Maintaining that the total amount of money required for installing 1 lakh bio-toilets is equal to what is spent for one Rafale fighter jet India is buying from France, union rural development minister has said, “I feel in our country, it is very important to maximise the developmental impacts of the defence expenditure. Defence expenditure in India today is Rs 1,93,000 crore.”

Rejecting Ramesh’s pitch for a share from the national security allocation for social development programmes outright, defence minister AK Antony said, “Money provided in the budget for the defence is for national security."

What do you think: we should cut down our defence expenses to fund development projects?