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Showing posts with the label Finance Minister

Most dehumanising budget ever delivered in the history of independent India!!

No doubt, year after year the Union Budget ritual is a big let down. But then, this year’s Budget has surpassed all such milestones created by previous Budgets in letting down the masses of this country. It was amazing to watch how casually and callously our honourable Finance Minister (FM) kept on doling out favours after favours, with the least respect for a citizen’s money. It was also amazing to note how our sitting MPs, dead drunk in ‘populism’, kept on vehemently applauding each and every illogical and irrational announcement made by the FM. The final icing came towards the end of his speech, when mainstream media, industrial associations and industrial big wigs shamelessly sang in unison in appreciation for the FM, without getting into the details of the actual impending effects of some of the reckless decisions taken by him, in his Budget speech. Let’s start with our Honourable FM’s biggest kill in this year’s Budget – Waiving of a staggering Rs 60,000 crores worth of loans of ...

A historically insensitive budget: A case of missed opportunities

My immediate reaction, after hearing the Union Budget speech by our honourable Finance Minister (FM) was that this budget should not get more than 2 on a scale of 10. The reason? It was an extremely rare opportunity that a Finance Minister would have everything going in his favour while going to present his budget and yet it turns out to be a damp squib for every stakeholder of the economy. The fact is that Indian economy has been growing consistently by more than 8% for quite a few quarters now. The forex reserve stands at an all time high of around $188 billion, merchandise exports are on the verge of crossing the magic figure of $125 billion. Yet our FM found it difficult to garner all the courage to go ahead with a path breaking budget. Understandably the reasons for such sub-standard budget has nothing to do with the future of the economy but was intended towards the prospects of the United Progressive Alliance in the forthcoming elections. Amazingly, it miserably failed here too ...