Subscribe to the BlogIndian Finance Minister has presented a very hopeful budget. For a while now the global markets have been living in fear of having their government support pulled away from their respective economies, a little like a junkie who knows sooner or later he has to go cold turkey. Suggestions that the easy money is about to dry up (such as Beijing blocking loans from Chinese banks) send the markets into a tizzy. So it comes as some surprise that the Indian budget, which started to phase out a range of subsidies - particularly for fuel - caused the market to leap up by 2.5%.
To be fair, the market was actually more interested in the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's predictions for growth. "We hope to breach the 10% growth mark in the not-too-distant future," he said.