Promising a good life for India’s 1.25 billion people, Narendra Modi won the national election and took over as prime minister in May 2014. Unfortunately, after just three and a half years in office, Modi is quickly losing his popularity because of his failures on several fronts. Many now think Manmohan Singh, Modi’s predecessor, was a better prime minister.
Singh was a proponent of inclusive growth, whose economic ideology of combining development with social equity was key to his achievements as prime minister.
From making India part of the international community to increasing per capita income by three times during his 2004-14 tenure, Singh’s work helped bring about a sharp reduction in poverty and a rapid increase in rural consumption, while enhancing citizens’ rights and improving transparency through the Right to Information Act (RTI), job security through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), improved food security, large investments in the social sector and a quantum leap in infrastructure investments.
The NREGA guaranteed a member of every poor rural household 100 days’ employment in local infrastructure development projects. The National Rural Health Mission helped to reduce maternity and infant mortality rates drastically. RTI put power into the hands of the general public to know what the government was doing.
The lower house of Parliament also passed the Lokpal Bill, considered a major step toward making the political system free of corruption. Unfortunately, the present Modi government, citing vague reasons, is trying to delay its implementation.
The Manmohan Singh government also started eight new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), seven new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), 16 new central universities and 10 new National Institutes of Technology (NITs). It also constructed 200,000 kilometers of new roads, 37,000km of new highways, and 40 modern airports.
When comparing these and other achievements of the previous government and to the present administration under Narendra Modi, the latter is fast losing its credibility. Whether it is the “make in India” campaign, demonetization or the implementation of a new tax system, there is a feeling among people in the country that the Modi government is good at speaking, advertising, and winning elections, but when it comes to actual governance, there is hardly anything to report.
Modi promised 10 million jobs a year, but hardly 1 million jobs have been generated in the last three years. India’s economic growth has slid to a three-year low, as year-on-year growth in gross domestic product dipped sharply to 5.7% in the first quarter of the 2017-18 fiscal year.
The demonetization drive by Modi has proved to be huge failure. While corrupt officials and businesspeople, as well as criminals, said to have hoarded their illicit wealth in cash have managed to preserve their fortunes, middle-income groups are feeling hit by soaring fuel prices. The Modi government has increased the central excise duty 11 times in past three and a half years. While the international price of crude oil has come down by more than 52% since Modi took over, the price of gasoline in India is at a three-year high.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there has been a 26% rise in farmers’ suicides under the Modi government – 12,360 farmers committed suicide in 2014-15 and 12,602 in 2015-16. This shows that there is a grave agrarian crisis in the country.
While just about every other week there is news of a train accident, a derailment or a security-related incident, Modi is busy building bullet trains at an estimated cost of US$17 billion. Many analysts feel that it is a misplaced priority and that this money could have gone first to improve the basic safety and services of the railway system.
Many people feel that Modi is always in election-campaign mode without putting much emphasis on governance. He has made 775 speeches in the last 41 months, so he has delivered 19 speeches every month since he became PM on May 26, 2014. This translates to about two public speeches every three days. He has also given 166 speeches abroad (he has already made close to 60 foreign visits as prime minister in just three and a half years).
With so many speeches without much to report on what his government has really achieved, there are tough questions in the circles of power on how Modi compares with his predecessor Manmohan Singh.
As long as they have Bollywood, most Indians don’t care.
Silverfox RN – this is one of the truly great things about America – extensive sources of information (often called Alternative Media) available for the initiated, along with numerous honest, intelligent, highly educated, well-informed individuals who courageously and generously share their knowledge. No other country come close in this respect, but since it’s under attack from rogue elements in the government and the Establishment. (Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc have clearly become propaganda and censorship tools for the corrupt US government.)
Whatever the world financial institutions have in mind, it matches with Modi’s Make-in-India policy wherein he wants foreign collaboration for making finished products with Indian resources and man-power.
Reforms to this effect are underway to meet interests of all involved parties, but unlike China, India would be a genuine player in the world commerce and trade, a position of 23% in world GDP, that was lost to macabre colonisation by the Brits, in the 18th/19th centuries.
