babri Masjid demolition and the dismissal of the Kalyan Singh government, I learned that Chandra Shekhar had become Prime Minister by a margin of vote; not by killing anyone! Back then, I was a student at Saraswati Shishu Mandir in Ratsar and the environment was very tense. I remember going door-to-door with friends, chanting the "Ayodhya Chalo" slogan and scribbling it on walls in exchange for lemon candies.

Government Must Reconsider Fee on UPI Transactions

The NPCI has revolutionised the Indian payment gateway landscape by popularising UPI and the RuPay network. NPCI has effectively ended the duopoly of American giants Visa and Mastercard in the payment gateway business in India. Today, a significant portion of transactions is processed via the Indian RuPay network, and it's a remarkable achievement. About 65% of total 700 million debit cards and 18% of credit cards of total 119 million are issued by Rupay. About 40% of total credit card transactions volume and 8% of value is processed by the Rupay network.

This shift has been financed by the Government of India, as the government has been bearing the costs and facing international pressure to curb this subsidy. This has obviously created a market with distortions which heavily depend on government subsidies. In the long term, such a market cannot sustain itself. So it is logical for the government to make UPI self-sufficient, but timing doesn’t seem to be opportune. India is going through a difficult phase post the volatile situation in the Middle East and tariff risks from the US. Economic activities are expected to cool down in the coming months. In this situation, any fall in domestic consumption and GST collection would be costly for the economy.

Widening Trade Deficit with Russia

For years, India had been maintaining the largest trade deficit with China, followed by the Middle East. But the geopolitical shifts in 2022 changed everything. Russia was not even in the top 10 countries with which India had a trade deficit. But since 2022, India has witnessed a historic and asymmetric expansion of its trade deficit with Russia, making Russia one of its most important trading partners. Before 2022, India’s trade deficit with Russia was under $5 billion, but it has now skyrocketed to a staggering $50.9 billion.

India’s rising trade deficit with Russia is widening despite the rupee-ruble payment mechanisms between the two countries with the purpose of broadening the bilateral trade relationship. But the rupee-ruble payment mechanism is not working. The reasons behind this are India’s massive trade deficit with Russia, volatile exchange rate and inconvertibility of the rupee, as well as fear of sanctions from the US. These make the rupee-ruble payment mechanisms almost ineffective, and often the two countries opt for alternate currencies like UAE Dirham (AED) for bilateral trade.

West Asia Conflict is Slowing Down Indian Economy

Indian economy is showing resilience and is expected to grow at 6.7%, but the ride is expected to be bumpy. It is caught in a problem for which it has no solution on its own. It is completely dependent on other parties.

The conflict in West Asia between the US and Iran has proved a double-edged sword for India. It is hurting India from two sides. India is facing energy challenges in terms of limited access to energy sources as well as high prices on one hand, which is turning the mathematics against the Indian economy as it induces inflation in the economy and increases current account deficit and rupee volatility. This is hurting demand in the economy. On the other hand, India's $50 billion in exports to the Middle East have almost come to a halt. This is pausing economic activities in India. Firms exporting to the Middle East are forced to pile up inventories as these firms are unable to ship their final products to their buyers despite long-term contracts. Their export consignments are caught and hanging in the balance in the firing zone between the US and Iran. This is resulting in slow manufacturing activities and lower labour demand. This has started the vicious circle.

New Tariffs by Trump in the Name of Forced Labour

A person consumed by spiteful rivalry often goes to great lengths to cause trouble for their rival, even if it means suffering a loss themselves. US President Donald Trump’s behaviour mirrors this mindset; in his zeal to 'fix' other nations, he repeatedly deals blows to the American economy.

India will certainly be adversely affected by the new tariff, as will other nations. However, it is ultimately the American citizens who are paying the price for Trump's love for tariffs. By the way, President Trump has populaized tariffs in a such a that now it does feel like an economic term even for a layman!

One wonders: is this merely the US President's spiteful rivalry at play, or is he, knowingly or unknowingly, becoming a Trojan horse for America in general and the American economy in particular?

Numbers don't Always Draw the Real Picture

Core sector output climbed to a five-month high of 5% in June. That's up from 3.2% in May and 1.1 percentage points higher than a year ago. Also, GDP growth is expected to be around 6.7% in the first quarter. But one may wonder whether everything is good on the economic front?

On the construction and public-works story, cement and electricity output each rose 9.8%, and iron ore, just added to the index, jumped a staggering 43.9%. But one must remember that the activities in these sectors don’t represent broad-based industrial revival. During the same period, crude oil output fell 4.2% in June, and natural gas production dropped 7.4%. The energy sector is under huge pressure. Activities in the energy sector actually tell you whether real economic activities such as manufacturing, transport, and consumption are picking up or not.

India is Fine Tuning its Export Strategy

India's export strategy and structure have undergone a significant shift following the imposition of tariffs by the US. As a result of the strategy to diversify exports into new markets, the share of shipments to countries outside Europe and NAFTA reached approximately 59% during April–May 2026. In the same period last year, the combined share of Europe and NAFTA stood at around 46%, down from 41% now. While a 5% shift might seem modest, it is far from insignificant; it reflects India's evolving priorities.

The disparity in India's export growth across different global regions reveals the true story. Exports to NAFTA grew by only 2.6% and to Europe by 4%, whereas shipments to ASEAN surged by 66.9%, Africa by 53.1%, North-East Asia by 30.7%, and South Asia by 40.2%. Double-digit growth was also recorded in exports to Latin America and Oceania. Together, ASEAN and Africa contributed an additional $7.6 billion in exports compared to the same period last year, playing a major role in overall growth.

