A few days later, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan echoed a similar sentiment. Anyone in any position of management – be it a CEO or a coach of a sports team or a school principal – will tell you that far-reaching change cannot be wrought in a year; indeed, it may be inadvisable to try and do so in such a short time.Now, imagine having to steer the fortunes of the world’s largest democracy with 1.2 billion people, which is more like an agglomeration of many nations and nationalities in vastly disparate states of growth and development. The complexity is mind-boggling.Rating a government at the end of one year – as we have sought to do on the first anniversary of Modi’s swearing-in – is, therefore, tricky and open to dispute. There will be people who will accuse us of being over-generous; others who will say we have been mingy with our marking. Some of this divergence may be rooted in ideological prejudices.What we have tried to do is look at actual changes on the ground together with what is proposed; we have also tried to judge seriousness of purpose/intent. We have given some credit for ‘trying hard’; next year’s report card will assess whether such effort has translated into tangible results (or ‘could have done better’). For instance, the launch of the air quality index is worthy of praise; we’ll now have to see if our pollution-choked cities become less hazardous for breathing.We have tried to be as objective as possible; but this is not a ‘Yes/No’ exam, so an element of subjectivity is perhaps unavoidable. The TOI-Ipsos poll had given the government 66% approval rating, with 19% saying ‘very good’ and another 47% saying ‘somewhat good’. Our headline for the poll was: “First-year exam: Modi govt gets First Division, but not Distinction.”Our own rating of the Modi government adds up to 77.5 on 100 or 77.5%, which qualifies as ‘Distinction’ and is a laudable achievement (let’s not compare with the stratospheric CBSE/ICSE scores here!) We believe the government has made a good beginning. It now needs to make things happen on the ground. For instance, there’s been a lot of talk about skill development, but we need to see a real difference, especially in terms of creation of jobs.The government has faced its share of criticism: that it is “overly Modi-centric and lacking depth of talent”; that it is not “bold/imaginative/reformist enough”; that it is “too headline/event-driven” and “intolerant of dissent”. At the end of the day, none of this may matter if the government can chart a sensible course and not stray from it.We are happy that the Prime Minister has come out strongly against the intemperate and divisive remarks of Sangh-BJP ‘hotheads’; he must do everything in his power to ensure that the social fabric of India is not threatened. No amount of growth will compensate for a nation at war with itself.The challenges are as great as the opportunities. For the sake of the hundreds of millions living on the margins, we hope that this government can deliver equitable and rapid growth along with justice and happiness for all, irrespective of religion, caste and ideology.