For Years Under Bjp Rule.docx

INTRODUCTION The BJP government has completed 4 years of his governance. With the Lok Sabha elections still a year ahead, with the Modi government seeking re-election, with the completion of his 4 years a set of promises were made with the citizen of India that was mentioned in the manifesto of BJP during their election campaign. In its 2014 manifesto, the BJP listed a 50-point promise detailing more than 600 subpromises including home for all, energy policy, bullet trains, checking price rise, fighting corruption, save girl child, acid attack victims, madrasa modernisation, more AIIMS, making India clean, simplified tax regime, OROP (One Rank, One pension), empowering women, Kashmiri pandits, zero tolerance on terrorism, and FDI in multi brand retails. Some of the major political promises including those relating to building the Ram temple in Ayodhya, repealing Article 370 and introducing Uniform Civil Code remain unfulfilled and are most likely to find a place in the 2019 manifesto of the party as well. Despite of the fact for the completion of such promises many schemes and planning came into existence like NITI Aayog, make in India, Digital India and many more. For the sake of the entire nation many social welfare schemes, economic reforms and restructuring have been made by this government. In 2014 BJP came into power with the huge majority and create history in the history of Indian politics. Working with his allies and taking bold and key decisions is helping in the growth and development of India with the good intention. With such moves they are giving the clear indication that we are not afraid to take strong, bold and major decisions which is in favour of development of India as a whole. Congress and other critics often accuse the BJP of being unsuitable in a democratic. It is often said and believed that for such giant reforms and for creating history and the reason is the rise of BJP under the charismatic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. From

Kashmir to Arunachal to Karnataka and Gujarat, the saffron party has spread its footprints in most of the states of the country, while the Congress has effectively shrunk to three – Punjab, Puducherry, and Mizoram. In Karnataka, the Congress can’t yet claim success as it had to compromise with JD(S) for keeping BJP at bay. Moreover, most of its ministers were voted out of power. The BJP is powered by crores of disciplined and ideologically motivated cadre across the country, even in areas where the saffron party is not in power. The same is not the case with the Congress. It can be said the rise of BJP is a result of around 70 years of groundwork of its leaders and ideological mentors. The decline of the Congress is also the result of its deeds in the past decades. Though Congress president Rahul Gandhi tries to position setup. For the record, however, BJP remains one of the most democratic party in the country as it is not owned by an individual or a family – as is the case with most regional parties as well as the Congress. If we talk about the congress led regime before 4 years ago it is important and crucial to remember the issues which the nation was facing earlier, the scenario there was in the country earlier in respect of economic growth, political stability, international relations, poverty, women empowerment and education. It is also important to look into the history and analyze how much did the family, which ruled the nation for 48 years, cared for this country. But as for this BJP government is concerned they proved in these 4 years that for them development and good governance is the definition of good politics. They are moving forward with the people by linking them to the system for the better India.

MAJOR SCHEMES FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH:

MAKE IN INDIA

launched in 2014, has been successful in making India a global manufacturing hub, brought India the Fastest Growing Economy Tag since 2014. India has featured amongst the top 10 economies in terms of FDI inflows according to WIR 2016. The main objective of this giant scheme is it aims at making India a global hub for manufacturing, research & innovation and an integral part of the global supply chain. BJP strongly believe in maximum governance: minimum government and due to that First ever public-private collaborative process undertaken to finalise Action Plans for 21 focus sectors and State Governments (December 2014) - 118 Action Plan Points for 21 focus sectors being monitored; 78% of the short-term action points implemented. According to the report of IMF and World Bank India is the world’s fastest growing economy, 1st amongst the best countries to invest in, one of the best destination to invest, 6th largest manufacturing nation in the world, 7th most valued nation brand in the world, 15th on the global innovation index, 19th on the logistics performance index and 62% growth in FDI equity inflow during the period of 2014-2016. After make in India scheme is executed, it boosted the growth and development of different sectors such as:

AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR:

$ 5.25 billion 2014-16 Huge investment of 72% increase in FDI equity inflow with the market size of $ 93 billion, contributing 7.1% to the overall GDP and 49% to the manufacturing GDP (FY 2o15-16) Apart from revenue and profit, skilled India is also developing. Around 2.9 lakh people trained under automotive skill development council (2o14-16) auto components sector registered 15% growth in turnover & 22% growth in exports during 2o14-16 production of electric vehicles increased by 4.2 times; hybrid vehicles by 4 times in 2o15-16

BIOTECHNOLOGY SECTOR: 3o bio-incubators and biotech parks supported/ established during the 2 Year period from April 2o14 to September 2o16. India’s first cellulosic ethanol technology demonstration plant, developed through indigenous technology, inaugurated in 2o16. first indigenously developed rotavirus vaccine ‘rotavac’ launched on march 9, 2o15.

