A puppet has no responsibility.

Our most revered Prime Minister was apparently most aggressive in parliament on 30 August. He blamed the tapering of Quantitative Easing in the US for the fall of the rupee, blamed the opposition for not allowing reform bills to pass, the Supreme Court for the fall in exports of iron ore and blamed the states for not cooperating with the Goods and Services Tax bill. In short he blamed everyone but himself, the man who has been consistently lauded as a World Famous Economist by the freeloading press. What about the so called " big bang " reforms passed amid much self-congratulations last year. Except for increasing prices of diesel and electricity, and thus adding to inflation, it has been the biggest damp squib possible. Not a single domestic airline has tied up with a foreign one, although Jet has been flirting with Etihad for months. Not one foreign retailer has shown any interest in opening a multi-brand retail store in India because of exorbitant land prices, huge costs of setting up back-end infrastructure and uncertain political future. He has no explanation for the fall in growth rate to 4.4% in the first quarter of this fiscal after consistently claiming that the economy will grow at more than 7% through the last year. HT, 31 August. The rupee fell to below 68 last week but has bounced back to 65 when the RBI announced " single window " to provide dollars for Indian oil companies. What this means is that instead of buying from the market these companies are buying dollars from the Reserve Bank which means that the RBI is selling dollars to support the rupee. This is a dangerous step because instead of occasionally interfering in the market to prevent precipitate falls the RBI is taking on an open-ended sale of dollars for buying oil. Since we bought $144 billion worth of oil last year it will take a large chunk from our reserves of around $277 billion. He said that the fall in the rupee is " natural " because of the high inflation in India. Really? Who kept forcing the RBI to reduce interest rates to stimulate growth? The Prime Minister seems puzzled as to why everyone is blaming him for the looming disaster. After all he was never elected but sneaked in through the Rajya Sabha and has hung on to his seat by strenuous foot-licking and a massively thick skin. Cannot blame a puppet, can we?