The Eastern path~I
India's Act East policy was launched in 2014. As pointed out by Prime Minister Modi, it rests on four pillars: Culture, Commerce, Connectivity and Capacity.
The final Union Budget of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government is currently being presented by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
The finance minister decided to take a slightly different route as he announced the Budget in two languages – Hindi and English. This is for the first time that a Budget is presented bilingually.
This is BJP government’s last Budget before the 2019 general election. FM Jaitley is presenting the Budget for the fifth straight time and he chose the last Budget of his government to mark the language addition.
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It is being said that the use of Hindi language is aimed at striking a connection with rural population as the government is stressing on a boost for farmers, rural poor and small business.
Focusing on agriculture, the government will take steps to boost exports of agriculture commodities which have the potential of reaching USD 100 billion, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced during the budget. The country’s agricultural exports are around USD 30 billion at present.
Some of the previous finance ministers of different political parties had a few times used some Urdu, Hindi or Tamil couplets while giving the entire speech in English.
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