AWAKENINGS

Answer to the above question is: YES. Then, it is our responsibility to prove our assertion. A golden opportunity was made available to us to prove our point by just going through the Hindu Newspaper of March 1, 2016 – carrying the various news items of Central Budget – 2016-17. Its Heading “A Pro-Poor Push in hard times” on the first page, its editorial “A message aimed at the heart of India” and even its cartoon along side its editorial are all well balanced, neutral, unbiased and even praising the budget for its push on the rural and farm sectors – though the Hindu said that it was due to a series of assembly polls coming up. But all special articles published in the same date paper – 1. Just another trivial budget by Ashok V. Desai 2. By no means a ‘socialist budget’ by G. Sampath 3. Nothing radical or revolutionary by Arvind P.Datar 4. Why the Budget numbers don’t add up by Rohit are all against the budget.  The views and opinions expressed in those articles are quite

Though ‘Loot ki Sarkar of UPA’ was defeated by Modi, Modi’s sarkar was accused by Rahul as ‘Suit boot ki Sarkar’ because  Modi had appeared with a costly suit gifted to him by an Industrialist a year or so. Now, with the budget of 2016-17 which is being hailed as the Pro-Farmer, Pro-Poor, Pro-Women, Pro-Rural Skill and Infrastructure Developments budget, it seems that Congress Party under Rahul’s stewardship  was once again knocked out and he should coin some other suitable slogans to target Modi.  Some salient points of the budget in respect of Rural and Agricultural Sectors alone are listed hereunder: v A dedicated Long Term Irrigation Fund will be created in NABARD with an initial corpus of  Rs . 20,000 crore with a view to double farm incomes by 2022. v A sum of Rs 38,500 crore allocated for MGNREGS . v 100% village electrification by 1st May, 2018 . v 2.87 lakh crore will be given as Grant in Aid to Gram Panchayats and Municipali