Who needs constitutional puppets anyway?

The current Indian President’s foreign visits spanning over the last half-a-decade have driven an incredibly large hole, deep into the pockets of the national exchequer, funded by the struggling taxpayers.  Her ‘official’ wanderlust, along with her kin, has made the country poorer by a whopping 205 crore, breaking all records with aplomb. The president’s itchy feet achieved the nearly impossible feat, while millions of Indians are left smarting under intense poverty, crippling inflation, endless corruption and dumb Indian politics.

The President, while talking to leading Indian news channels recently, justified her foreign trips claiming that her visits ‘go a long way in boosting India’s image internationally’! She described her 20 plus foreign trips to be ‘very successful’ in promoting India's growing image abroad and strengthen the country's ties with those nations. Beat that!

 ... is this the great Nehruvian socialist dream we all dreamt of?

From as much as I have followed the ‘ghoongta’ flaunting, coy demeanored lady during her tenure, with little or no demonstrated ‘aura’-tory or oratory skills, I am at my wits end to understand how her visits would ‘enhance’ the image of a modern, rising, new India to the rest of the world! Titular constitutional heads like the President or the Governors, in their current avatars, hardly have any influence on the Indian socio-economic or foreign policies. Some of them even get chosen based on their political affiliation that betrays their personal merit or caliber for the post. After more than half century of trials and tribulations of independent India, do we still need to continue with these useless constitutional posts and continue to drain tax payer money, those could well be used to alleviate deeper socio-economic problems like national ‘food security’?