The nation celebrated a no-action budget.

India's annual Budget was presented to parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and both stock market indices rocketed, the Sensex by 2,315 points or 5% and the Nifty by 646 points or 4.74%. The Budget made no changes to personal or corporate taxes but raised customs duty on a range of articles, including certain auto parts, mobile phone components and solar panels. "In her third budget and the Modi government's eighth, Sitharaman proposed a vehicle scrappage policy, Rs 20,000 crore (Rs 200 billion) recapitalisation of public sector banks, divestment of some state owned lenders and sale of some non-strategic PSUs (public sector units) with a view to bolstering an economy that plunged into its deepest recorded slump amid the pandemic outbreak." The Budget has abandoned the fiscal deficit target of 3%, raised this year's deficit "to a shocking 9.5% rather than the widely predicted 7%", proposed a bad bank to take non-performing assets (NPAs) off books of banks and increased health spending, appreciated SA Aiyar. Banks had gross NPAs of Rs 8.99 trillion in 2019-20 and a moratorium was allowed on loan repayments since March 2020 which means that Rs 200 billion for recapitalisation is wholly inadequate. The amount of bad loans will be revealed only after the moratorium ends, which will coincide with the end of suspension of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Code till 31 March. "There is a big push for roads and railways in this budget." "Higher allocation in healthcare and for clean drinking water have been made possible with expected reduction in the subsidy bill for 2021-22." "Gross tax receipts are pegged at Rs 22.2 lakh crore (Rs 22.2 trillion), a jump of 16.7%." Cynically, "With an eye on the upcoming state Assembly polls in Kerala, Assam and West Bengal, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Monday allocated special funds for the road and highway development projects in the three states during her budget speech," reported The Indian Express. "The Indian economy is likely to grow by 11% in 2021-22, the V-shaped recovery having been made possible by its strategy of Covid management that focused on protection of life at the expense of a short-term impact on livelihoods, the Economic Survey of 2020-21 argued." "The 11.5% growth projected by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for India in fiscal 2022 will largely be mechanical, as the economy normalises from an estimated 8% contraction in the ongoing fiscal year, IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said on Thursday. "Gopinath suggested that India continue its direct cash support to the poor in 2021, including the employment guarantee scheme, while prioritising public infrastructure spending." "The government has missed its total spending targets in the past two years, or even scaled them down, and has failed to meet goals for some of its flagship development programs, a review of its budget documents show," reported Bloomberg. So was the exuberance of the stock markets irrational? "The budget should be lauded not only for what it does, but also for what it doesn't do: (1) resists the impulse to offer tax concessions; (2) resists the temptation to impose a Covid cess of rate hikes," wrote Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Council. "Eventually, budgets will lose their hype, without yearly tax variations." In short, a nothing budget is good for the nation. Hallelujah.