With even the middle-class struggling with soaring food and gas prices, farmers committing suicide (over 200,000 plus over 15 years, 17,000 in one year), electric shortages, no infrastructure, the country on austerity, the political class still rides the gravy train.

This video describes how retiring President Pratibha Patil (July 2007 – July 2012) still travels abroad in a Jumbo jet, with an entourage of 100 people including multiple cooks and butlers, and attendants.

Meanwhile,  UK PM David Cameron at least travels business class. Patil spent almost a million dollars a day when she traveled (22 trips), while the government was telling  Indians that if they earned more than 28 rupees/day (about 50 cents approx), they were not poor.

Patil is not the only one at fault, of course. And her trips were not taken on her own initiative.

But this kind of thing is rampant in the senior officialdom and their media parasites.