The past year has been a mixed bag of highs and lows. The education sector has shown a lot of promise, more so in rural and semi-rural areas. Government and civil organisations have worked together seamlessly especially to educate the girls. Unfortunately, one cannot say the same about the health sector. We are seeing it deteriorate over the years. Growing up we visited local civil hospitals, which had good doctors and equipment to handle emergencies. Today the same health centres are in a far worse condition and people are forced to visit private practitioners. If our healthcare sector had kept up, today those civil hospitals should have been good enough for the rural population. What really alarms me is the rise of crime and abuse against women, the pressure to dilute section 498A. And instead of being on a decline, the past few years has seen a rise in female infanticide. And you have seen the problems of a skewed gender ratio. When it comes to a name that stands out for me for the future, I do not really believe that icons take a country forward. In a democratic world, it is the will largely shared by the majority of the population that takes a nation forward. If we fall into the trap of chasing an icon, then we become retrograde and pile all our hopes and desires on one person and expect him or her to fulfill it. Having said that, an idea that has worked well for the country is the Right to Information Act. Coupled with the Panchayati Raj, if the two can be matched together, it will pressurise the total representatives to work everywhere. To me democracy is about transparency and answerability.