Budget 2025, Feb. 1 -- Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2025 today with a digital tablet wrapped in a traditional 'bahi-khata' (Indian ledger) style pouch as she heads for Parliament.

Continuing with the tradition, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman poses with the budget document outside Parliament ahead of the Budget 2025 speech.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman ditched the colonial legacy of the budget briefcase in 2019, replacing it with the traditional 'bahi-khata' to carry Union Budget papers. In 2021, she swapped traditional papers with a digital tablet to carry budget documents due to the pandemic.

A 'bahi-khata' is significant in Indian culture, tradition, and history. For decades, peo...