A mammoth spending plan of almost $500 billion announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is expected to jump-start growth in an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic, but may not be enough to make a dent in the rising unemployment and poverty India has battled.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday unveiled a national budget that will cause the fiscal deficit to balloon to a much higher-than-expected 9.5 per cent in the current year ending March on the added expenditures. Stock market investors cheered the plan, hoping for an economic resurgence and celebrating the absence of new taxes on