-The Business Standard The Union Budget shows the charitable instincts of the government continuing to overwhelm it - though some would call it part inefficiency and part helplessness. The exemptions given to citizens on the tax they ought to pay have been exceeding the Plan expenditure, and even the total fiscal deficit as it did in 2012-13. This has prompted criticism from the Left parties and activists, who view it as evidence...

-The Hindu Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s Budget for 2013-14 will be remembered not only for its strategies to stimulate economic growth and control fiscal deficit, but also for the importance given to the needs of the underprivileged sections of our society. In the field of agriculture, he has adopted the following three pronged strategy: 1. Defend the gains already made in the original green revolution areas like Punjab and Haryana: For this purpose...

-Outlook The CPI(M) today castigated the government for foregoing over Rs 5.73 lakh crore as tax revenues by granting tax concessions to the rich, saying the amount was Rs 53,000 crore more than the fiscal deficit. "The Budget proposals will further enrich the rich and impoverish the poor," senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters while reacting to the 2013-14 Budget. Quoting data presented in the Budget, he said the aggregated revenue foregone...

-The Asian Age Sonia Gandhi’s economic and political ideology may have apparently triumphed over that of Manmohan Singh. The neo-liberal finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram may be conveying an impression that he’s turned socialist with a vengeance by increasing taxes on the rich in the run-up to the 16th general elections. But the truth is that Mr Chidambaram has made certain assumptions about subsidies, inflation and the expected growth of gross domestic product...

-First Post While Finance Minister P Chidambaram played the knight in the shining armour role to the hilt, going all out to woo the Indian woman – with an all-woman bank, the ‘Nirbhaya’ fund and an empathetic lecture on the girl child- after the shock value wears out, we are only left with measures which at best might only scrape the tip of the iceberg that is women’s development and security...