This government has eighteen months left in office and it isn’t looking good. Measured by almost any parameter it gets less than five out of ten. Examine its primary duty of national security and the landscape fills up with jihadis and Naxalites with not the slightest indication that the prime minister knows what to do. Examine infrastructure and you notice that the Vajpayee government’s passion for road building has gone waste. Some say we have gone back from 11 kilometres a day to 11 kilometres a year.

And, there is not much else going on. Bharat Nirman remains an abstract idea, as does the wondrous plan to renew India’s cities. They go from bad to worse although we hear much about the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission. Poverty remains unalleviated despite grandiose pronouncements and huge expenditure. As someone who believes that people can usually alleviate their own poverty when given the the opportunity, it is my view that this government’s most conspicuous failures are in the areas of healthcare and education.

Abysmal public healthcare is something the poorest of our citizens have learned to live with which is why more than eighty per cent of our population uses private doctors, quacks and alternative medicine when in need. Not much can happen to rectify this shameful situation in the next eighteen months but remarkable change can happen very quickly in the area of education.

This is why what Rahul Gandhi reportedly said at a recent parliamentary committee meeting is most interesting and very important. This newspaper reported that he said he was in favour of private investment in education and was shouted down by Brinda Karat who went to the same school as I did.

... contd.