Amey Chitale

While India’s consumption-led economy is holding the fort against a hostile world, the ongoing trade war will test the depth of that resilience. The year 2025 was not kind to the world economy. War, tariffs and geopolitical one-upmanship tore through supply chains and spooked capital. Yet India, buffeted though it was by these storms, sailed on with surprising steadiness. Services exports kept surging, merchandise trade expanded in patches, and, most importantly, the vast engine of domestic...

While India enters the year with enviable economic momentum, a long list of reforms still awaits completion. January has a way of sharpening economic judgment. Companies tally their third-quarter results and sketch full-year ambitions while governments begin aligning policy signals and spending priorities for the next fiscal year. But before gazing ahead, India must reckon with the year just gone - a period that offered reassurance about the economy’s resilience even as it exposed stubborn...

Even as global shocks mounted, the first half of FY26 revealed an economy that could still surprise on the upside. For much of the first half of FY26, the narrative around India’s economy seemed almost wilfully gloomy. Uncertainty over American tariffs, a stalled trade deal with Washington, Western pressure to curtail Russian oil imports, China’s chokehold over rare earths and the ever-present risk of an oil shock from the Iran–Israel conflict combined to darken the global mood. Donald...