An anodyne Budget with a sting

In last four years PM Modi has restored the original purpose of the Budget to raise revenue in small bits and to spend, perhaps wisely, in small bits

Budgets are to urban Indians what litfests are to authors. Or, to misquote a perfectly vile man called Winston Churchill, never is so much spoken about so little by so many people. This is particularly true of the 2018 Budget.

That said, the government must be congratulated on not having taken the well-trodden route that previous governments have tended to take before a general election. So although scores of new schemes have been announced with the rural vote in mind, especially rural women, the overall allocation to these is not alarming. Indeed, in some cases like the medical insurance scheme for