india and southeast asia economics at oxford economics good to have you with us what will they do can they do it   the pain of the last years budget has been basically consolidation so that the  so that it continues to falter recovery i think this budget stays the same i dont think we are looking at a deviation my projection is that the deficit could be projected for below 6 this builds on expectations that for fiscal 2022 the government is on course to under shoot its projected target of 68 by a reasonably wide margin of course they are going to try to dampen the impact on growth by pushing harder infrastructure spending so allocation on that is likely to go up they will try to achieve a trend objective but i think what will be the key question is that we all agree that india is going through an uneven recovery and is the budget able to address that i do not think that will happen because if you are increasing infrastructure spending and narrowing the deficit it has to come at a cost of allocation for other sectors haslinda if this budget were to address its uneven recovery between the formal and informal sector what do you see the budget doing   we will see stocks for the farm sector we will see stocks for other sectors like the small and medium enterprises lets not forget it comes right before some crucial state elections so there is going to be a little bit on that side having said that i do think social spending will not get a boost in the ministry such as health education they have got an increase in allocation under the fiscal consolidation strategy and i think that is where the brunt of the budget be rishaad what we are really getting at here is are they going to be kicking the can down the road with regards to fiscal policies and tightening and perhaps reducing their deficit   the answer to that were also in some sense lie in the medium term fiscal target at this point it does not seem unreasonable to achieve 45 over the next few years over the next few years or so but we have to see how that develops this government doesnt seem like it is doubling down and shrinking the deficit and does not want to kick the can down the road but we saw a lot of transparency being introduced i expect it to stay on course for that we are also looking to be gunning for global bond inclusion for india so these things will really matter in that respect rishaad absolutely this is what i was going to ask about with bond inclusion how does that change for the government and indeed also for the rb i   it is interesting first of all we are all looking at if the government actually pushes ahead on the gasoline gains tax which will really pave the way for bond inclusion there are some big projections in terms of how much inflows can be generated and it does seem that it proceeds pain and penetration from a policy perspective i would say we first need to wait for the budget announcement to make more conclusions haslinda all eyes on what the fed does how closely is the rb i watching the fed move and how long can it see divergence from the dead   thats a very interesting one even as we move forward on fed hike objections we have pushed back on our rb i hike simply because it remains focused on ensuring durable recovery and fostering economic recovery something i would say is in the room giving how elevated inflation is for india it does not seem we will see any active politics i think we need to see what is happening on the margins but i do expect in q2 so 50 percentage point  50 basis point on the rvr rishaad what if oil hits 100 bucks a barrel how does that change the landscape and scupper plans for tightening   i do think that changes the landscape a lot but what i want to say is that the rb i has been in a transitory inflation led by cost factors for so long now  we have seen that from 2020 inflation has not been just elevated in india for the last couple of months or so it has been elevated right through the pandemic as supply bottlenecks have led to a very different kind of pressure they have consistently argued that the odds are negative and cyclical pressures are still muted i would not say the rb i will flip overnight but i do think they can stay elevated longer