What independence?

The Independence Day address to the nation by our most revered Prime Minister was part sanctimonious, part condescending and mostly fiction. You say that lack of consensus is blocking progress. When you have 47 ministries just to grab power any which way, when you stay silent when the exchequer is being looted, when you do not know the difference between dharma and Adharma, when you take orders without any protest just to hang onto your chair who is going to listen to you? You say that you will control inflation but how when it was your excessive spending to win the elections in 2009 is the cause? You say that MNREGA has produced rural employment knowing full well that this is just giving money for doing nothing and is the main reason for rural wage inflation leading to 10% food price inflation. You say that 100,000 villages have been provided with electricity and soon all households will be connected. Already farmers are given free electricity by state governments resulting in a debt of Rs 2 trillion for distribution companies and high rates for those of us who pay. We will have to pay even more and suffer longer power cuts. Maybe last months grid collapse was due to this reason. You say that 51,000 new schools were established and 700,000 new teachers employed. Then why have you forced private schools to reserve 25% of seats for the poor which is a surreptitious tax on fee paying students. Government school teachers earn double of private school teachers but do not work. Do you have the courage to take on their unions to punish them for not working? You want to provide interest relief for housing loans of under Rs 500,000, what about the middle class? Will these loans be available for us as well? Will banks enforce foreclosure if people do not repay their loans or will you just write them off, to add to the deficit, like you did with farmers' loans before the last elections? You talk about increasing foreign investment but cannot persuade your coalition partners to agree to multi-brand retail even though you are convinced of the benefits that will accrue. Why would anyone want to invest here when there are so many ministers to bribe and the rules keep changing. Exports contracted by 15% to $22.4 billion in July and by 5.06% to $97.6 billion between April and July. The Commerce Secretary, SR Rao blamed slowdown in Europe and the US for the fall in exports. " The growth rate in China's shipments have drastically come down to single digits from double," he added. What drivel! China is still growing while we are contracting. The fall in the rupee should have stimulated exports by making our goods cheaper in foreign currency but zooming inflation has canceled that by making goods expensive. If the government keeps throwing money to keep people inactive industry cannot afford labor costs. You talk about working hard, making every possible effort and leaving no stone unturned. What have you been doing for 8 years? What independence when our government still takes orders from a foreigner?