NEW DELHI: The debate on the Manipur budget and the Centre’s supplementary demand for grants turned into an extension of the language controversy in Tamil Nadu with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday accusing DMK of hypocrisy.
“I do not want to name him, but the moment I read the passages, anyone with a small, faint familiarity with Tamil will know who I’m speaking about. So, when this person speaks about Tamil, much horribly, there’s no objection. On the contrary, they would keep his photo. They will also say he is our Dravidian icon,” she said while quoting the “elderly person” from various Tamil magazines in what was seen as a reference to Periyar, the leader of the Dravidian movement.
Coming to the defence of her colleague, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Sitharaman said he was made to withdraw his remarks just for saying that the protest by DMK members was uncivil. “But a man who repeatedly says Tamil is a barbaric language, they keep his photograph in every room, they garland him and worship him and say he is the icon of Dravidian movement. Look at their hypocrisy,” she said.
She also listed out a series of projects where the Centre was assisting Tamil Nadu.
Earlier, replying to the debate on Manipur budget, Sitharaman said all financial support would be provided to the state for economic development as she stressed the overall law and order situation had improved, except for some sporadic incidents.
Lok Sabha passed supplementary demands for grants, which entails Rs 51,463 crore additional spending in the current fiscal and the Manipur budget for the 2025-26 fiscal. The lower House also passed, by voice vote, the Rs 1,291 crore demands for excess grants for 2021-22 fiscal and the Rs 1,861 crore supplementary demands for grants for Manipur in 2024-25.
“With the collective effort of both the Centre and state govts, there has been an improvement in overall law and order situation in the state, to a large extent, except for some sporadic (incidents),” Sitharaman said.
She also assured that all financial support will be provided to Manipur for faster economic development.
The FM also took a swipe at TMC’s Kriti Azad, who had been critical of the Modi govt that it had lied in the past 11 years and didn’t fulfil promises it made while he accused the Centre of not releasing funds allocated to states including West Bengal.
“I will appreciate Kriti Azad if he speaks about corruption in West Bengal one day. The CAG report has cited corruption of over Rs 2 lakh crore in West Bengal. Even the state CM had acknowledged corruption in the state as she had asked her party colleagues to return the ‘cut money’,” she said amid protests by the TMC MPs.
India, US will negotiate ‘mutually beneficial’ trade agreement
While asserting that India’s tariffs were way below the commitment at WTO, govt on Tuesday told Parliament that New Delhi and Washington intend to negotiate a “mutually beneficial” trade agreement that will seek to lower import duty, address non-tariff barriers, and look at ways to enhance supply chain integration.
Commerce & industry minister Piyush Goyal, who returned from the US, is due to meet exporters on Thursday as they seek clarity on where the negotiations are headed so that they can prepare to navigate through the latest turbulence in global trade amid repeated attacks by US President Donald Trump on India’s “high tariffs‘. On Tuesday, Goyal’s deputy Jitin Prasada also made it clear that currently, the US has not imposed any reciprocal tariff on India.
“The US has issued a memorandum on reciprocal trade and tariffs on Feb 13, 2025, wherein the secretary of commerce and US trade representative are to take necessary actions to investigate harm to US and provide a report with detailed proposed remedies , based on which, US action against relevant trading partner could, thereafter be undertaken under any of the relevant US legislations,” he said.
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