If he is living in the '70s when Rs1,000 would have bought a second hand moped, this finance minister is downright dangerous and the Sensex should have crashed even more. By Vivek Sharma

"Dear Mr Mukherjee

"Returning to a job after a long gap is never easy. For someone like you who was the finance minister of this country a good quarter century earlier, it must be even more so. Everything in the world has changed. Back then, a taxpayer was a rich man. Now, even our milkman says he is a serial entrepreneur and claims to be a taxpayer. At least he has a PAN card.

"But, you hardly betrayed any sense of unease during your latest budget speech. Everything was just like those old days. Your tone, your catchphrases, just the same. If the figures were different, it was only because the economy has multiplied in size since the eighties. That is definitely not your fault.

"You rightly reiterated that you will not sell more than 49 per cent in PSU firms. Though the Economic Survey prepared by your officers mentioned a disinvestment target of Rs25,000 crore, you were far less ambitious in settling for less than 5 per cent of that in your budget. I agree with your strategy. Who knows how long this market rally will last? If stock prices fall, you know you won't be able to sell even a single share. It is not prudent to reveal all your cards or commit yourself upfront.

"Not a word in your speech about financial sector reforms, which is comforting given the global financial crisis which we barely escaped just recently. Nothing about FDI or attracting other foreign capital either. Such statements would have been useless when the world is yet to fully recover from the aftershocks of last year's Lehman collapse. You really know well what you are doing.

"I appreciate the fact that you accepted with gusto my suggestion to stop worrying about the fiscal deficit and just spend. You have not spared any expense for your government's pet programmes. As your officers confirmed last week, 4.5 crore families spent 100 days each last financial year digging ditches all over the country.