DA Editorial desk | Dhruba Deka
In a year when a war in the Middle East has pushed oil above 100 dollars a barrel and shaken economies from Europe to East Asia, India has done something that deserves acknowledgement: it has kept growing, and growing fast. When the International Monetary Fund released its October World Economic Outlook, it raised India’s growth forecast to 7.0 percent for the fiscal year 2026-27, up 0.6 percentage points from its July estimate, and described the country as one of the fastest-growing major economies. On a calendar-year basis the Fund now expects 7.4 percent this year. Global growth, by contrast, is projected at only 3.1 percent. China is expected to slow to 4.5 percent and the United States to grow 2.3 percent.
The numbers at home tell the same story. India’s real GDP grew 7.8 percent year on year in the April-June quarter, comfortably beating the Reserve Bank of India’s own projection of 7 percent and the 6.9 percent recorded in the same quarter a year earlier. Nominal GDP rose 10.3 percent to about 88 lakh crore rupees. These are not the figures of an economy muddling through. They are the figures of an economy absorbing a serious external shock and still moving ahead.
Credit for that resilience belongs to many hands, including consumers, farmers, small businesses and a thriving services sector, which the IMF specifically credited alongside resilient domestic demand. But governments set the conditions in which these actors operate. Steady macroeconomic management, continued public investment, and a deliberate effort to widen the base of formal economic activity have helped make domestic demand sturdy enough to carry the economy when exports and energy prices turn hostile. A government that panicked, or chased short-term fixes, could have squandered that stability. This one, broadly, has not.
Nowhere is the transformation more visible than in digital payments. In September, the Unified Payments Interface processed about 24.07 billion transactions worth roughly 29.37 lakh crore rupees, according to National Payments Corporation of India data. Average daily volume crossed 800 million for the first time, at 802 million. Compared with September last year, volume is up 23 percent and value is up 18 percent. A system that began as a public-sector experiment now moves money for street vendors, taxi drivers and tea stalls as easily as for large merchants. It has cut costs, widened financial inclusion and become a showpiece that other countries study. Few developing nations can claim a public digital utility on this scale, built to be open, interoperable and cheap.
India’s trade diplomacy has also matured. After years of hesitation, New Delhi has pursued trade agreements with energy and a clear logic: diversify markets, lock in access, and give exporters certainty. The agreement with the European Free Trade Association came into force in October 2025. The pact with the United Kingdom was signed in July 2025, and the one with Oman followed in December 2025. Negotiations with the European Union, a market of roughly two billion people when combined with India, were concluded on 27 January 2026 after more than two decades of talks, with legal scrubbing now underway and approval targeted by the end of the year. Government figures indicate that about 93 percent of Indian exports would eventually enter the EU duty-free. India has concluded eight trade agreements since 2014, a record that few predicted.
The negotiations with Washington show a government willing to bargain hard rather than sign at any price. A joint statement on 7 February 2026 set a framework for an interim agreement, and this month Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said the first tranche has been finalised and is in legal drafting. New Delhi has insisted on a competitive tariff advantage before the deal takes effect. That patience, criticised by some as slow, protects Indian farmers, dairy producers and manufacturers from a poor bargain. It also shows that India now negotiates as an equal, not a petitioner. A nation confident in its economic weight can afford to walk carefully.
No one should pretend the work is done. Inflation, jobs for a young population, the cost of imported energy and a widening current account deficit, which the IMF expects to reach 1.5 percent of GDP this year, all require attention. Healthy democracies debate these questions, and criticism is part of the process.
But fairness requires saying plainly what has gone right. India is growing faster than almost any large economy, building world-class digital infrastructure, opening new markets for its exporters and standing its ground in negotiations with the most powerful trading partners. For a country that is still a developing economy with hundreds of millions of citizens to lift, that is a record worth recognising. The task now is to turn this momentum into more and better jobs, and to share its benefits across every state and village.