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        If staying in power is cause for celebration, then the UPA, which has completed three years in office, deserves some felicitation. But it has little else to show for its three years of existence. This is the first instance of a government being around with an 'absent Prime Minister'. For, Dr Manmohan Singh is certainly not the power centre. To describe him as a puppet of 10, Janpath may seem coarse and crude, but, sadly, it is also a fact. In the three years that he has been in power - sorry, wrong word - - Manmohan Singh has increasingly come across as a pale pastiche of the powerful and purposeful Finance Minister that he was in Narasimha Rao's Cabinet in the early 90s. Then, he was the architect of India's momentous economic liberalisation. Then too, he spoke very little. But his work compensated for that more than adequately. Today, he is not so much silent as being rendered speechless and mute by a combination of factors. The first and foremost of it is the presence of Sonia Gandhi. Manmohan Singh, to use a contemporary filmi idiom, is merely lip-syncing for Sonia's voice. He has to constantly look over his shoulder to understand what Sonia wants him to do. Little wonder the government is hardly moving forward as the man at the helm has to forever keep looking behind.

        Then there are the so-called allies of the UPA. To have gone in with the support of such diverse and disparate groups in itself was a parody. But now this experiment looks even more farcical. For instance, you have one supporting party from the south cocking a snook at the Prime Minister's prerogative by unilaterally announcing the name of a new Minister from its base in Chennai. The Left, who are supposed to support the government from outside, are redefining the term allies as they go about working in a way that the opposition parties dream of. With such varied forces at work, the Prime Minister can hardly work.

        Having said all this, it is also true that Manmohan has also provided the room for outside dynamics to call the shots. He may think that he owes his position to Sonia. But the good doctor (in economics) should also realise he owes a good deal more to the people of India.

        Manmohan, to be brutally honest, comes across as a person who is clueless about what is happening around. It is no exaggeration to say that under him the PMO has been paralysed and is totally bereft of any authority. This has some far-reaching (in a negative sense) implications for the Indian State. A Prime Minister is as good as the use he makes of the authority that has been vested in him. Manmohan seems to be unaware of this. To be sure, he is honest and upright. And that, if anything, makes his failings even more glaring.