Things are equally bad when it comes to education. Despite the vaunted Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, government schools are in a terrible state. Recent studies show that children who are supposedly literate cannot write their names or do simple sums. Yet, Dr Manmohan Singh has not found time to appoint a full time Education Minister. Arjun Singh is a dangerously poor substitute and in any case only interested in the low of caste.

Worse still, the Delhi government is currently busy demolishing schools in residential areas. If schools are not going to be in residential areas where should they be? In a country where the shortage of schools is so serious that three-year-old children have to suffer the trauma of admission tests it is lunacy to destroy schools even if they violate building byelaws.

Where sanitation and public hygiene are concerned there are relatively simple solutions as a Dalit sarpanch called Chhaya Kamble has proven in the Maharashtrian village of Malwadi, but to implement them at a national level we need a Leader in Delhi. What we have is a caboodle of ciphers and a non-executive chairman.