PHARMACEUTICALS SECTOR:

After make in India scheme launched, there is 29% increase in industry turnover in this sector, from 1.59 lakh crore to 2.05 lakh crore FY 2o13-14 FY 2o15-16. FDI equity from April 2o14 to December 2o16 was $ 2.9 billion and it become a leading player in the global generics market; exports nearly 2o% of production. In terms of trade the exports of drugs, pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals worth 1.06 lakh crore FY 2o15-16.

POWER SECTOR:

After implementation of FDI, $ 2.5 billion FDI equity inflow from Apr 2o14-Dec 2015

capacity in the world with 315.43 GW (Feb 2o17) 128,4o3 MVA sub-station capacity added (2o14-16) lowest ever energy deficit of o.7% (Apr-Jan 2o17)

RAILWAYS SECTOR:

Due to this scheme $ 281.77 million FDI equity inflow (Apr 2014-Dec 2016) biggest ‘make in India’ initiative with JV agreements worth INR 40,000 crore signed by the ministry of railways with m/s Alstom manufacturing India and global sourcing India Pvt. ltd. India’s fastest train, the Gatimaan express, launched (April 5, 2016) world’s 3rd largest rail network spanning more than 66,030 km and the 4th largest rail freight carrier. BJP worked in the expansion process of Railways working on the speed and time.

With the better governance and with the help of make in India scheme BJP was able to improve the condition of Railways in a better way.

RENEWABLE ENERGY SECTOR:

Around $ 2 billion total FDI equity inflow Apr2o14-Dec 2o16 in this sector and became the largest capacity expansion of 175 GW planned by end of 2o22. Working in this sector the world’s largest solar power plant (648 mw capacity) commissioned in Tamil Nadu and there is an increase of more than 3 times increase in solar power capacity (6,381 mw addition) in the last 2 years.

DIGITAL INDIA

This is another scheme launched by government in 2015 with a vision to create one digital literate in every family by 2020 thereby transform the country in to digitally empowered nation, a target has been set to provide Wi-Fi hotspots in 2.5 lakh gram panchayats across the country.

STARTUP India Scheme, launched in 2016, a Fund of Funds has been set up with an initial corpus of Rs 10,000 crore to support innovation driven Start ups, the fund is being managed by SIDBI. Many measures have been taken over last two years to build a strong start up ecosystem in the country.

REFORMS AND PROGRAMS FOR THE RURAL ECONOMY : The main leader and politicians who are in higher position in the BJP government either the President, Prime Minister or Vice President they are from very ordinary people or they were poor and that is the reason they know and feel the pain of poverty. So after coming into the power they started working in eradicating the poverty and parallel they started working for the rural economy. As we Know with nearly 80% of the poor population of India living in rural areas, it is essential and crucial that special

Attention must be paid to the rural economy for the growth and development of nation as a whole and for the betterment of the society. Accordingly, the government has placed the highest priority on revival and rejuvenation of the rural economy in general the main focus was on the agriculture in particular and in respective of that many welfare schemes came into the picture. I have already described the acceleration achieved in rural electrification. Similar efforts have been successfully made in connecting villages to highways though rural roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). Total rural road length constructed has been 36,340 and 36,450 kilometres during 2014-15 and 2015-16, respectively. In comparison, only 24,160 and 25,320 kilometres had been constructed during 2012-13 and 2013-14, respectively. At its launch in 2000, PMGSY had identified 1,78,184 habitats that needed to be connected to highways. In March 2016, approximately 65,000 habitats remain to be connected. The present government has committed to completing the task by 2019. There is also an initiative under way by the NITI Aayog to modernize the land-leasing laws in the sates. An expert committee has just given its report with a model land-leasing act that states may adapt to their special circumstances. The central government has also provided Rs150 Crore in the 2016-17 Budget to speed up digitization of land records. Efforts are also under way to incentivise farmers to raise the production of pulses. A major agricultural marketing reform through the spread of e-auctions within and between mandis across the breadth and length of the nation has been launched to bring lucrative prices to farmers. The government has permitted 100% FDI in food chain as long as produce originates domestically as the food industry is the biggest industry in the world.

