1 MARCH 2016

Ø  It’s a problem drivers in Delhi with its numerous roundabouts are familiar with – turning left requires a sharper turn if you are driving in the right lane. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley attempted to do just that as he sought to dispel all notions about the NDA government being a ‘Suit boot ki Sarkar’ in his third Budget, dedicating it to farmers, the poor and vulnerable sections of society while raising taxes on the incomes of the super-rich and introducing new cesses on services and cars to fund farmer welfare projects and infrastructure, respectively. Mr. Jaitley’s budget for 2016-17 attempted to address the distress in the rural economy that has hit demand creation and new investments, with enhanced outlays of nearly Rs. 2.75 lakh crore for programmes in the social sector, farmer welfare and the rural sector, giving them more play-time in his speech than measures to improve the ease of doing business. While his 111-minute speech was peppered with some poetry, for a change, and highlighted a new plan to ‘Transform India’ based on action points around nine pillars, references to growth and investments fell by a third from his maiden Budget outing in 2014-15, when the two were cited 65 times. While he did acknowledge and accept a suggestion by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to exempt Braille paper from taxes, Mr. Jaitley used the opportunity to also score political points citing several parameters on which the NDA government has done better than the UPA in its last three years. Despite higher expenditure owing to the 7th Central Pay Commission and the one rank one pension norm for defence forces, the Finance Minister chose to stick to the fiscal consolidation road map he outlined last year and set a 3.5 per cent of GDP target for 2016-17. Corporate India, which was expecting a cut in tax rate in line with the government’s commitment to bring it down from 30 per cent to 25 per cent over four years, termed the Budget ‘pragmatic’ — a euphemism for ‘there’s not much in it for us.’ Mr. Jaitley did promise more reforms — in taxation, foreign direct investment, dispute resolution in public private partnership projects and banking — and offered to deal with the retrospective tax demands faced by the likes of Vodafone and Cairn through a one-time settlement that would waive all interest and penalties involved.

Ø  Former Chief Justice of India HL Dattu on Monday took charge as the Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). He is the seventh Chairperson of the Commission. Justice KG Balakrishnan completed his tenure on May 11, last year following which member of the Commission Justice Cyriac Joseph held charge as the acting Chairperson.