View Articles

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi chooses his team of senior advisers and top bureaucrats who will faithfully further his agenda, some well-meaning commentators are urging him to follow proper appointment procedures, adopt the dharma of inclusion, “reach out” to the 69 percent of the electorate who didn’t vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party, and in particular assure Muslims that he means well and that they should feel secure under him despite the 2002 Gujarat pogrom.

After minimum government, maximum governance, Mr Narendra Modi’s new mantra for development is India can develop only if states develop. Mr Modi set this new tone of challenge of development after reiterating his wishes to work in close partnership with state government, when chief ministers of Tamil Nadu and Orissa extended their support to him. Even before he became Prime Minister, in a TV interview, he decimated the much aired belief of adopting Gujarat model at the Centre. He said sarcastically to the interviewer that “you cannot grow date-palm in Chennai”

Going by the idiom, well begun is half done, the eventful first 10 days of the Narendra Modi government may seem to have augured well for BJP. The generous application of Modi ‘balm’ has brought a sudden life to the new national government under the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime. Last month, Indian electorates had democratically ousted the politically-paralysed, indecisive, governance deficient Manmohan Singh government. The Modi government started with a diplomatic coup of sort with top SAARC and other neighbouring leaders of the stature of Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif, Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai, Sri Lanka’s Mahindra Rajapaksa, Nepal’s Sushil Koirala, Bhutan’s Tshering Tobgay, Maldive’s Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayum, Bangladesh’s Shrin Chowdhury and Mauritius’ Navin Ramgoolam joining the prime minister’s swearing-in ceremony, followed by useful bi-lateral talks the next day.

Now that Telengana has become a reality and has become the 29th state of the Indian Union what next? No doubt the political parties which fought for separate Telengana are gloating over their success but the way ahead is not only full of challenges but also of opportunities. Rather than ruminating over the past, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana should work out their future as friendly neighboring states. The fact that both the chief ministers have won a handsome majority and lead stable governments is a good omen.

Millions have pinned their hopes on the new government, at the centre, which has come to power with the strongest mandate in over a quarter of a century. The new ground rules for governance, policy making and bias for action articulated by the government indicate its resolve to step up economic growth.

In West Bengal, from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee downwards, it has been de rigueur for leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) to abuse the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in the foulest possible language.

Manmohan Singh began his tenure as prime minister honeymooning with 7-nation BIMSTEC group and incidentally, as part of his foreign diplomacy, ended his two successive terms in office by attending the third BIMSTEC Summit in Nay Pyi Taw in Myanmar in March 4, 2014. He attended the first BIMESTEC Summit in Bangkok in Thailand in July 31, 2004 after taking over as country’s prime minister in May 22. He presided over the second BIMSTEC Summit in November 13, 2008.

The political turf-row and the cacophony kicked up over Smt Smriti Irani’s educational qualifications and compatibility for her job at the MHRD are fundamental misnomers. If anybody examines her life and rise to celebrity, s/he would be convinced of the fact that she is educated with enough natural skills to be where she is today, and that is a greater achievement than those of many degreedharis in the previous Cabinets of the country.

In its first monetary policy statement on June 3 after the new government took office, the Reserve Bank could be said to have announced a “politically correct” stance which accommodates the government’s concern for growth as well as the central bank’s concerns for inflation.

Having won over large sections of people for his action-oriented Government, assigning priority tasks to his senior colleagues to accomplish in the coming weeks, Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi is also turning to his larger vision of a strong and united India, for which he wants first to galvanise his party to consolidate itself all over the country.