{"id":106,"date":"2026-05-26T12:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/growingindia.epaperpro.com\/?p=106"},"modified":"2026-05-26T12:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:10:15","slug":"fm-hits-out-at-critics-for-peddling-pessimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/fm-hits-out-at-critics-for-peddling-pessimism\/","title":{"rendered":"FM hits out at critics for peddling pessimism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW DELHI, 25 MAY<\/p>\n<p>Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday criticised &#8220;naysayers&#8221; who claim India&#8217;s economy is &#8220;crumbling&#8221; amid Iran war.<\/p>\n<p>She said a cynical and pessimistic narrative was being created, with critics forgetting the &#8220;good being done by common people&#8221;, especially after Prime Minister Narendra Modi&#8217;s austerity appeals. She warned that India cannot afford fear-mongering and stressed the need to instil confidence through words and actions.<\/p>\n<p>cuts on petrol and diesel to shield consumers from inflation triggered by the West Asia conflict. She defended price hikes, saying earlier steps prevented Rs 10 increase at a time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The increases now are coming from oil marketing companies (OMCs) because they are the ones procuring (raw material crude oil) and selling (finished product &#8211; fuel),&#8221; Sitharaman said on the sidelines of the Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council export awards event.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Govt lost Rs 1 lakh cr&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>On fuel pricing, Sitharaman said the government had foregone over Rs 1 lakh crore annually through excise duty.<\/p>\n<p>When asked if the RBI&#8217;s dividend of Rs 2.87 lakh crore aligned with the government&#8217;s expectations, especially given the current need for support, the minister stated that the calculations follow a clear formulation.<\/p>\n<p>&gt;&gt;&gt;More on Page 5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW DELHI, 25 MAY Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday criticised &#8220;naysayers&#8221; who claim India&#8217;s economy is &#8220;crumbling&#8221; amid Iran war. She said a cynical and pessimistic narrative was being created, with critics forgetting the &#8220;good being done by common people&#8221;, especially after Prime Minister Narendra Modi&#8217;s austerity appeals. She warned that India cannot [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epaper.growingindia.co.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}