In the age of social media, various sections of the Indian polity and civil society have reacted publicly in diverse voices, following the presentation of the Union Budget 2016-17 by Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley. An assessment of the Union Budget 2016-17 has been done in the following paragraphs by the Inclusive Media for Change team, based on a number of media reports, Government documents (including the Budget documents), and reports...

-Down to Earth The 2016 Budget has the right intent for the rural sector, but lacks clarity Union finance minister Arun Jaitley devoted a major part of his third budget speech to “transform India” and of the nine pillars to achieve the goal, three were on strengthening the rural sector. Altogether, the rural sector (including irrigation and agriculture) received close to Rs 200,000 crore this Budget, which makes one point clear:...

-TheWire.in Jaitley said he was making a record allocation to NREGA but the increase is a modest one in real terms and is even more suspect if one considers the backlog from previous year, particularly of delayed wages While various lobbyists did what they could to keep the finance ministry well informed about their demands, one is not so sure whether the needs of the poorest and most needy sections were articulated...

-Livemint.com Three questions can help understand whether the budget has enough wherewithal to provide a big rural stimulus New Delhi: The government has given enough signals that the distress-ridden rural sector would receive special focus in the forthcoming Budget. On Monday, a Mint report quoted senior officials in the agriculture ministry saying that there could be a significant increase in budgetary allocations for crop insurance and irrigation. But in the backdrop...

-Hindustan Times Less than a day before the Railway budget is presented in the parliament, former railways minister Dinesh Trivedi’s allegations against incumbent minister Suresh Prabhu of “fudging numbers” and concealing facts about the organisation’s financial health have surfaced in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that also charges Prabhu of copying Trivedi’s earlier budget speech. Citing that the current Operating Ratio (every paisa spent against a rupee earned) had reached...