

The week in charts: India-US trade deal, Internship outlay slump, PMI trends
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. From India and the US finalizing the much-awaited trade deal, to low budgetary allocation for the Prime Minister’s Internship scheme in the Budget, richer states seeing an uptick in their share in the Centre’s divisible revenue, and startup leaderships lacking gender diversity—here’s this week’s news in numbers.
Trade deal Following months of tariff disputes and prolonged negotiations that tested the India–US relations, a long-awaited free trade agreement was announced on Monday.
India announced that it would face 18% reciprocal US tariffs, down from 50%. The US, meanwhile, said India had agreed to stop buying Russian oil, move toward zero tariffs on a wide range of American products and eliminate non-tariff barriers, buy $500 billion of US products, and allow greater access to its farm sector.
However, it has reiterated that it will protect sensitive sectors like farm and dairy. Nevertheless, an 18% tariff puts India on a level playing field with other export competitors, if not at an advantage.
The Union Budget 2026-27, which was presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 1 February, slashed the allocation for the Prime Minister’s Internship Scheme (PMIS) to about ₹4,788 crore from the previous year’s budget allocation of over ₹10,831 crore. One of the Modi government’s flagship schemes, the PMIS, has struggled to utilise its allocated funds effectively.
The PMIS utilised only 1.6% of its allocation in FY25, the year it was launched, and is estimated to exhaust only 5% of the budgeted outlay in FY26. The lack of demand for funds under the scheme is concerning, especially in the context of the high unemployment rate of 10.2% in FY24 among the youth population, compared with
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