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News & Views
Budget
The Finance Minister duly presented the Budget on 28th February,
2007 in the Parliament. The FM had already announced his intention
of bringing a new Income-tax Act in place of the existing one.
Service Tax now requires to be made into a full-fledged Act and this
is widely acknowledged. The handling of customs and excise through
the medium of circulars and trade notices is a well settled matter.
Hence the Budget was expected to be a routine affair. As newspaper
reports indicate it was really an exercise of tightening a few loose
bolts and opening some safety valves, possibly as a matter of
political expediency.
The media would not let-up, though, and it went into its annual
practice of hyping up the "event". Predictions started appearing
more than a week in advance and the next day, readers had to search
for "other" news. It is certainly better than the trivia, which
sometimes appears as front-page news.
Cricket World Cup
Another event that has been pushing daily news into the
corners is the Cricket World Cup. The media is choc-a-bloc with information
about the venues in the West Indies, the cricketers who made it to their
respective national teams and those who did not for some reason or the other.
The cup matches have started in the middle of March and they are spread over one
and half months. So there will be a surfeit of news
and news stories on this sporting event till then.
Election results
Elections held in Northern parts of India gave results, which
were against the Coalition of Parties in the Government at the Centre. As one
news report put it, ‘… two hurtful electoral defeats in Punjab and
Uttarakhand, and suddenly the great Indian political game has changed beyond
recognition.’ Several reasons were given for the verdict; prominent among
these were the rising inflation and the usual anti-incumbency factor. None
credited the Great Indian Electorate with the intelligence and the will that it
has shown in the past, too, to express its candid opinion through the ballot
box. It is really the performance of the political parties, while in office,
that are
considered by the electorate before the votes are cast. It is time the political
parties realized this and make their best efforts towards good governance, when
they are in office.
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