India boosts spending on rural poor as cash ban bites

India's finance minister pledged to raise spending on the rural poor and halved the basic rate of income tax in his annual budget Wednesday, seeking to ease the pain of a shock move to ban high-value banknotes. Arun Jaitley defended the so-called demonetisation, saying it would increase revenues by forcing people to declare untaxed wealth, but conceded it had hit the economy and promised relief to the poor ahead of key polls. Jaitley promised to increase government funding for farmers, who have