Prime Minister Narendra Modi. First year, Four stars Prime Minister Narendra Modi. First year, Four stars

In the weeks and months before May 16, 2014, when the Narendra Modi juggernaut was rolling relentlessly across India and whipping up electoral passion unseen in the country in a long time, some wise men would resort to levity to try and provide some perspective to the "wave". It is as if he will win the election on May 16 and these fellows chanting "Modi, Modi" in rally after mega rally will get jobs in their email on May 17, they would guffaw. Of course he won on May 16, and indeed there was no job in the email the next day. If there ever was a new government in India whose back was already bent by the weight of expectations it was carrying on arrival on Raisina Hill, it was this.

Also read: A year after his coronation, Modi garners mixed response in Varanasi



But leaders who aspire to change the course of history and leave a personal imprint rarely allow themselves to be weighed down by the burden of expectations, let alone be ruffled by the levity of the learned. Certainly not one who sees a half-empty glass as full saying the empty part is filled with air. Or as Amit Shah, BJP president and Modi 's man for all days, told this magazine last week, "Expectations are expectations. We have to fulfil them." It could be as spectacularly simple as that.

Transitions, however, cannot be simple, leave alone transformation. Especially if it involves breaking policy walls and shaking up the steel frame of the nation and changing its mindset from the word go; building frameworks and, more importantly, drawing red lines for a ministry whose first name was inexperience; centralising decision-making and trying to control not just the medium but also the message; and dipping into the campaign goody bag of phrases and abbreviations and assembling schemes and programmes that needed to convey action: Jan Dhan, Namami Gange, Make in India, Skill India, Beti Bachao...

If intention was the sole benchmark of measuring the success of the first year of a new government, Modi and his fellow mountaineers would score high marks for wanting to sprint from the base camp to the summit. And it is not as if the intention has not been followed by action. As the following pages show, NDA 2 has checked several critical boxes India was staring at with hope and longing-from inflation and higher FDI to lower interest rates, newer fighter jets, decisiveness, transparency, and significantly, the pragmatism to reverse its own bull-headed positions on contentious issues. Of course, some of these were helped by global tailwinds. But when a wave changes a narrative and the narrative rides that wave, a tailwind is a well-deserved stroke of good fortune.

Read: Modi has successfully used social media to shape his image: Study

The balance sheet at the end of the first year in business is, therefore, in black and bold. A story of scandal, povertarianism and policy paralysis has been replaced by ambition, competition and action. But it has also brought with it impatience, a greed for speed. When a nation of 1.25 billion people begins to move, it can have little regard for the laws of physics, let alone those of politics and governance. And the digital native that Modi has become would well know and understand this need for haste, having stepped out of the box and seen the way forward. It is in the same mould that India remains alive to the promise of Modi.

Economy shaping up

The lowest GDP growth in a decade, stubborn inflation, a falling rupee, negative industrial growth, infrastructure bottlenecks, inconsistent tax policies, slow clearances, unemployment-it was as terrifying as economic indicators could get for any party assuming power and taking control of Asia's third largest economy. Cut to 12 months later. Both wholesale and consumer price inflation have fallen consistently, the RBI has cut rates by 50 basis points, growth rates are back on the upswing, spending has been kept under tight control, plans made to revive the railways, lay more roads, change labour laws and implement the goods and service tax.

Yet, the smiles are muted. Big-ticket reforms that can pump up individual spending, boost investment and growth, is the new mantra. Charitable business leaders and economy experts feel that it is unfair to judge a government just by the very first year. "Even a company will take at least two years to work out a turnaround," says R.C. Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki.

"For decades, manufacturing has been non-competitive and industrial activity has not grown. It takes time to set it right." Analysts laud the firm steps taken by the government but add that they will bear fruit only in the long term. Meanwhile, the logjam over the land acquisition bill has taken the sheen off those steps. And what seems to have disappointed many is the lack of a clear road map for the future, even in some of its high-decibel campaigns such as 'Make in India' or the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.



"The government is failing on sharing the next stage of its grand vision, perhaps because it does not have it," says Laveesh Bhandari, chief economist at Indicus Analytics. Whether it is Smart City or Swachh Bharat, there is limited clarity, he says. "If this can be corrected, we will have a very exciting four years ahead."

