A common criticism of recent budgets is that their focus has been on capital investment, to the relative neglect of the social sectors. Despite government claims of improvement in outcomes from various programmes, India’s rate of progress on the UN”s human development index has slowed down in the second decade of the century, compared to the previous two decades. The country continues to be ranked in the “medium” category for human development. Crossing the threshold into the “high” category (which Vietnam has already done) will take the rest of the decade, at the present rate of progress, says T N