India, Feb. 17 -- By the time Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman finished her near 90-minute speech on February 1, it was clear that the Union Budget presentation and its character had changed. In recent years, the Union budget has turned into a grand posturing of intents, with proposals increasingly spanning over years.

From "Viksit Bharat" to "Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas", "Amrit Kal" to the current "Kartavya", the Union government has assigned the annual budget with a policy objective that sounds more like a character tag with time periods of attainment ranging from "the next five years" to 2047-the year when the government has promised to make India a developed economy.

The proposed Union Budget for 2026-27 is no exception. Of...