Experts use complicated methods to measure a country’s performance. GDP, sensex, industrial index, inflation, etc. All these the common man is unable to comprehend. What the common man seeks is a happy life in which there is job security, social security for his family and a clean environment to live in. The government in power knows this well enough, but all that is doled out are feel- good slogans, the bogey of a foreign threat (read it as nationalism), and blaming the previous dispensation for the present troubles. All that we see prosperous representatives who go around in flashy cars and live in palatial houses. Look at the life of the common man. It is a tough grind in the face of rising fuel prices, the highest in the last two decades. Since 2002, there is a 250 per cent hike in petrol prices. Diesel/petrol prices showed a 21/18 per cent hike from April to December during the pandemic. This increase had no basis. The crude price was negative during this time and the increase was merely to ensure the refineries favoured by the government made up for lost sales in the time of the pandemic. When the present government came to power ousting the Congress, the international crude prices dropped. The PM was quick to remark that the country should look at the same as his good luck. And now? No luck here, just poor governance.
