India: Date with Desai

To India's able Finance Minister Morarji Desai, austerity is a way of life. Not only is he a vegetarian and a teetotaler who fasts for a day and a half every week, but he is also a hardheaded fiscal conservative who derides pie-in-the-sky welfare schemes and is an ardent believer in pay-as-you-go financing. Last week Desai presented the Indian Parliament with an austerity budget that will put the entire nation on the Desai standard.

To finance India's herculean task of equipping its armed forces against the continuing threat of Chinese aggression, Desai boosted the budget by a staggering 33% to...

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