Monday, February 2, 2026 | Vol. 69 No. 101 | 35 Pages Reg.No MCS/048/2021-23; RNI No. 1541/1957 M.p.c.s office Mumbai. PIN 400001 THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL Vol. 69 No. 101 | www.freepressjournal.in ● EDITIONS: ● MUMBAI ● INDORE ● PUNE ● BHOPAL ● NASHIK ● KONKAN ● E-paper ● Member: Audit Bureau of Circulation (January to June 2025) NATION PM Modi pays tributes to Guru Ravidas, names airport in Jalandhar after the saint GAMES Cinema Bhumi calls her Kala Ghoda appearance a full-circle moment Alcaraz beats Djokovic in Australian Open final, creates history with a career Grand Slam Edit The mathematics of a nation that has chosen to compound Niminomics: A bet, a prayer & a gamble WHAT GETS CHEAPER Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget 2026-27 makes an assured bet on a big manufacturing push, a prayer that the rupee survives the roller-coaster ride and a shrewd gamble that, given time, the Indian economy will consolidate By invitation Dr Srinath Sridharan is a policy researcher and corporate adviser. ■ 17 cancer drugs Middle class in the lurch ■ Medicines, special food for 7 rare diseases ■ Seafood ■ Overseas tourism packages I intent and market reception reflects a budget designed for long-term structural competitiveness rather than immediate sentiment management. While industry bodies praised fiscal discipline and targeted manufacturing support, investors reacted negatively to the absence of capital gains tax relief and a steep increase in derivative trading costs—the second such hike in 18 months. The most immediate and severe market impact came from the government's decision to substantially increase the securities transaction tax (STT) on futures and options trading, effective April 1, 2026. ncome tax slabs and rates for FY 2026–27 remain untouched. The standard deduction stays frozen at ₹75,000, a figure increasingly misaligned with the realities of middle-class life. In urban India, housing, education, healthcare and commuting now absorb a far larger share of income than this deduction acknowledges. Budget 2026 chooses to ignore this. Tax policy continues to favour enterprise over earnings. Businesses deduct rent, interest, depreciation and employee costs before tax, while salaried incomes are taxed without recognising the unavoidable costs of living. Budget 2026 entrenches this imbalance by reaffirming a low-rate, low-deduction structure, where relief is treated as a concession rather than a right. Expectations of a higher rebate threshold were set aside. What remains is incremental adjustment without structural intent. The budget also ignores the citizen’s life cycle. The middle class is paying for children’s A government education, supporting long perceived ageing parents, and selffunding retirement in a as middlecountry with limited soclass friendly cial security, rising healthcare costs, and a has, in this broken health insurance Budget, regime. By offering no offered recognition of these continuity pressures, the tax syswithout tem assumes infinite recomfort and silience from the middle left that class, even as its financial margin steadily narconstituency rows. This is the same fiscally dry vote bank that pays taxes (and on time), follows rules, absorbs shocks, and rarely features in fiscal populism. Middle-class strain is no longer anecdotal. RBI consumer confidence surveys record sustained anxiety around rising prices, job security and shrinking household spending capacity. White-collar professionals, especially across services and technology, face prolonged uncertainty and income volatility. Yet Budget 2026 locks in outdated tax parameters, offering no response to pressures the central bank itself has repeatedly flagged. Against this backdrop, the relief announced is narrow and selective. TCS on overseas tour packages and on remittances for education and medical purposes has been reduced to 2 percent, easing cash flow at the margins for a limited set of households. The reversion of share buyback taxation to capital gains is a welcome correction for retail investors. These measures address specific frictions, but they sit far from the everyday pressures shaping middleclass finances. A government long perceived as middle-class friendly has, in this budget, offered continuity without comfort and left that constituency fiscally dry. Has the middle class been left in a lurch? If inflation rises again, the middle class may have to drop even its lunch. 4Contd on | nation 4Contd on | nation ■ Smartphones ■ Footwear ■ Leather goods ■ Microwave ovens ■ TV equipment ■ Cameras ■ Video games' manufacturing parts ■ EV batteries ■ Solar panels ■ Aircraft parts WHAT GETS COSTLIER K Giriprakash ■ Imported alcohol ■ Cigarettes, beedis, pan masala, gutka ■ Coal ■ Coffee vending machines ■ Luxury watches ■ Some fertilisers ■ Digital cameras ■ Video games and software ■ Imported umbrellas ■ Adult diapers ■ ATM and its parts FUTURE BENGALURU Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented a budget that looks prudent on paper but reveals something uncomfortable when read between the lines: the government has run out of easy choices. The 2026-27 budget revealed its priorities in three stark moves: a manufacturing push across seven sectors with targeted subsidies, a sharp hike in stock market transaction taxes that rattled traders, and a formal commitment to reduce debt as its fiscal anchor. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman framed it as "disci- plined growth"—but for taxpayers, investors, and ordinary Indians, the question is whether it's enough to create jobs and raise incomes, or just another round of careful bookkeeping. The centrepiece is a 7-sector manufacturing strategy: semiconductors (equipment and design), electronics components, biopharma, containers, chemicals, capital goods, and textiles. The budget allocated ₹40,000 crore to electronics components, ₹10,000 crore each to biopharma and containers, and unspecified amounts to the remaining sectors. The government is using the tax system—subsidies, duty exemptions, and depreciation incen- tives—to pull factories into India. This is a conscious pivot. Instead of spreading money across welfare schemes or tax relief, the government is betting that targeted manufacturing support will create jobs at scale. The logic is sound: every semiconductor fab (fabrication plant), biopharma plant, or container factory employs thousands of direct workers and many more in supply chains. If India can capture even 5-10 per cent of global manufacturing in these sectors, it changes the employment story. 