What to expect from India's union budget

Given the recent economic slowdown, new Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to announce more accommodative tax and spending measures when she unveils the union budget for this fiscal year on 5th July. Ms Sitharaman may choose to paper over the resulting fiscal slippage by adopting some ambitious assumptions for revenues. But we think it more likely that she will relax the overall deficit target for this year and next.