Frankly, I cannot understand why the denial of access to notes in files should be so crucial to our right to information. If you consider that to date more than 60 per cent of Indians who have exercised their right to information are government servants. My own view is that only educated Indians with the patience and wiles to deal with the bureaucracy will ever exercise this right.

On terrorism, lines are drawn in a frightening way. If you support Hindutva then you demand stupid things like ‘‘hot pursuit’’, and if you are ‘‘secular’’ then you do not discuss terrorism without expressing concern for the ‘‘minority community’’. Personally, I find arguments on the nuclear deal the most annoying because those who oppose it make India sound like a weak, spineless country.

So, I escaped Delhi by driving to the grubby, little village of Badod near Alwar. I chose this village for my rural reality check because I came here three years ago and found sewage water coming out of the village handpump.

I filled a bottle of it and took it to the new Chief Minister. I wanted to see if things had changed, so I stopped in the same bazaar as before and asked if dirty water was still pouring out of local handpumps. A group of youths gave me a suspicious stare before saying that the water was now clean but they had not had either pani or bijli for a month, which is why they had blocked the road to Alwar last month. ‘‘There was a lathicharge, a woman’s head was broken open, people were arrested. But now we get water and electricity for six hours a day,’’ said Ramesh Singh, among those who were arrested.

I asked the usual questions. What was the school like? Good, they said, and teachers came regularly. They also had the oldest and best hospital in the district, but here the governing committee which charged exorbitant rates was driving away good doctors. Can you have them all sacked? I explained that I was merely a reporter but surely they should be making these complaints to their MP or MLA. They laughed in my face.

Did I notice any changes since I was last here? Yes. There were several new houses, a brand new temple, a new road was being built, television had brought them enough information for them to be able to have a cogent discussion on OBC reservations. They were divided on reservations, liked Dr Manmohan Singh and Vasundhara Raje but made the usual complaints about vikas. When I asked what kind of development they had in mind they seemed unsure.

In Jaipur I spent an evening with Vasundhara Raje and inevitably talk turned to politics and governance. Yes she agreed that governance should be given more emphasis than politics if India was to become a developed country, but she said the problem was that at election time it was always only politics that mattered. ‘‘Besides, how much attention do you pay to governance in the media?’

Alas, too little.