4Contd on | nation 4See also | city, nation K Giriprakash ■ Fiscal deficit pegged 4.3% of GDP ■ No change in Income Tax rates ■ New Income Tax Act, 2025, to be implemented from April 1 ■ `1.4 lakh crore to states as tax share ■ Defence budget up 15% to `7.85 lakh crore ■ High-level panel on banking for Viksit Bharat ■ STT on Futures hiked by 150%, Options by 50% ■ Highest-ever capex of `12.22 lakh crore in FY27, 4.4% of GDP ■ `5,000 crore for city economic regions ■ `10,000 crore fund to create 'champion' MSMEs ■ `10,000 crore for biopharma manufacturing hub ■ Tax holiday for global cloud firms using Indian data centres ■ Highways ministry budget hiked to `3.09 lakh crore ■ Share buybacks to be taxed as capital gains for all types of shareholders ■ Training for 1 lakh allied health professionals in 5 years ■ `6,000 crore allotted for Census 2027 ■ Health ministry gets 10% rise in allocation ■ Direct, indirect taxes to yield 64 paise of every rupee in govt coffers ■ Tariff on dutiable goods imported for personal use cut to 10% ■ MEA gets `22,118 crore allocation ■ Rare earth corridor for Tamil Nadu ■ Support for content creator labs BIG CUT IN ALLOCATION TO B’DESH Shots fired outside Rohit Shetty’s home NEW DELHI Poonam Apraj and Megha Kuchik PTI MUMBAI NEW YORK An unidentified assailant opened fire outside the Juhu residence of noted Bollywood filmmaker Rohit Shetty (51) in the early hours of Sunday, firing five rounds before fleeing the spot. No injuries were reported, police said. Pravin Patil, Police Inspector (Crime), Juhu Police Station, said the incident occurred at around 12.40 am at Shetty Tower, a 10-storey residential building at Hasya Kala- US President Donald Trump has claimed that India will be purchasing oil from Venezuela instead of Iran. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One while flying to Palm Beach in Florida on Saturday, Trump made the remarks while responding to a question on whether China would recover money it had lent to Venezuela in exchange for oil supplies. “China is welcome to come in and would make a great deal on oil. We welcome China. We’ve already made a deal. India is coming in, and they’re PTI Amid continued strain in ties, Bangladesh has been allocated Rs 60 crore in the 202627 Budget, a sharp drop from Rs 120 crore in the previous year’s Budget Estimate. The allocation for 2025-26 was later pared down to Rs 34.48 crore in the Revised Estimate as bilateral ties stayed frosty. The overall MEA outlay has been increased to Rs 22,118 crore for 2026-27, up from the Budget Estimate of Rs 20,516 crore and the Revised Estimate of Rs 21,742 crore in the current fiscal. 4Contd on | nation TAX RELIEF FOR SOME, MARKET PAIN FOR MANY BENGALURU Union Budget 2026 delivered a split verdict for Corporate India—offering measured tax rationalisation and incremental investment incentives while triggering one of the sharpest market corrections in recent memory. The Sensex plunged 2,400 points on Budget day, wiping out nearly ₹13L crore in market capitalisation, as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's decision to raise the securities transaction tax on derivatives overshadowed more calibrated reforms to buyback taxation and foreign investment limits. The divergence between policy ‘India will buy oil from Pakistan boycotts India T20 clash Venezuela, not Iran’ Haridev Pushparaj kar Mehmood Chowk, Juhu, which is entirely owned by Shetty. CCTV footage has surfaced showing the attacker approaching the building on foot, opening fire, and escaping moments later. 4See also | city India is coming in, and they’re going to be buying Venezuelan oil as opposed to buying it from Iran. So we’ve already made that deal, the concept of deal. US President Donald Trump going to be buying Venezuelan oil as opposed to buying it from Iran. So we’ve already made that deal, the concept of the deal,” he said. There was no immediate reaction from New Delhi on Trump’s comments. 4Contd on | nation Chabahar missing The Budget made no allocation for Chabahar port project, marking a shift from recent years when Rs 100 crore was earmarked annually. It came amid fresh US curbs on Iran and ahead of expiry of Washington’s sixmonth waiver on April 26. India has invested over $120 million in equipment and committed a $250 million credit line as of early 2026. MUMBAI Pakistan have taken the unprecedented step of boycotting their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup match against India scheduled for February 15 in Colombo, according to a statement issued on the official X account of the Pakistan government. However, Pakistan will go ahead with matches against other nations. The decision follows earlier remarks by Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Mohsin Naqvi, who had said that a final call on Pakistan’s participation in the marquee fixture would be taken after consultations with PM Shehbaz Sharif. While the government has cleared the national side to participate in the tournament being hosted in Sri Lanka, it has categorically ruled out taking the field against India. The move comes against the backdrop of ICC decision to replace Bangladesh with Scotland in the World Cup. Bangladesh had declined to travel to India for their groupstage matches, citing security concerns. Naqvi called ICC decision unfair and inconsistent, and said Pakistan’s boycott of the India tie was a gesture of solidarity with Bangladesh. 4Contd on | nation