MY ears are still ringing! That’s the price of watching the budget with Lola Kutty. The special sops for coir producing states is great news indeed!

The finance minister has tried to appease every constituency with the Union Budget for 2007-08. While there are major announcements for agriculture, manufacturing and the services sector, he has also unveiled a sizable bag of goodies for the youth.

With Goldman Sachs projecting India becoming the second largest economy by 2050; with Indian companies proving their mettle at the world stage and with international companies making a beeline for the Indian telecom and retail sectors, the country is in for a period of sustained economic growth. The Budget lays a roadmap through which this growth can fructify.

Living on campuses, within the four walls of hallowed academic institutions for the past six years, I have always wondered about the significance of the Union Budget in my life.

The young, falling in the age bracket of 18 to 33 years, comprise almost 55% of our population. Increased allocation (34.2%) to this sector shows that the government is serious about tapping this vast talent pool.

Small initiatives like the reduction of education cess and raising of tax exemption limits which make the youth, fresh out of colleges, richer by Rs 1,000 must however be taken with a pinch of salt.

All expectations that finance minister P Chidambaram would play to the gallery and announce concessions have been laid to rest.

Taxes at individual level are fine, but I am not happy with the step-brotherly treatment meted out to culture in successive Budgets...Devendra Raj Ankur

I think we are highly overtaxed at the moment. What is even more worrisome is the fact that everyone is busy passing the burden on to the hapless consumers...Kiron Kher

The number of taxes we pay is simply mind-boggling and even the payment procedure is so confusing...Prakash Jha

I think the forthcoming Budget should have a three-pronged approach. First, it should provide financial support to upcoming national and regional publishing companies by way of zero-interest loans with a time-band of maximum 5-7 years to aid rapid development...Kapish Mehra

We started the so-called process of liberalisation with rationalisation of taxes with Manmohan Manmohan Singh as the finance minister...Prahlad Kakkar

For an agriculture-based economy like ours, it is important that our financial plans are targeted to improve the life of our farmers so that we can avoid unfortunate incidents like their suicides in Maharashtra and other states...Sharon Lowen

I hope the forthcoming Budget helps alleviate the life of the common man. One of the major areas, however, is to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS...Nafisa Ali