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G type of social programmes, can be of some long term significance if backed up by popular mobilisation not just verbally but by strong and honest implementation in at least the States ruled by the Left.

Basic Thrust and Rationale of the Budget

In the light of the above, one can try to make sense of the objectives, rationale, strategic and tactical line, and the real content of the Budget 2009-10. In its essential thrust the Budget expressly tries to address the abrupt termination of what was described by the previous FM as the absorbing and exciting Indian growth story. Obviously it is found convenient to maintain that the most prominent manner in which the effects of the current global economic, financial, social and systemic crisis have reached the Indian shores is by way of forcing a slowdown of the Indian economy's hyper growth. It is not recognised that the poor, whether countries or the common people in a country, are faced with exclusion (a fate worse than being the victims of a fleeting recession) even when the market forces-led status quo growth marches ahead vigorously and the going gets real hard for these marginally included sections when the drivers of the growth engine suffer bouts of recessionary contraction. Hence the tailor-made task for any manager of a liberalised economy is to restore the high growth rate era at the earliest, say, from the current target of about seven per cent quickly to the recent nine per cent trajectory as the salvation of India's age-old economic problems. This is also considered by the people in the Establishment a dire necessity for the so-called unstoppable march of India to a great power status. In the first Budget after the 2009 election, apart from reconfirming the basic thrust, it is the FM who appropriately reminded that the mandate for 'inclusive growth and equitable development' should also be recalled.

Given such intellectual and ideological baggage, reflecting probably concrete power equations and political tactical compulsions of the day, it is obvious that additional current spending, both public and private, to stimulate the economy and revive market sentiment for a robust boost to investment are zeroed in by the managers of the economy as the current task at hand. The tasks seem relatively simple on the supply side as we have scaled new heights of about 37-38 per cent rate of domestic savings and about 40 per cent rate of investment, of course with the foreign capital chipping in to bridge the small but critical gap and the massive linkages with the economies of the rest of the world are taken to be on balance a factor facilitating the drive for speedy growth.

Given the linkages, both positive and negative, flowing from the surprisingly rapid and large scale integration of the Indian economy to the world economy (read the G-8 economies), mainly in matters of trade and finance, the compulsions flowing from the current shrinking faced by the major world economies is to look inwards for the much-needed demand-push and stimulus.