Modi’s protectionism push creates stock winners in laggard India

Prime Minister Modi's import substitution push under the 'Make in India' initiative is creating stock winners across fertilizers, automotive components, specialty chemicals, electronics, and semiconductors. A Bloomberg basket of 15 import-substitution stocks has rallied more than 20% since the Middle East conflict, outperforming the Nifty 50 which has dropped about 2%. The cabinet approved financial support of 1.9 trillion rupees (around 19.7 billion dollars) last week to promote domestic chip and smartphone production, with the government identifying over 100 more products for scaling up.