Do it yourself

 The finance minister seems to have reinvigorated the animal spirits of Indian entrepreneurs and financial market participants. The Union Budget for FY22, is perhaps the most celebrated budget after the “Dream Budget” presented by the then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in 1996. This is also perhaps the first time when markets have cheered higher fiscal deficit. This ought to be taken as a sign of rising assertive India, which is fully aware of its importance in global order and refuses to be bogged down by unreasoned views of global rating agencies. The market also cheered the fact that after dithering for six years, this NDA finance minister has picked up the threads from Vajpayee led NDA. The finance minister has spoken about “privatization” of a majority of CPSEs, instead of “disinvestment of minority stakes”, as was the case in NDA-1. The massive thrust on infrastructure building to ward off the impact of economic sanctions imposed in the wake of 1998 nuclear tests an...

 Ricky Ponting, the former captain of the Australian cricket team, commented during a TV show on Sunday that Indian team may not be able to score 200 runs in the fourth inning of the third test match played in Sydney. Ponting was obviously trolled badly on unforgiving social media for his “prejudiced” and “audacious” forecast. India went on to score more than 300 runs and even managed to draw the test. Ponting later clarified that his “view” was based on the condition of the pitch on fourth day. The pitch did not deteriorate on fifth day as expected. Nothing much should be read into his statement. He need not have presented his defense. The social media would have forgotten his statement in couple of days, anyways. The stock market experts (strategists, analysts, fund managers and seasoned investors etc.) who stick their neck out and make forecast about the market trends and likely levels of benchmark indices often face the situation like Ponting; especially for past 2 months tho...