To boost productivity in agriculture, Prime Minister’s Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) is being implemented in mission mode with command area development given the highest priority. Incentives are being provided to expand micro irrigation methods such as drip and sprinkler irrigation. The government is creating soil and seed testing facilities at 2000 retail outlets of fertilizer companies. The government has launched the Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance program with much of the cost covered by the government.

TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE:

For any economy to be developed their transport infrastructure must be convenient by which trade can be done easily. So after the BJP came into power, they tried to improve, expand the routes and started developing the infrastructure of transport in all the mediums such as sea, air lines, Railways and Road ways. There has been visible turnaround in the area of infrastructure. The allocation of expenditures to roads and railways at Rs. 2.18 lakh crore in 2016-17 is by far the highest ever with respect to any ruling political party in the past. In terms of outcomes, there has been a major breakthrough in unblocking previously stuck projects and initiating new ones. When the government came to power, Rs. 3.8 lakh crore worth of road projects were stuck. By March 2016, approximately Rs. 3.5 lakh crore worth of these projects had been cleared. As a result, road construction has risen from 11.7 kilometres per day during the last year of UPA II to 12.1 kilometres in 2014-15 and 16.5 km in 2015-16. National highway projects awarded rose from 3500 kilometres in 2013-14 to 8,000 Kilometre in 2014-15 and, as per target, 10,000 kilometres in 2015-16. Critics need to contemplate what would have happened had the rate of clearance of projects remained where it was during the last year of UPA II.

In railways, the average rate of expansion of tracks has risen to 7 kilometres per day during 2015-16 from 4.3 kilometres per day during the preceding six years. Investment in railways during 2015-16 has been double the average during the preceding five years. The government has approved the construction of the first high-speed rail between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, modernization of 400 major railway stations, construction of dedicated eastern and western freight corridors with lengths of 1305 and 1499 kilometres, respectively, and laying down of additional new 1,875 kilometres long railway lines. Connectivity of the Northeastern region with the rest of India has been considerably improved. In civil aviation, we have seen a major jump in the passengers carried. Domestically, the total number of passengers carried has jumped from 66.4 million in 2014 to 80.8 million in 2015. Internationally, the figure has risen from 16.9 million in 2014 to 18.4 million in 2015. Freight shows a more mixed picture with domestic freight carried rising from 4,35,339 tonnes in 2014 to 4,56,894 tonnes in 2015 and international freight carried marginally declining from 251,561 tonnes in 2014 to 247,415 tonnes in 2015. The latter decline is most likely reflects a slowdown in international trade. Finally, major initiatives have also been taken in the area of waterway transportation, a much-neglected means of transportation over the last several decades. Efficiency at major ports has improved with operating profits rising 43% in 2014-15 over 2013-14 and 16.2% in 2015-16 over those in 2014-15. In 2015-16, addition to port capacity at 93 million tonnes was the highest ever. The Prime Minister has given port-led development a high priority and launched the Sagarmala project that proposes to modernize existing ports, improve port connectivity to roads, railways and inland waterways and develop new waterways. It also proposes to launch a number of Coastal Economic Zones that can potentially transform the country by bringing China-style large-scale manufacturing to India. A new Special Purpose Vehicle named Indian

