The Latest: Top stories of the day
1. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday tabled the Budget for 2016-'17, with the main takeaway being his commitment to staying on a path of fiscal consolidation.
2. The Delhi Police admitted in the Delhi High Court that it has no video evidence against sedition-accused Kanhaiya Kumar.
3. The Congress has hired poll strategist Prashant Kishor for the Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat elections in 2017.

The Big Story: Budget Reads

Arun Jaitley's third budget may have had a much clearer focus than his first two, gearing state spending towards agriculture and infrastructure while nevertheless sticking to the fiscal consolidation path that he had announced a year before. Here are the 10 pieces you need to read:

1. As Swami Aiyar points out in the Economic Times, this budget has no radicalism.
2. But it does stick to the fiscal consolidation path, allowing it to prioritise well and turning the focus on the Reserve Bank of India, inspiring a leader in the Business Standard to call it a "masterly combination of good economics and good politics".
3. In an interview with the Indian Express, Jaitley claims that this will be the largest-ever simplification of tax laws.
4. Despite prudent expectations on the taxation front, the Times of India points out that the government is expecting a huge amount of non-tax revenue and isn't spending on asset creation.
5. Archis Mohan in the Business Standard explains how this shift to Gas, Power and Sadak, is preparation for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections for a government that was hurt by its suit-boot image.
6. But the government still missed out on the low-hanging fruit and hasn't actually budgeted for the Goods and Services Tax Bill to be passed, writes P Vaidyanathan Iyer in the Indian Express.
7. In the face of exceptional difficulties, this is a budget with nothing exceptional at all, writes Ajay Shah in the Business Standard.
8. And Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express says that it is a "triumph of centrism", displaying cautious prudence and sensible ideas.
9. A proposal to tax the entire corpus of the Employee Provident Fund at exit might cause union trouble, so Deepak Shenoy breaks it down at Capital Mind.
10. Shekhar Gupta in the Business Standard says the budget shows Modi as a "reformer in retreat".