Dear Pranab Mukherji.. :)

As we all know tomorrow is the day of Budget, it is definitely going to play an important role since the recession and its after effects have taken a toll on most of the Indians set aside the world economy. Its no more gonna be Mr. Chidambaram delivering the budget and am really happy about it. We got a better human being in Pranab Mukherji and he will be delivering the much awaited budget. As an ordinary Indian I do expect quite a lot from this budget and in this blog i would discuss about it.

I have been tracking the budget over the last few years and it has not been that great or never really made an ordinary Indian happy. I always appreciated the increase in taxes over the alcoholic beverages and tobacco products and i would always appreciate it, i hope at least that can make many of the regular smokers and drinkers in the community to put an end to their smoking and drinking habits. I am sure the class of people who have lost their jobs in the near future would definitely have a second thought over continuing their smoking habits by this. Yeah, if you are thinking why this guy is talking bout cigarettes and liquor when we have more serious issues, i am an Indian who believes that we can get real quality citizens only if these habits of our people stop. In a populous country as ours the quality of its citizens is more important than anything else.

Secondly, the security of a common man. What can the financial minister do for security? Is this your question. It is the same with me, I expect the financial minister to allocate more and better budget for the INTERNAL security of my nation. I am among the Indians who believe that India is not secure anymore. I want to see the police equipped with better weapons, up gradation of the police stations and effective classes for the police men on how to talk to the public. Especially for the ones who think that being a police gives them the license to do anything they want, i pity the ones who have lost their lives cause of the misinterpretation acts of our Policemen. But the more important step would be to form a set of trusty people who can monitor the usage of these funds in the best possible way, I really appreciated the move to constitute Mr. Nilekani as the Chairman of the council for allocating Unique Identification Cards for every Indian. So the government must do something like that even for the effective use of money. Am sure even though it means usage of more man power, am sure it is worth it.

Now the plight of Indians who live in the villages and towns. For me India is really the villages and towns. Those people out there form my nation for me, am annoyed why is it that these leaders never look at that community, the community which struggle hard in their fields to get us our food to eat, the people who stand under the red hot sun working for every single Indians survival. Those people out there who are deprived of every basic right to his living, no good education it sounds as of the politicians want those poor ones to keep struggling all their life. I want the finance minister to allocate extra money for their development in all aspects. They must get better education, better facilities from the government not just the normal ration that every Indian enjoys, they must have more preference in the premier institutes of the country. There are no FIITJEE or TIME or IMS to train them get into the IIT's and IIM's and that needs to be understood by our government. There needs to be better health facilities for them. Unless the rural India develops there can't be any significant improvement in our country, India is still a third world country if not for the Urban India and that face needs to change significantly.

I would like to see the finance minister taking more steps to encourage our scientists to foster the development of indigenously built fighter jets and submarines. India is far behind China in both these categories and significantly behind Pakistan in the development of Submarines are concerned. If India can develop both these indigenously then we would be far ahead in the military perspective and that can even generate a lot of foreign currency as well. The other reason would be that at present we are spending a lot of money in acquiring military equipments from other countries and that can be reduced a great deal. I know that the development of such machines is not really easy but with some motivation Indians can make it, its lot easier than developing space vehicles i guess. Then comes the radar systems for which India still depends very much on Israel, if a small country like Israel can be so good in it, why not the giant India?? Which is definitely considered to have the best of brains in the world set aside you and me. ;)

I want Mr. Mukherji to do something about the volatile markets, i mean they need a far push and that can trigger more investment in them unlike over the recent past which has seen a significant decline in the flow of foreign investment. I would want the finance minister to allocate some resources for promoting the awareness among every Indian regarding the stock market and investing in it. I want to discuss this topic with further detail and hence i wouldn't ponder much with the stocks and trading in here. But i feel an awareness is very much necessary since only around 5% of Indians are presently investing. We should know that the more we invest in Indian stocks the more are we fostering the development of our country. Our markets would no more be controlled by the big guns from other countries.

I do wanna discuss few more issues in here but its time up for me to leave. Let me see how big a smile i get when i listen to the budget tomorrow, am afraid i might even miss it cause of my friends marriage. But still having seen the railway budget which was good enough i expect a little more from Pranabji. Please don't disappoint, I want a better India and its not just a single I, there are a billion of those. :)

Jai Hind!!