Port Rail Corporation Ltd has been launched to improve rail evacuation from ports. Under National Waterways Bill 2015, cleared by the Cabinet, 106 waterways will be declared National Waterways compared with just five National Waterways during the last 30 years. The biggest project to I prove transportation is Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, taking this big project into the deep consideration trunk infrastructure construction of four cities in progress: - Dholera Special Investment Region (22.5 sq. km) - Shendra Bidkin Industrial Area (8.39 sq. km) - Integrated Industrial Township at Greater Noida (747.5 acres) Integrated Industrial Township “Vikram Udyogpuri” near Ujjain (approx. 1,100 acres) have been made and it is expecting that the trunk infrastructure to be ready by mid-2019. The land allotment to potential investors commenced and DMICDC Logistics Data Services Project started commercial operations from July, 2016. Over 25 lakh container movement from JNPT Port already tracked using passive RFID-based technology which will lift the logistics services in the country and will trade will get benefited. Expanded to Mundra and Hazira ports in Gujarat with effect from May 1, 2017 onwards. DMICDC has commissioned a 5 MW Model Solar Power Project at Neemrana, Rajasthan on September 3, 2015. For the other infrastructure improvement in the field of transportation the NICDIT established for co-ordinated and unified development of industrial corridors in the country. The participation of Central and State Governments in decision making will be there. The part of investment amount is concerned Central Government investment of INR 18,000 crore planned in five years; contracts worth INR 3,784 crore awarded from the government side during the rule of BJP.

ENERGY SECTOR: Today the world and its almost all the function need energy in different forms to operate so energy is another major sector in which the government plays a crucial and very important role and progress in it has accelerated as well. When the government came to office, there was near crisis in the availability of coal with serious negative implications for power, steel and cement production in this country. The government quickly passed an ordinance (later replace by a legislation) and auctioned coal blocks to alleviate the shortages. It also transferred Rs. 3.44 lakh crore of revenues over the lifetime of the blocks to the states where the respective blocks were located. Rs. 1396 crore have already been transferred to the states. Coal production has now acquired momentum with the output increasing by 32 million tonnes in 2014-15 against the increase of 31 million tonnes in the preceding four years taken together. Growth during 2015-16 is reported at 9%. The government is also making steady progress towards underground coal gasification with three lignite blocks identified as candidates. In power, the government gave the highest priority to brining electricity to the 18,452 villages that remained without electricity. Of these, 7,654 villages have already been electrified. The corresponding figure for the preceding three years was just 5,189 villages. The Prime Minister has now announced his intention to electrify the remaining villages by 1 May 2018. The government had inherited a major problem in the form of debt, which stood at Rs. 4.3 lakh crore on March 15, 2016. The debt meant that discoms were not seen as credible buyers of electricity, which undermined electricity generation and therefore availability of electricity to customers. The government has now launched the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) to transfer 75% of the debt to the state budgets

while the rest is to be converted by banks into loans or bonds at interest rate not exceeding their base rate plus 0.1%. By March 2016, 18 states had given in principle consent and 9 had signed MoUs with the central government. Alongside, the Integrated Power Development Scheme has been launched to arrest distribution losses. Under it, underground cabling, end-to-end metering and IT enabled energy accounting are envisaged. An amendment to the Electricity Act 2003, approved by the Cabinet, would give consumers the option to choose among multiple suppliers of electricity. Expansion of transmission lines has been accelerated with 30% greater expansion in 2014-15 than in 2013-14. Efforts are also under way to strengthen intra-state transmission and distribution systems with the view to facilitate 24x7 electricity to Sikkim and the six north-eastern states. Solar power has received a major boost under the present government. Installed capacity until the end of March 2015 was 3.7 GW. During 2015-16, 1.5 GW was added. The process has gained much greater momentum recently with 32 solar parks with 20 GW capacity approved in 20 states. Land has been identified in all cases and the projects are predicted to be complete by 2019-20. After more than one and a half decades of slow progress in oil and gas, there are signs of a revival in this sector as well. Recently adopted Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy introduces a uniform and open acreage licensing policy. It provides for marketing and pricing freedom for gas from deep, high pressure and high temperature fields. Strict price ceiling, marketing and exploration restrictions in the past had discouraged oil and gas majors from entering into exploration of these fields.

GOVERNANCE AND INSTITUTIONAL INITIATIVES: Biggest problem of India is to block the initiated project or not to complete the projects which is started by the government. After coming into the power the main work of BJP and a major initial task of the government was to end the paralysis in the functioning of the government including in the environment ministry. This was successfully done with numerous projects rapidly cleared, such as many projects related to transportation infrastructure some important bill like 100% FDI and implementation of GST. The Prime Minister also assured officers that they could take decisions fearlessly to unfreeze the decision-making process. The government quickly moved to curtail inspector raj by introducing the Shram-Suvida portal that allows firms to self-certify compliance with central labour laws. Inspections are now done through a random selection of enterprises with inspectors required to file their reports within 48 hours. Ending decades old practice of only gazetted officers and judges having the authority to certify copies of documents individuals submit with their applications for jobs, school and college admissions and other similar purposes, the government has introduced a system of self-certification. This single measure greatly eases up the burden of ordinary citizens, especially those from rural and remote areas who lack access to the officers and judges. A major push has also been given to improve the ease of doing business. The success in this area has not only been reflected in India moving up in the World Bank ease-of-doing-business rankings, reports from virtually all states confirm improvements in this dimension. For example, Telangana now gives its entrepreneurs the right to time-bound clearance of business proposals. Because the World Bank collects its data in Mumbai and Delhi and not the best locations in terms

