Final tally: 97 times of audience applause. Yeah, my mother actually counted each time and jotted it down on paper.

Well, that was an interesting thing to watch, and her whole speech took a whole hour, most likely. There was quite a lot of focus on infrastructure, developments, etc. and much mentioning of names to whom she's grateful as well as those whose provinces/towns/cities will benefit from all the 'good stuff' pouring in. Hah, and she tried to slickly push for the Human Security Act after talking about renewable energy projects in the country. She capped it all off by saying that 'the state of the nation is strong'. Well, that's one person's opinion.

I wondered how she would address education issues this time and she claimed that the country's making great strides and that there's now a 1:1 ratios of schoolbook to students. I can't help thinking that the government has truly washed its hands of UP.

What's most annoying of all are the constant waves of applauses, particularly the last two wherein fanatical clapping and hooting took place. All I could think of was, "Fucking sycophants".

MLQ3 provides a far more interesting summary of the SONA.