• For the Women of India, Parliament Must Speak
• Patently Just
• The Dragon Gets a Bear Hug
• Take Tamil Nadu out of Lanka Policy
• The Great American Betrayal
• The Long and Short of Open Defecation
• Putting Bharat on an Equal Footing with India
• Solidarity Sri Lanka’s Tamils can do without
• Dangerous for Democracy
• Why India needs to vote for U.N. resolution on Sri Lanka
• It’s our Boat, our Courts
• Italy redeems itself

Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram on 28 February 2013 tabled the Union budget in the Parliament for the financial year 2013-14. P. Chidambaram was presenting his 8th Union Budget. The union Budget of 2013- 4 emphasized fast track economic growth with due importance on infrastructure development, skill development, employment generation and funding for social schemes. Three factors of Economic Concern discussed in the Union Budget 2013-14 were high fiscal deficit, slow growth and high inflation. Expressing his confidence on India returning back to the higher growth path Chidambaram advocated for support from all quarters to navigate through economic crisis. The Union Budget of year 2013-14 stressed on achieving a growth of 8 per cent on an immediate effect. The finance minister expressed his worry on Current Account deficit (CAD). CAD which required 75 billion Dollars to finance was high because of high import in Oil, coal and gold imports. The Budget, which came against the backdrop of a few key major reform announcements by the government, some tough decisions on fuel subsidy and some plain speak by the FM himself on how the growth momentum needed to be brought back, did not have that ‘awe’ factor which the markets and Corporate India had come to expect of Chidambaram. To be fair to the FM, however, he did attempt to address the key concerns in his speech, whether it was the need to create employment or bring in greater foreign investment or spur investment activity. But the measures announced in the Budget were clearly not Big Bang.

The UPSC has declared the final results of Civil Services Examination, 2012 on Friday, the 3rd May, 2013. The following are the important highlights of the results :

Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal presented the Union Railway Budget for 2013-14 in Lok Sabha on 26 February 2013. Except for the fact that it was after 17 long years that a Congress minister got to present the Railway budget, there was nothing particularly unique about Pawan Kumar Bansal’s maiden essay. Having raised fares a little over a month ago, he was able to spare passengers this time, but he has put in place a dynamic tariff mechanism for freight to take care of future increases in the price of fuel. This is likely to result in a 5 per cent rise in freight rates from April 1, with the promise of a half-yearly fuel price adjustment system to provide for the regular hike in diesel prices announced earlier by the government.

Spotlight/News Analysis (13 May):

• Topic of Discussion: Democratic Change in Pakistan and Indian Perspective
• Expert Panel: Rajeev Sikri (Former Diplomat) , Sandeep Dixit (The Hindu)

The Union Cabinet on 14 March 2013 cleared a Bill providing for severe punishment for rape, acid attack, stalking and voyeurism more to the point reducing the age of consent for sex to 16 years. The bill which was named the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013 lowers the age of consent for sex from 18 to 16 years with making of rape as a gender-specific offence under which men only can be charged for it. The Bill is brought in line with the Indian Penal Code, but at variance with the Child Protection Act, 2012, which raised it to 18.