Sir, the House has now taken the interim Budget (General) for the ensuing financial year. I thank the Chair for the opportunity given to me to speak as a Member of our party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, I welcome and support this Budget brought before this House by our External Affairs Ministers, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, who hold additional charge of finance portfolio. On behalf of our leader kalaignar karunanidhi who is the chief minister of tamilnadu for the 5th time and also on behalf of our party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, let me extend my support to the financial statement made by our UPA Government. Our in-charge Finance Minister has stated that taxation measures will be taken up by the new Government at the Centre that will take over in three months time from now. Overcoming the Constitutional constraints for a pre-election budget and also overcoming the challenges in the wake of economic melt-down, a balncing act has been performed by the Finance Minister in this Budget. This is what Dr. Manmohan Singh our Prime Minister heading the UPA Government has got to say about the Budget. When there is a recession looming large over the global economy enough care has been taken to protect the most vulnerable poorer sections of our Indian population. About 35 per cent or our masses who are living below poverty line are getting a better deal in this Budget. The flagship programmes of this UPA Government have all been allocated with Rs. 1,37,317 crores. We do not know what will be the fate of the Mungerkar Committee's recommendations. The Mungerkar Committee talks about 251 urban towns wherein you have a large number of minorities and the basic amenities and socio-economic parameters are very low. We do not know whether the Ministry concerned. The new mark bettered by his previous best set when winning gold at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade in March. It was his fifth World recored, and third this year. Unheralded Nigerian Tobi Amusan had earlier stolen the show with two electric runs on her way to gold in the 100m hurdles. In the very first event of a loaded evening of track, people had barely had the chance to sit down before Amusan rocketed to a new World record of 12.12s in the semifinals. When she returned to the track later, the Nigerian stormed to victory in although a tailwind speed of 2.5mps meant it wouldn't go down in the freshly-inked-record-books. American Athing Mu lived up to her hype by adding the World title to her Olympic crown while another gold medallist from last year's Olympics, Germany's Malaika Mihambo, retained her long jump title.