of ease of doing business across Indian states, its rankings still fail to capture a significant part of the change that has actually occurred. Prime Minister himself reviews progress in infrastructure projects in all areas every three months to ensure progress with the NITI Aayog giving such presentations in the presence of senior officials of the ministries concerned. Through PRAGATI online platform, the Prime Minister also consults Chief Secretaries of states once every month to redress grievances and de-bottleneck ongoing projects. The government has repealed a total of 1178 redundant laws. High standards of transparency have been introduced. One no longer sees wealthy businessmen lined up outside the offices of ministers and top civil servants. The result has been the absence of any allegations of corruption during the two-year tenure of the government. Remarkably, according to rankings by the Economist magazine, the wealth of crony capitalists in India has fallen to 3% of the Gross Domestic Product in 2016 from 18% of GDP in 2008. Often overlooked, this is a major achievement in a country that has seen corruption scandals break out under virtually every government in recent decades. Innovation, entrepreneurship and skill development have been brought to the centre-stage of the policy agenda. The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has been setup in the NITI Aayog to give fillip to incubators, tinkering labs and grand challenges. The Action Plan of the Start Up India initiative has announced a number of reforms to ease the entry and exit of start-ups. A separate ministry is in place to give focus to initiatives aimed at accelerating skill development. Industrial training Institutes (ITIs) have begun to expand rapidly with their number increasing from 10,750 two years ago to 13,105 at the time of writing. The number of ITI seats has risen by 20% over the same period. Vocational education has been introduced in another 1100 schools benefiting 1.5 lakh students.

A consensus had emerged in recent years that the time was ripe for reinventing the Planning Commission. In his parting address to the staff of the Commission, outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had stated, “Are we still using tools and approaches which were designed for a different era? Have we added new functions and layers without any restructuring of the more traditional activities in the Commission?” Accordingly, Prime Minister Modi has replaced the Planning Commission by the NITI Aayog with a new mandate. The Aayog is gradually defining its role vis-à-vis both the central government ministries and the state governments. The Governing Council of the Aayog includes the Prime Minister, several senior central government ministers; state chief ministers; and Lt. Governors of Union Territories. A direct outcome of the institutional change has been greater equality between the Aayog and the states and enhanced role for cooperative federalism. For many years, numerous analysts have pitched for an end to the distinction between plan and non-plan expenditures. Budget 2016-17 has announced that this will be done beginning in 2017-18. The role of planning is also poised for a change. NITI Aayog is now working on a 15-year vision plan complemented by a seven-year strategy and three-year short-run macro framework plan. NITI Aayog came after the abolition of planning commission for the purpose of transforming India as a whole and side by side it works for short term and long term too. For the first time, the government has made a concerted effort at sustainable urbanization. To transform the country’s urban landscape, the government has launched the Urban Rejuvenation Mission (URM) comprising of 3; major schemes: Atal Mission for Urban Rejuvenation and Transformation (AMRUT), Smart Cities Mission and Housing for All. The smart cities mission in particular aims to promote cities

that provide core infrastructure, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘smart’ solutions.

