The shortest speech.

The annual circus, known as the Budget, was revealed to anxious Indian citizens on 1 February by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ET. Thankfully, at 1 hour and 30 minutes, the speech was the shortest budget speech by Sitharaman, News18. With taxes on most goods and services being fixed under the goods and services tax (GST), bankbazar, there is no scope of tinkering with taxes on cinema tickets or diapers as in the 2011 Budget, taxguru. However, the itch to increase taxes on hapless citizens is uncontrollable and so, "Beginning in October 2022, unblended fuel will have an additional duty of Rs 2/liter," ET. Since most fuel used in India is non-blended the price of fuel will jump. This will be long after elections to assemblies of 5 states, including the biggest state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), NDTV, so the opposition cannot use it for campaigning. The government wants all vehicles to use fuel blended with alcohol and will probably package it as a 'climate tax'. However, a tax by any other name is still a transfer of earnings from suffering citizens to the government. In November, "The global energy crunch is putting pressure on the sugar market as the world's top exporters convert more cane into ethanol," BQ. "Facing rampant fuel inflation, Brazil and India are set to produce more ethanol from sugar cane, ensuring supply of sweetener remains tight." "Global food prices reached a 10-year high in 2021, rising by an average of 28 percent compared to the previous year, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization said," NDTV. The US produces ethanol from corn, afdc, hence diversion of sugar and corn to produce fuel will keep prices high. While the government is increasing taxes on fuel and potentially increasing food prices, it has cut social protection for the poor. "At a time that rural India is grappling with low wages, high food prices, falling incomes and pandemic-induced job losses, the budget...slashed funding under the flagship rural jobs scheme by 25% compared to the previous year's expenditure," wrote Sayantan Bera. The situation assessment survey of the NSO reported that "farmers income from crop cultivation actually declined in real terms in 2019 compared to 2013," while the budget has drastically reduced the subsidy on fertilisers from Rs 1.4 trillion last year to Rs 1.05 trillion in 2022-23,'' and "The temporary freeze on electricity charges and diesel prices will likely be removed once elections to crucial states are over, leaving farmers to pay higher charges for energy as well," wrote Prof Himanshu. Then, there is a savage tax of 30% on transfer of cryptocurrencies, on which "No deduction except cost of acquisition will be allowed and no loss in transaction will be allowed to be carried forward," ET. CoinSwitch Kuber claims to have a user-base of 14 million in cryptocurrencies, of which 15% are women and 60% are under the age of 28 years, NDTV. There are 200 million jobs missing from the Indian economy, wrote Andy Mukherjee. With banks giving negative returns on fixed deposits and no jobs, young people, who are computer savvy, were trying to make some money from cryptos. The poor, the farmers and the unemployed sacrificed. No wonder the speech was short.