Budgets are designed to communicate intent. Revised estimates tell us what actually happened. As the final note in The India Budget Files, this blog steps away from speeches and headlines and looks only at how Budget 2025-26 played out once execution met reality,  across revenues, expenditure, ministries, and the balance sheet. What emerges is not a story of fiscal stress or excess, but one of deliberate trade-offs, uneven execution, and cautious rebalancing. 1. Revenue & Exp

Comparing budgets across countries is often misleading. Different nations tax differently. They spend for different reasons. And they carry very different social and institutional responsibilities. Yet, when done carefully, a comparison can reveal how economic models shape fiscal choices. This post in The India Budget Files places India’s Union Budget alongside that of the United States, not to rank them, but to understand why they look the way they do. Part 1: How the Rupee

India’s fiscal story cannot be understood in isolation. Debt, deficits, and interest costs only make sense when viewed relative to economic size, growth capacity, and financing conditions. This blog places India’s numbers alongside major global economies to answer three questions: How does India’s debt-to-GDP ratio compare globally? How does GDP per capita growth change the way we read that debt? What really matters more, the amount of debt, or the cost of carrying it? 1. Deb