Remember Make in India? On 13 Feb 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared: “we want the share of manufacturing in our GDP to go up to 25% in the near future.” The programme's stated goal was to hit this target by 2022 and to generate 100 million manufacturing jobs in India. So where do we …
Independence Day came and went with Chinese soldiers still occupying Indian territory along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). It is about time the Modi government answers some serious questions. Why did Prime Minister Narendra Modi fail to execute the longstanding response to Chinese intrusions: a quick, focused counter that creates bargaining space and facilitates …
Continue reading What Modi needs to explain about China’s intrusions
In his 14 April 2020 announcement of the extension of India’s lockdown, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that his government had been proactive in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. https://youtu.be/F07fXd4vVlg?t=317 He made four claims (listen from 5:19): “When we didn’t have even one case of coronavirus, India had started airport screening of passengers arriving …
As soon as voting closed on 19 May, Congress President Rahul Gandhi accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of capitulating to pressure from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a number of fronts: https://twitter.com/RahulGandhi/status/1130088269243330561 This is a serious set of allegations. Is there any truth to the claim that the ECI designed an election schedule …
Continue reading How the Election Commission aided the BJP in its phasing of the 2019 election
Stunned by the 0-3 verdict in the Hindi heartland, many BJP supporters are hoping that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma will counter the anti-incumbency that led to the party's defeat in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Some point to the slogan “Modi tujhse bair nahi, Vasundhara teri khair nahi” as a sign that voters were …
The year 2022 appears to have acquired mythical status among some Modi supporters. It’s when “New India” arrives in the form of a majority in the Rajya Sabha. Unfortunately that’s as likely to happen as the bullet train. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) currently has 90 seats in the Rajya Sabha, …
Continue reading BJP won’t win a Rajya Sabha majority until at least 2024
Despite the frenzy of distractions since, by now you have likely heard the news that demonetisation failed. As NDTV’s Sreenivasan Jain put it in Truth vs Hype, the news sent the government into “a spiral of deflection, of moving goalposts and of swamping us with cherry-picked data”. He's being very polite, avoiding the accurate and …
In a Forbes magazine article that caused a happy stir in right-wing social media, Harry G. Broadman argued that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “governing prowess” had “boosted India’s GDP growth” and “produced sizeable increases of inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI)”. He stated that the reforms implemented by Modi in his first three years were …
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is proud of the government’s scheme to distribute millions of low-cost, energy efficient LED bulbs. And why not: Modi told the Lok Sabha on 7 Feb that the distribution of 21 crore LED bulbs had helped households save ₹11,000 crore in electricity bills. Even the name bears his unmistakable imprint: “Unnat …
Continue reading Why you shouldn’t be bedazzled by Modi’s LED claims
In case you’re wondering where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promised “Acche Din” went, the answer is getting clearer. As part of the Uttar Pradesh campaign, BJP-affiliated social media has been spreading clips of a 16 Sep TV appearance by party president Amit Shah, where he directly answers this question. So let’s examine the six claims that Shah, …
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