Reader gets paralyzed choosing budget-related news to read

A reader of Times of India & Economic Times, who missed the budget speech of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the subsequent discussions through out the day and night on 17 different news and business channels became paralyzed by the sheer volume of budget-related articles published in the two newspapers.

"In a way, I was relieved that I was away at work and didn't have to deal with the pressure of selecting which channel to tune into for post-budget discussions. The information overload on budget day can become quite overwhelming, so I was subconsciously glad that I didn't have the freedom of sit at home and watch the budget discussions live on television. But the day after turned out to be worse, as I sat down on my sofa holding both the newspapers trying to grasp the details of the budget." said Shivkumar Hegde.

"The first page of TOI was easy enough and I breezed through it quickly. But when I turned the page, I felt nervous and anxious. There were so many items on budget and I found it increasingly difficult to choose which one to read and which to ignore. Do I care to know what Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan or Katrina Kaif feel about the budget? I don't, but I couldn't resist a peek and discovered that Katrina Kaif was clueless about the budget and had only heard about increase in allocation for Mumbai's flood management system. She even wished that this year rains won't exceed the handlng capacity of Mumbai and hoped that the increased funds never get used. How nice of her to care so much about the city! Then as I started reading Priyanka Chopra's endorsement of the budget due to its commitment to increasing female literacy, I realized that I was getting distracted by fluff stuff and needed to move on to more serious items"

"Oh boy, what a difficult choice it was. Should I read about what Mukesh Ambani, Adi Godrej, Kishore Biyani, Indra Nooyi or Narayan Murthy had to say about the budget or should I read the impact of the budget on automobile, banking, finance, agriculture, cement, infrastructure, consumer durables, power, textiles, telecom and steel industries? I settled for the latter but gave up after a couple of minutes of reading statistics about growth rates and sales figures. Too dry, too boring!" said an exasperated Hegde.

"I kept flipping pages trying to decide what information I need to know. Unable to decide, I switched to ET. More pages, more statistics, more words. I started reading whatever I could, but couldn't concentrate on anything for too long and kept flipping pages. Finally, paralyzed by indecision I gave up."

Hegde told us that the only thing he remembers about the annual budget is that like every budget every year, it was a good budget for some, not-so-good for some others and disappointing for the rest, mostly politicians not belonging to the governing UPA. "Opposition politicians never appreciate any budget and point out every negative they can detect. I wonder why news channels and papers bother getting their reactions. Movie stars don't give a shit about budget, yet always discover some positives to talk about. I'm sure Katrina didn't have a clue about allocation of more resources to Mumbai flood management system and her budget reaction was directed to her by the journalist interviewing her. Yet after browsing 50 pages of budget-related articles, that's the only thing I remember about the budget!"

Hegde, whose equity portfolio suffered a significant drop in health due to sensex crashing by over 900 points, also learned the stock market crashed due to over-expectations. "I'm wondering who is a bigger retard, the market for always behaving like a spoilt child over-expecting goodies from the finance minister every year during budget despite past disappointments or me for not encashing my profits before the budget despite knowing that stock market behaves like a tantrum-throwing cry-baby after every budget presentation."