Protection is not Helpful for Economies

Protection may be helpful for an economy in the short tem. But in long-term or permanent protection rarely does. Gita Gopinath's observation that tariffs made Americans pay more for inferior goods reminds me of a lesson India learnt the hard way before the 1991 reforms. For nearly four decades, India followed an import substitution strategy with high average tariff rates exceeding 87% by the late 1980s. The objective was to build domestic industries. The outcome was mixed. We created an industrial base, but we also created complacency. Consumers paid high prices for products that were often technologically outdated and of lower quality (we all remember the Ambassador car and years-long waiting lists for a telephone).

Tariffs reduce competitive pressure, create deadweight losses, and encourage X-inefficiency. Firms protected from global competition have fewer incentives to innovate, improve productivity, or upgrade quality. Consumer surplus falls while producer surplus rises, but society as a whole loses. That is exactly why India's manufacturing productivity accelerated only after the 1991 reforms, when tariffs were sharply reduced and competition increased.

India is Decreasing the Share of US Dollar in Its Treasury Holdings

The US dollar's share in India's treasury holdings had been steadily increasing till mid-2024. However, since the US imposed tariffs on India, India has been steadily reducing the share of the US dollar in its treasury holdings and increasing the share of precious metals instead in its holdings. The share of the US dollar in India's treasury holdings is now at its lowest level in the last six years. It was at $241 billion in October 2024, which fell to $190 billion in October 2025. By April 2026, the US dollar’s share in Indian treasury further fell to $181 billion.

This trend has gained momentum not only in India but globally. After the US imposed tariffs on its trade partners, countries around the world are seeking to reduce their dependence on the dollar. While it is true that there is currently no alternative to the US dollar, the world is looking for alternatives. This is why the share of local currencies in global bilateral trade is gradually increasing.

Restoration of Commercial LPG Supply is a Good News for Indian Economy

The government has resumed the supply of commercial LPG. This is positive news for the economy as well as the energy sector. Since the conflict between the US and Iran, and blockade of the Hormuz had completely shattered the energy supply chains for India. Many energy-importing economies, including India were hit hard as the availability and prices of gas as well as petroleum products had become to volatile.

With a deal between the US and Iran, maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is now normalizing benefiting India to huge extent. This is expected to result in gas supplies gradually restoring to the normalcy. So this decision is not only the first step toward the normalization of the energy market will improve the availability of essential fuel for industries, commercial establishments, and the service sector, thereby supporting production and business activities.

It will take time before the prices of commercial gas starts easing if global supply conditions improves. So it will be premature commenting on significnat drop in the prices of the gas. Because the war between the US and Iran has resulted into huge structual challeneges with destruction and damages to the capacity of gas plants in the Middle East. So the capacity constraints and long-term supply contracts already locked in will continues to exert pressure on the prices. So, the gas supply will improve gradually.

Where is the Indian Rupee Moving?

Many are wondering, where is the Indian rupee moving?

The Indian rupee depreciated about 9% in the last one year. But post the US-Iran peace deal announcement, it has recovered about 1.5% in a matter of a few days!

So many are wondering, why has the rupee recovered?

Considering the inflation differential between economies, historical norms, Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER), and Real Effectively Exchange Rate (REER), the Indian rupee is highly undervalued by 6-7% relative to its current market value.

REER is about 88 and NEER is 91 in the month of May 2026. These two values clearly indicate that the rupee is undervalued. Any value below 100 is considered as undervalued.

This undervaluation is not being caused by macroeconomic fundamentals. But it stems from the risk-off sentiments and equity market outflows. This is driving the rupee’s nominal spot rate down.

Should RBI Allow the State Bank's Plan to Securitize its Home Loan Portfolio?

Is history poised to repeat itself?

SBI's plan to securitise a portion of its home loan portfolio suggests exactly that, evoking memories of the 2008 global financial crisis.

State Bank of India (SBI) is the largest bank in India. Its practices and actions in the market go on to impact the entire Indian banking sector.

State Bank is planning to securitise a portion of its ₹10 trillion home loan portfolio. It must be noted that deposits are slowing in India, and Indian banks are struggling to mobilise enough deposits to match the demand for loans due to low interest rates. SBI is not an exception to it. So SBI, with the purpose of diversifying its funding sources, is considering raising funds by securitising its home loan portfolio by issuing mortgage-backed securities to institutional investors. This plan aims to boost liquidity and expand its lending capacity.

This move of SBI revives the memories of the 2008 global financial crisis originating in the USA. American banks aggressively securitised subprime mortgage contracts and sold them to investors worldwide. This became one of the most profitable businesses, which led to excessive risk-taking, weak underwriting standards and complex financial products. Once the supply overpowered the demand, it resulted in widespread defaults across the US, which eventually led to the collapse of major financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual and AIG. Then a severe global recession followed.

Will RBI have to increase interest rates in India?

The Bank of Japan is set to increase interest rates to the highest level since 1995. The Federal Reserve of the US is also contemplating the idea of increasing rates, as it is difficult for the Fed to tame inflation below 2%. The European Central Bank has already increased the interest rate by 25 basis points from 2% to 2.25%. Other developed economies are expected to follow sooner or later.

India is already in a difficult position with spiralling inflation due to increased fuel prices, falling rupee, widening current account deficit and falling forex reserve. Monsoon is also expected to remain weaker this year. A weak monsoon will negatively affect the hydropower generation as well as farm earnings, adding to the problems for India.

Despite a possible US-Iran peace deal this week, the uncertainties still loom larger over the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Rising interest rates in Japan, the US, the EU and other developed economies are a cause of concern for India. This will lead to flight of capital from Indian markets, resulting in increased pressure on the Indian rupee as well as the equity market in India.