The dominating event in everyone's mind was the monumental demonetization effort of the Government. Against this backdrop, the Union Budget was on expected lines, with the Finance Minister following the direction set by PM Narendra Modi in his 31 December address to the Nation. At the center of the budget speech were the rural poor and the unprivileged, with a clear sectoral focus on agriculture and infrastructure. The budget also provided some relief to the lower strata of society as well the MSMEs who were negatively impacted by the demonetization of the large currency notes. While the demonetization paved the way for the systematic elimination of the unaccounted cash economy, the budget followed up on this path. Structurally, this budget was different, Firstly, the Railway Budget was merged with the General Budget and secondly, classifying expenditure as Plan and Non-plan has been...