India, Feb. 2 -- In college exams, we used to have "continuation sheets". If you had too much to say, you asked for another sheaf of papers. Budget 2026 can be called a continuation budget. A work-in-progress budget. A plumbing budget. A more oiling-the-wheels effort rather than an express reform train. The biggest worry this financial year was the pressure on the fiscal deficit. The Rs.1 trillion of income-tax relief given in Budget 2025-26 plus the Rs.48,000-crore GST giveaway was poised to derail the budget estimates. But what made the story worse was a gross domestic product (GDP) deflator of just 0.5%. This measures the impact of inflation on real GDP and the trend line has been around 3.5%. While real GDP is of interest to macroeconomists, it is the nominal GDP that reflects on corporate bottom lines and tax revenue toplines. It is not surprising that the revised estimates for the year on personal income taxes and GST are both lower than the estimates. But higher corporate, customs, and excise taxes, and dividends and profits have saved the day, keeping the fiscal deficit (expenditure minus revenue) at a commendable 4.4%. The estimate for the next year is a very minor contraction to 4.3% - this number will finally filter down into the markets who might feel happier on Monday than they did on Sunday. The other big number to take note of is the big bump up in defence spends that are up by a trillion rupees, from 8% of the budget estimate last year to 11%. In a world where presidents are kidnapped at night and frozen islands are threatened with annexation, beefing up protection of our borders is no longer merely a choice. Spread across the budget are proposals that all aim to make India keep pace with changing technology. The tax break - till 2047 - for any foreign company that provides cloud services globally by using Indian data centres aims to boost Indian tech companies. Dedicated Rare Earth Corridors for mining, processing, research, and manufacturing built on the Rare Earth Permanent Magnets Scheme of November 2025. The India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0 takes forward the successes of the earlier version to build supply chains and design full-stack Indian intellectual property (IP). These technologies are big bargaining chips in an increasingly transactional world; the crucial steps outlined by the budget must go from proposals to action at the earliest. The one common thread running through the finance minister's budget speech is a desire to deregulate, simplify, and reduce friction between the State, businesses, and citizens. The proposals on easing compliances on customs, on ease of tax processes, and aiming for a more trust-based system are all in line with the larger goal of reducing government overreach in everyday lives. However, the big-picture intention of the government is almost constantly derailed by the bureaucracy that continues to train its suspicious gaze on both businesses and citizens. At the individual level, those who bought the sovereign gold bonds on the secondary market are in for a rude shock as the tax-free nature of the bond is now restricted to an original buyer who holds till maturity. The government had miscalculated the future of gold and had not hedged the price when it issued these bonds, leaving it with a large redemption pressure as gold price has zoomed as these bonds mature. As expected, there was no tinkering with the personal income tax rates or on any other tax breaks for income-tax payers. Thankfully, the finance minister did not give into the big bank lobby to increase the long-term capital gains tax on equity. Banks are worried at the growing share of mutual funds over bank deposits, but instead of stopping to steer bank depositors into toxic life insurance products that earn them huge commissions, they have turned to lobbying to try and kill the equity market that has created wealth for a whole slice of middle India. Stock markets reacted negatively to the increase in the securities transaction tax (STT) on futures, to 0.05% from 0.02% at present, and STT on options premium and exercise of options to 0.15% from the present rate of 0.1% and 0.125%. This affects speculators and traders rather than long-term investors. Nothing really changes for an average income-tax paying Indian. While the markets have reacted negatively, it will be prudent to wait a while for the sentiment to reverse. The India growth story remains strong, and Budget 2026-27 is a work-in-progress budget that has kept the borrowing under check, while pressing the pedal on capital spends and defence - no revdis (freebies), but a route to a long-term structural growth impetus....