THE ECONOMY TODAY AND THE MONETORY POLICIES:

The economy today is far healthier than during the last year of UPA II and in the regime of earlier congress government as the monetory policy is concerned for the country it was handled well and after the demonetisation there was an sophisticated way to tackle with the countries people and the best management was form the side of Reserve Bank of India. As inflation is concerned it is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is down to 5% and that measured by the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) has just returned to the (barely) positive territory after declining for 17 consecutive months. The current account deficit is hovering between 1 to 2%. As the foreign exchange reserves are concerned it have inclined up to $360 billion. While the global economy has gone into tailspin, growth rate in India has steadily risen from 6.9% as per the new GDP series in 2013-14 to 7.2% in 2014 15 and 7.6% (Advance Estimate) in 2015-16 and by this steady growth rate in GDP they are continuous in this process. For the 4th quarter of 2015-16, the advance estimate of growth rate is 7.8%, a hair’s breadth away from the magical 8% mark. Foreign investors, who were fleeing India during the last years of UPA II rule, and they were thinking that there was no such big scope to invest in India and that causing the massive depreciation of the rupee noted above, have returned. After coming the existence of foreign direct investment (FDI) rose24% in 2014-15 over that in 2013-14 and 40% during April-December 2015 over the corresponding period in 2014 which made the back boon of the Fastest growing Indian economy. If certain sectors of the economy continue to exhibit weakness, it is because, at inheritance, they were in crisis and sector-level adjustments take longer than

macroeconomic things. The latter point is amply illustrated by the experience following the Rao-Vajpayee reforms made into this sector. The early reforms under the Rao government stabilized the exchange rate, inflation and current account within one to two years, even returning the economy to its original growth trajectory. But a sharp break in the growth rate came only in 2003-04, after the Vajpayee era reforms had been added to Rao era reforms. Indeed, a common refrain of many reform critics in the early 2000s was that they had led to little structural change in the economy or major shift in the growth rate. Therefore, full recovery of sectors such as steel, power generation, electricity distribution and construction, infrastructure improvement, manufacturing sector which suffered serious damage and was in detrimental condition during the congress regime, will take longer. This can not deny this fact that many sectors including auto, auto parts, two wheelers, engineering goods, infrastructure, software, civil aviation, and other services are experiencing healthy growth after the BJP government. Weak performance of certain sectors, which receives much greater play in the press than superior performance of many other sectors, is not the same as weak performance across the board or of the economy taken as a whole. Some critics question the revised methodology of GDP calculation arguing that 7% plus growth does not square with sluggish corporate profits and sales. But this is a phenomenon most intensely associated with sectors that had suffered the most under UPA II. It has also partially spread to other sectors due to declining prices as reflected in the decline in the WPI for 17 consecutive months and low sales in the export markets. Sluggish profits and sales are entirely consistent with rise in the output in the face of falling prices. It needs to be taken into the consideration that the sales and profits crucially depend on nominal prices whereas the real GDP growth captures the change in

output. Those questioning the revised methodology for the calculation of the GDP have failed to find any real fault with it. It is a matter of concern that Chief Statistician T.C.A. Anant has satisfactorily answered all the questions asked on the revised methodology including those by the Reserve Bank of India. The government’s accomplishments are, of course, varied and go far beyond GDP growth and macroeconomic stability and the prosperous growth and development, which has highlighted in many scenarios. Sectors in which the government plays an active and direct role and get involved seriously, progress is loud and clear in the data and the scenario of the country changes. But even in the private economy, sectors that were not much affected under the UPA government or have not been battered by the decline in the global prices have shown healthy growth.

SOCIAL REFORMS AND SOME WELFARE SCHEMES: AS INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ARE CONCERNED:

FOREIGN POLICY OF THE MODI GOVERNMENT:

During the run-up to Lok Sabha elections, PM Modi had made many statements and promises for the empowering the nation on the international stage and said that we will represent our country in overseas in such a way that it will get its recognition as a powerful country. I analysed some of his big promises in the field of economics but his one of famous one came with respect to foreign policy ad establishing the international relations. Who can forget his “56-INCH KA SEENA HONA CHAHIYE “ji be to the congress party. The statement came with respect to India’s policy towards Pakistan. He also quoted that we have zero tolerance policy against terrorism. MODI GOVERNMENT’S STAND ON PAKISTAN AND SAARC

The policy in the beginning of his tenure seemed quite confusing. He visited the Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif house. The trip was an unexpected one and quite frankly bewildering. He just dropped in Lahore to visit PM Sharif house on occasion of latter’s Grand-daughter wedding. The visit if now seen in retrospect was coming.

