Are we truly independent.

Only 4 days have passed since the 66th Independence Day was celebrated with the usual outpouring of outright lies and empty promises by politicians. So the question that we, the citizens are entitled to ask is," Are we truly independent?" Pakistani army thugs and terrorists ( is their any difference? ) come across our borders at will and kill our soldiers but we do not respond because the US orders us to keep talking. Chinese army roaches put up tents inside our territory, build dams across rivers and are occupying our land in Kashmir but our Foreign Minister goes to China with his hand outstretched in bonhomie. Ah, so. On 15 August the US government reported that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefit dropped to 320,000 last week, the lowest level since October 2007 which was 2 months before the start of the recession. Inflation is down to 1.96% and the housing market is picking up. The Dow Jones index dropped 226 points to 15,112, that is 1.5% on the good news because it portends a tapering of the bond buying program by the Federal Reserve, also known as QE3. US Markets expect an increase in interest rates perhaps next year so the yield on 10 year bonds rose to 2.83%. If that was a little tremor in the US the Indian market experienced a huge tsunami. The Sensex plunged by 769 points or 4% and 10 year bond yields rose to 8.91% when markets opened on 16 August. The influence of the US was not just in the easy money that was coming from the Fed. The rupee fell to 62 against the dollar and the reason for the fall is that the RBI had announced measures to support the rupee after it fell below 61 to the dollar. The RBI reduced the amount Indians can remit abroad from $200,000 to $75,000 and even that cannot be used for buying properties outside India. Livemint, 15 August. Companies cannot invest more than 100% of their net worth in foreign countries as opposed to 400% of net worth earlier. This scared the bejesus out of investors, especially foreign ones so more money flowed out which caused the rupee to fall further. This means oils, both petroleum and palm, will become more expensive. Which means transport costs will increase adding to inflation and cooking oil, soaps and detergents will jump in value. Seems that Uncle Sam's boot is on us.