Employees checking the quality of grapes before packing them at the Sahyadri Farms, a farmer-owned cooperative in Nashik, India,

Photograph: Getty Images

Mar 5th 2026|Mumbai|2 min read

INDIAN OFFICIALS have been in a boastful mood lately. A government report in December argued that judging by real-time economic indicators, India had overtaken Japan as the world’s fourth-biggest economy. This was to become economic fact once the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation updated how it calculates GDP. So in one sense, the new numbers released on February 27th are a disappointment: GDP was 3.3% smaller than previously thought. In other ways, though, they are a cause for celebration.

Signage for Mizuho Bank Ltd., a unit of Mizuho Financial Group Inc. (MHFG), at one of the bank's branches in Tokyo, Japan.

India’s economy is not as big as economists thought