PM Modi in his oath taking ceremony invited leaders of all SAARC nations. Giving a clear sign of his vision of a global outreach and presenting India on the world stage as a leader and not follower and clearly boycott the SAARC summit which happened the first time in the history of any international summit . His subsequent policy of looking

east is the extension of this vision. The agreement with Bhutan and Nepal in energy and infrastructure sector is a clear mandate of his policy. India recently stood with Myanmar when it was criticized for treatment of Rohingyas because BJP was much concerned towards the national security and they didn’t want any infiltrators to enter in this country and give the birth or promote terrorism at any extent. India on its part though played it on a fine line. It launched Operation Insaniyat, to help Rohingyas and show Bangladesh that it was with them also which was one of the diplomatic move.

TOUGH STAND OF BJP GOVERNMENT AGAINST PAKISTAN:

Coming back to PM Modi’s visit to Pakistan, it backfired at that. The trip was followed by an attack on Pathankot airbase in Punjab. The strike was carried by Jaishe-Mohammed a terror outfit based out of Pakistan. The so-called Biryani policy was once again questioned and the government and particularly PM Modi faced a lot of flack on his “56-inch ka seena” statement. He once again was against the wall in 2016, when Uri attack happened and 19 soldiers were martyred. This time though government gave a reply of surgical strike. Ever since that, we had quite a nononsense approach to Pakistan, whether in case of Kulbhushan Jadhav or criticizing Pakistan on world stages.

Another criticism of PM Modi in early 2016 was he was taking too many foreign tours. He has until now taken 33 foreign trips and visited around 50 countries. On his first tour to US and UK, he gathered quite a big crowd of NRIs Diaspora there. He made a speech in Madison Square Garden, in US which was televised all over India and US alike. This showed the popularity of PM Modi in foreign countries. He has

ever since made this a part of the plan to address Indian Diaspora in countries he visits.

So has all this speeches and visits has had any effect on our foreign standing? The answer seems to be positive. India in last three years had emerged as a leader in the International arena. India’s stand on Paris climate deal and in the recent meeting of World Trade Organisation was taken seriously. Especially, after backing of US from Paris deal the onus of contributing towards the goal is taken by India. The third biggest contributor to carbon emissions. Another aspect of this was India’s admission to Wassenaar Arrangement which controls the export of conventional weapons. India stance of joining United Nations Security council too gathered support from many countries and India almost entered into Nuclear Suppliers Group. The entry was only held back by China and NonProliferation Treaty. China campaigned against India as it had not signed NPT. India on its part is holding firm of not signing NPT as a non-nuclear member. The failed bid though is a failure on part of the government as it could not manage to garner enough support.

Recently we also had first International body based out of India, the International Solar Alliance. The ISA is an alliance between countries who receive almost 300 days of sunlight to promote Solar energy production. It was launched by France and India during Paris climate Summit.

HOW IS MODI GOVERNMENT’S FOREIGN POLICY FARING?

PM Modi’s foreign policy started with some stumbling and took time to be formed. In the early part of his tenure, he tried reaching out to Pakistan and China but did not succeed. He has since though gone tough on both. His vision of India as a global leader is still far but the work done in last three years is to be applauded. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj also deserves credit for her proactive work on Twitter and solving issues which build goodwill of the nation.

The foreign policy though is not limited to these but also involves tactical victories. India is fighting China on One Belt One Road initiative and is not looking good after Russia extended their support to OBOR. China incursion into Sri Lanka through Hambantota is another worry for India. India though has also secured a major tactical victory in the Arabian Sea. The start of Chabahar port in Iran and its transport capability to Afghanistan has suddenly put Pakistan and China in a bit of worry. As the port is built and operated by India and provides a direct to India for transportation to Afghanistan. The foreign policy, for now, seems to be in quite a good shape under PM Modi’s government. He has been accused of acting as a foreign minister sometimes but it is his style of proactive leadership and seems to work for now. The challenges on International stage are not quite short and easy and thus will have to see what happens in next two year to be sure whether PM Modi’s Look East and tough stand on Pakistan and terror pays off.

RESEAARCH METHODOLOGY

APPENDIX

SOURCE: https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/pmgsy-benefits-the-poor-more/209867/

SOURCE: https://twitter.com/bjp4india/status/900336015256072192

Source- www.mudra.org.in

Source: The Hindu

SOURCE-https://www.mapsofindia.com/my-india/politics/make-in-indiainitiative-creates-ripples-across-the-world

Sourcr-https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/what-namami-gange-can-do-thatearlier-ganga-clean-up-plans-couldnt-9139/