New Delhi, Feb. 16 -- The budget presented on 1 February was important for India's new government, for it had won a mandate for a five-year term in power. Hence, it had to aim for a significant impact on India's economy towards the nation's long-term objectives.

It has done a good job on important economic challenges, such as ensuring the government's fiscal health and driving investments for growth. But it failed to initiate programmes to deal with structural problems brought to the fore by farmers from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. This is unfortunate.

The finance minister quoted Telugu playwright Gurajada Appa Rao as saying, "A country is not just its soil, a country is its people." True, but sons of the soil have been c...