Budget 2018: A believer of the Bhagwad Gita, Modi likely to shun populism

The Budget is no longer a major annual event of middle-class torment

Have you noticed something in the past few years? Unlike in the past, when everyone used to wonder about what the new Budget will come up with, very few people do so any longer. 

The reason is that since 1997, the government has held income tax rates stable at 10, 20 and 30 per cent. There has been some minor tinkering – after all, the tax bureaucracy must justify its existence – but overall, everyone has accepted these as fair rates and the government, aware that the tax base is tiny, has refrained from taxing income of the middle class