On Thursday, this government will mark its second anniversary in power. Even before chief minister Narendra Modi became Prime Minister Modi, serving and retired soldiers, sailors and airmen hoped that, unlike the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would nurture a long neglected military.

How successfully has the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government met those expectations. In electioneering, Mr Modi talked up a muscular, populist alternative to Manmohan Singh's widely ridiculed milquetoast image. [In the 1940s, HT Webster created the comic strip ...