'In the final analysis, all Budgets everywhere are like the schemes hatched by A A Milne's lovable Winnie-the-Pooh.' 'They may be well-intended, but often go awry.' 'Although Pooh and his friends agree that he 'has very little brain', he is occasionally acknowledged to have a clever idea, usually driven by common sense.' 'This Budget at a first glance does not appear to belong to that latter category,' says economist Shreekant Sambrani.
'India should think big: About how in a multi-polar world, India can indeed be one of the poles, rather than being a secondary power that has to worry about 'alignment' with one of the poles. A G3 in other words, India should look to getting others to align with itself rather than the US or China,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'We need to put aside our anxieties about the Budget for now and possibly for long, and carry on as best as we can,' advises Shreekant Sambrani.
Making it easier to do business is a key element of our strategy, says Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar.
Both India and South Korea will use President Park Geun-hye's visit to unveil a comprehensive programme for mutual benefit and impacting on regional security environment, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
A theory that is doing the rounds is that with election nearing, this depreciation of the rupee will allow politicians of all hues to bring back their ill-gotten wealth.
BJP strategists need to remember even at this late hour that 'negativism' sells when you are in the Opposition as the Indian voter has mostly voted anti-incumbency, and not when you are in power. You still needed to highlight your achievements and promises, and let the voter draw his conclusions, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Demonetisation, is in principal, a mistake, because it involves a theft -- a taking of private property by the State.' 'It is one of those bad Indian ideas that has been tried twice in the past, with two failures for the record books.' 'This cloud over the economy will probably remain as long as Modi is in power.'
Mohandas Pai took part in an hour-long chat on rediff.com
This Budget will be a litmus test of the government's resolve to ensure Make in India strategy works
Narendra Modi's success at the BRICS summit is the best Diwali gift for India's diplomacy and marks her ascendancy to global leadership, says Tarun Vijay.
'India is no longer the India of the '70s and the '80s.' 'It's a large country with the fastest growing economy.' 'In working with India, you just can't go and humiliate the nation publicly.' USIBC President Mukesh Aghi tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com about how he advises American companies to do business with India, what he thinks of Modi's government and the way forward for the India-US relationship.
The elements are all aligned to make India a global powerhouse, says IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
Congress gets into the opposition groove but still has miles to go, says Saroj Nagi.