India’s Outlook

Commentary

India has entered 2026 facing more economic challenges than headline growth figures alone would suggest. While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has upgraded India’s growth projections for the 2025–26 economic year to 7.3 percent (up from 6 percent), the composition and durability of that growth is increasingly hostage to external shocks, policy trade-offs, and structural constraints, especially as the global economy grows more volatile. The challenge for New Delhi is not whether the Indian economy can grow—that is clearly evident—but whether it can seize the opportunities to continue this growth in an era of global instability.