A grand move by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has been the relaxation provided on angel tax for start-ups, who can now focus on intensification and modernisation. The government’s allocation of ₹400 crore to craft a world-class higher education ecosystem is also commendable. For a very long time, there has been a huge gap between the skill set required by the industries and what has been provided by the engineering colleges in our country. The government’s push will advance the skills of youth in areas like 3D printing, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity and Big Data.

Vijaykumar H.K.,

Raichur, Karnataka

One fears that the proposal to impose a duty of 5% on imported books would adversely affect readers/book-lovers, especially those who read books on engineering and social and political sciences. Though domestic publishing needs to be encouraged as an industry, books published in India often miss out on quality information. The proposed 10% duty on newsprint could also result in an increase in the cover price of dailies. However, as newspapers have become an unavoidable component of social life, readers will be forced to come to a compromise.

P.RV. Raja,

Pandalam, Kerala

Ms. Sitharaman’s maiden Budget speech was a propagandist exercise on the so called “achievements” of the first Narendra Modi government, which failed miserably to deliver on the promise of achche din. The proposal to raise duties on petrol and diesel was unnecessary and will have a cascading effect, affecting all citizens but the poor more severely. There is no move to support agriculture, the sector of the economy under acute distress. The Budget also does absolutely nothing for the youth of our country, apart from re-introducing failed schemes like Skill India and MUDRA loan scheme.

Unnikrishnan E.S.,

Thrissur, Kerala

The Finance Minister’s use of a red-clothed bahi-khata (ledger bag) instead of a briefcase was a mere ploy to divert the attention of voters. Though Chief Economic Adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian called this a departure from the “slavery of Western thought”, the irony here is that the government still called the process a ‘budget’, a word derived from French word bougette, which refers to a ‘leather bag’. As is the general norm at present, the packaging matters more than the product. You can sell anything to the unsuspecting public, as long as it is well-packaged and well-marketed.

Venkitaraman Krishnan,

Kowloon, Hong Kong