Hope you know that the Indian Rupee, even after all the exploitation by the British colonists, was at par with the Dollar, when the Brits left us in 1947, only to be devalued by 70% due to bad governance by Nehru and his progeny for their selfish end. Which is what started this thread over the serruptitious article posted ibid.
Samaresh Dasgupta We need to exploit our resources in exchange for technology. Nothing wrong in this as times are not what they were in the previous centuries. We need to use our strength to overcome our weaknesses.
Matt Wilson The Indian media specially the English-speaking, is 98% dead-against Modi, as he does not use them for any propagation activities. Instead he uses the the State owned TV & Radio for his message to the Nation. Print news is sponsored mainly by the Congress party of Sonia [like this article] . In the erstwhile regime, the PM [MMS] used to take plane loads of media men on foreign tours apart from giving them expencive gifts and benevolent perks like goverment bungalows and access to sensitive information on Foreign Affairs. All that is passe and like Trump, Modi has not only distanced himself from the media but expunged all doles, freebies and goodies to them. So now the media spits venom.
Shawn Napper –You keep asking for proof. How is it you living in Austin, Texas, USA (I wonder!) know so much about India’s internal politics?
Matt Wilson The truth is somewhere in between!!
Ravi Ponappa So if your argument is right 98% of the national visual media support Modi in return for illicit favours, right?
It’s really tragic that a world renowned economist like MMS who strived hard to make india the world’s third largest economy in terms of PPP surpassing Japan is compared to a rustic illiterate man with a fake degree! It’s equally tragic that a large chunk of poloulation enjoying the benefit of previous Govt’ policies are so uneducated that find a saviour in card board figures spouting lies and rhetoric
Ravi Ponappa – Knowing IMF and WB’s track record, I wouldn’t be so quick to believe that they have India’s best interests in mind. On the contrary, support from the IMF and WB is more often than not a bad sign. There is a good book on a related subject:
Confessions of An Economic Hit Man (2005) by John Perkins
If it’s available in India, you might want to read it.
On the contrary the WB & IMF Chiefs, including Heads of State have lauded the move as bold to suck-out the surplus liquidity in the market and strengthening the Rupee. However, the positive effects to the economy will take time as there are many aspects, like going digital for payments and the many administrative reforms that should have been carried-out decades back.
Asking for correction in three years time for corrupt practices that have been established for six decades after independendence, mostly by a dynasty that was propped by the Brits as a centrifuge to their colonial exploitation of the people of this country…..is incorrect.
Shawn Napper The media fraternity never works for free. It’s a profession like any other and so write-up is not about ideology. One only needs connections with those having the money to tell them broadly what to report and leave manipulating the public to them .
The reportage in question is totally biased with clever words used to strengthen the belief of those against the regime and put a doubt in the minds of the wavering.
Modi has gained international notoriety as a result of his demonetization fiasco.
Very ill informed article.
He doesn’t say deliberately about effective implementation of lpg subsidy.
He deliberately doesn’t say abt electrification.
He doesn’t talk about coal india record productions.
Can this dumb author tell us who has cleared the mess created by mounimanmohan of high loans of oil psus.
Further the figures quotes about national highways are totally false.
Check this.
https://m.timesofindia.com/india/NDA-regime-constructed-50-of-national-highways-laid-in-last-30-years-Centre/articleshow/20869113.cms
Yes less achiever in terms of scams and corruption…
Misinformed! Rather more wrongdoings of Mr. Modi to serve the interests of corporate giants at the expense of commoners could have been highlited. Mr.modi n Co’s conscious efforts in the guises of "mahatmas " are dragging the country back towards the 19th century socio-economic situation , if not worst to.
Great Example of RSS pracharak converted into Pradhan Pracharak.
Diarreah from a sick mans…
A highly misinformed piece by an intellectual retard.
Author is definitely a beneficiary of scams during the decade long rule of MMS and his Italian madam. His misreporting itself on the UPA’s misrule must have fetched him rich earnings apart from handsome rewards from 10 Janpath.