FM, RBI guv see India as global anchor amid flux

Local consumption, strong fundamentals position India as stabilizing global force

- Rhik Kundu

India's finance minister and the central bank governor struck a note of reassurance and confidence in the country's economic prospects amid global convulsions driven by geopolitical pressures, fractured trade, and shifting alliances.

Speaking at the fourth Kautilya Economic Conclave in New Delhi on Friday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the era of globalization and open markets that shaped the post-Cold War order appears to have become "a relic of the past".

Noting that global trade flows, capital markets, and alliances are being increasingly redrawn along geopolitical lines, the finance minister said, "The question is what lies on the other side of this transformation, and on what terms."