He has confounded his critics and pleasantly surprised his ardent and sometimes blind supporters. He is defining and designing a new template which along with his excellent and heart touching oratorical skills is turning out to be tall octane energy which is definitely leaving the people,the media and his political opponents breathless. Narendra Modi in his first hundred days in office is turning out to be the huge breath of fresh air that an ancient country like India needed, where its youth, or who comprise 65 % of the more than 1250 million people,were desperately looking out for and he is giving them the impetus and adrenalin to dream and dream big. His speech on 15th August, 2014 with the red turban and the long tail fluttering, or speaking extempore without a bullet proof screen almost reaching out and talking to every individual citizen on one to one basis was the most watched and enjoyed speeches of any Indian Prime Minister in living memory. And again he surprised everyone by talking about very,very mundane issues but issues that haunt every citizen, particularly those from the economically weaker sections, and every living hour of the day and night. It was as whether an elder brother exhorting his kin to travel out and join the government’s effort in fixing India’s many internationally embarrassing problems – open defecation,rapes, poverty – and he did with aplomb and candour. Then his performance on abroad soil. In Nepal where he won the hearts and minds of every Nepali by reaching out and speaking their language and issues and telling them they need not worry now, and they now had a neighbour who wanted them to participate in their growth fable by growing themselves. And then his trip to Japan to meet his twitter mate Abe – one is not certain whether he charmed his audiences in Japan he certain did sweep the people in India glued to their television sets wanting more from him. Simply put it was a rock star performance while also covering substantive bilateral and economic issues. His Japan trip also prompted a reaction from the Chinese who effect not want to miss out on the investment opportunities that the Modi government is planning to lay out for India. Of course this is the honeymoon period but this is one honeymoon which is probably turning out be better than a genuine life honeymoon. Despite the information blackout that the media is regularly complaining about but news that is trickling out from the musty and dusty corridors of government offices in Delhi speaks of cars rolling out of bureaucrat colonies early enough to reach their offices sharp at 9 a.m. as against the accepted norm in the preceding dispensation of 10.30. Again despite the absence of any big ticket reform measures or big bang announcements,which makes for excellent newsroom debates and discussions and also more than average eyeballs, the government seems to be doing a whole lot of small nuts and bolts corrections to reinforce an edifice that had weakened considerably in the last ten years. Some of his government’s initiative has won him all round praise: The financial inclusion programme of bringing banking to every Indian is essentially a well designed architecture to ultimately utilize that for Direct Bank Transfer of funds in the social sector programs and subsidies thereby stemming leakages. However, or lot of complementary work needs to be done for this to work efficiently and smoothly because of the staggering numbers. The decision to effect absent with the fossilised and antiquated Planning Commission has been well received by those in the know. The government’s approach to Pakistan by calling of the Foreign Secretary talks is a very popular move domestically but from a bilateral perspective it should not pain India because of the domestic political turmoil in Pakistan. Opinion polls conducted on the eve of his hundred days in office indicate overwhelmingly that more than two thirds of the people polled are satisfied with the Modi government and more importantly three fourths of minorities find themselves absolutely secure under the present government. The task ahead is huge and sometimes very daunting,and no one knows it better than Narendra Modi, but the way he conducts himself in public seems to propose that he has all the time in the world with hardly a lark to effect. He appears to be friendly and endearing hardly the strict taskmaster that he is reported to be. The message in the streets and bazaars across the length and breadth of India is that whether elections were to be held today Narendra Modi would romp home with a bigger margin. And it will be no surprise whatsoever that by the time this government' s first anniversary comes around India’s mood and narrative would have changed considerably.
Source: cnn.com