If you’re tracking the headlines, you’re probably aware of the train-wreck that is the “peace process”.  The funny thing is, despite how badly these talks have ended, I bet a couple of months from now Manmohan will again whine about how badly he wants friendship, good relations, etc.  and we’ll go through this utterly pointless joke of a process all over again.

A friend of mine joked that once you’re done squandering taxpayer money on populist giveaways (sorry, inclusive growth), you need to find something to do  for the rest of your term. That probably sounds too harsh, but it got me thinking though; when the UPA won so emphatically in 2009, the widely held hope (even amongst people on the centre-right) was that with such a solid majority and no dependence on the communists, UPA-2 would finally push through big-ticket, long-pending items on the national agenda, both legislative (another round of financial reforms) and executive (taking the fight to the naxals). Hmm, so let’s see, off the top of my head, UPA-2′s current status reads like this:

1) bungling both the military as well as the heart-and-minds war against the naxals

2) no significant legislation (reforms, pension, insurance, etc)

3) aforementioned waste of time in the foreign policy arena

4) chronic incompetence when it comes to the CWG games (though to be fair, the Delhi govt probably deserves a lot of blame for that)

5) excruciatingly slow progress on infrastructure (they really don’t want to finish a project with AB Vajpayee’s name on it, do they?)

and 6) mainly, a pervasive sense of drift in all spheres of governance.

(Now I’ve not been following things too closely, so feel free to point out examples/counter-examples)

But in the final analysis, I guess none of that matters. Another couple of costly unfunded bribes to the electorate (sorry, entitlement programs) such as the loan waiver and NREGA, (food security bill, anyone?), and soon enough we’ll be welcoming UPA-3.