Budget 2015 Gets "5P" Ranking From Prime Minister Narendra Modi. What That Means.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi  says that the government's annual budget sends a clear signal that India will have "a stable, predictable and fair tax system."
 
But the premier, known for his penchant for alliteration, also gave the budget "5Ps" in a tweet: "It is a budget that is progressive, positive, practical, pragmatic and prudent."
 
The PM was seated next to Home Minister Rajnath Singh when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the budget in a speech that lasted 90 minutes.
 
While seeking to spark an investment-led boom, the budget was short on structural reforms, with the government leaving major welfare schemes untouched and only cutting fuel subsidies thanks to a collapse in international oil prices.

"People who urged us to undertake 'big bang' reforms also say the Indian economy is a super giant, which moves slowly but surely," Mr Jaitley told parliament. "Even our worst critics would admit we have moved rapidly," he said.
 
Mr Jaitley promised higher investment in India's decrepit roads and railways, offered the carrot of corporate tax cuts to global corporations and the stick of tighter compliance rules to get tycoons to invest at home rather than stash wealth abroad.
 
He forecast that growth would accelerate to 8-8.5 percent in the fiscal year starting in April, up from 7.4 percent this year. But he pushed back by a year, to 2017/18, a deadline for cutting the fiscal deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product. In 2015/16, the deficit will be 3.9 percent of GDP, above the 3.6 percent target inherited from the last government.