A week on and it’s time to celebrate India’s 68th Independence Day.

I was born here in 1982 in a city called Dhanbad, now in the state of Jharkhand but then in the state of Bihar. My interaction with Bihar was limited to annual trips and gazillions of relatives. I grew up primarily in Delhi, studying there, then working in Hyderabad, then studying in Pune and finally working in Mumbai before leaving for Singapore.

As with a parent, it’s easier to see the country’s flaws than to see that which makes droves of foreigners flock to India every year – and stay on.

But the fact remains – India will always be my country, my land, my home. And the first thing I want to improve in India is the way it treats women and children. Infrastructure, environment, corruption can all wait – first we need to create a country where one half of the population is not at the mercy of the benevolence of the other half.

Then together we can work on the rest. And there is a lot of work to be done. Here’s hoping no one is talking about women’s issues in India in another 68 years.

Happy Independence Day India!