Amid such diverging views, what are the measures the government needs to take to truly herald "achche din"? For one, it has to learn to work better with other parties on important legislations.

It should also engage with the states better if it needs to get projects off the ground. The more important changes required are in laws governing land, energy, labour, trade and infrastructure. And then there is the need to avoid missteps such as taxing investors for transactions done years ago. The indicators may have changed from May 2014, but the challenges have not.

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One of the NDA's biggest achievements in the past year has been to fire up the defence ministry's stalled decision-making engine. Under Manohar Parrikar's overly cautious predecessor A.K. Antony, decision-making had sputtered to a halt. Critical decisions to buy warships and fighter jets were in limbo. Gaps in existing ammunition inventories had begun to widen. Anonymous complaints were used by business rivals to sabotage arms contracts and blacklists, Antony's weapon of choice, further reduced the armed forces' options.

A struggling decade-old contract to buy 126 Rafale fighters from France was euthanised under Parrikar. A fresh one to buy 36 Rafales off-the-shelf will be inked soon.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has not shied away from slashing the previous government's half-baked decisions not backed by financial resources. A gigantic Rs 64,000-crore proposal for a Mountain Strike Corps comprising 90,000 soldiers was pared by half. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), long seen as an armed forces bugbear for skipping deadlines, has been put on notice. The government has levelled the playing field between private industry and the public sector by imposing excise duty on public sector enterprises.

The NDA has correctly identified defence industry as the heart of its flagship 'Make in India' programme. A robust 'Make in India' in defence could reverse a crippling 60 per cent dependence on imported weaponry. Studies have shown that a 20-25 per cent reduction in imports could create over 100,000 highly skilled jobs within the country.

Internal security being on the guard

It has also been smooth sailing thus far for the home ministry which pilots the ship of internal security. No major terrorist attack has hit the country, the first major incident-free year in close to a decade. Peaceful elections in Jammu and Kashmir last November installed a popularly elected PDP-BJP government in Srinagar. Talks with the pro-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) resumed on May 15 this year after an 18-month break, holding out fresh hope of resolving the three-decade-old insurgency. Talks with the NSCN(IM) faction of the Nagas-underway since 1997-have now rekindled expectations of a conclusion to an insurgency as old as independent India. Yet, one of the inexplicable disappointments has been the home ministry's inability to move ahead on one of its key manifesto promises-modernisation of India's colonial-era police force.

The NDA's new Naxal policy announced by Home Minister Rajnath Singh last year is yet to materialise on the ground, even as Prime Minister Modi visited Chhattisgarh and promised to weed out Maoists.

The insurgency affecting four North-eastern states has simmered out of sight of New Delhi, hence increasing he threat of a deadly new phase of insurgency.

Foreign policy embrace all

On his early visits abroad-to Brazil, Japan and the US-Narendra Modi was so conscious of impressing his hosts he would practise his speech before a bunch of IFS officers. The man from Vadnagar, Gujarat, was so determined to learn how to hold his own with the world's most powerful leaders that he didn't mind letting his guard down in front of sophisticated diplomats. But they warmed to him, believing his mannerisms to be completely authentic.

Modi was lucky; he had some of the best diplomats to guide him through the tortuous bylanes of international diplomacy. For instance, in Nepal in August 2014, he made all the right noises, advising the country's parliament to get its act together and formulate a Constitution. It is when he didn't listen and cancelled the foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan on a whim-because its High Commissioner Abdul Basit had met a Hurriyat leader-that Modi put his first foot wrong. That decision to not engage with Pakistan is now being slowly reversed. Modi called Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif after the Peshawar school attack in December 2014 and two months later, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar visited Islamabad. Now, the two countries have decided to play cricket again, albeit in the UAE. Some would call it unfair to hold the misstep on Pakistan over Modi's head given the decision was shaped by his and the RSS's generally anti-Pakistan mindset rather than realpolitik. But then, what would one make of his recent near-disaster on the boundary agreement with Bangladesh before he overruled himself?

Modi was apparently ready to hold party interest over national interest-the BJP had persuaded him that Assam should be kept out of the agreement or it would suffer in the 2016 state polls-but eventually pragmatism prevailed and he did not hesitate to roll it back.

Still, fact is that Modi has brought an incredible energy to the foreign office. By announcing e-visas to the Chinese, for example, he dismissed in one stroke the nonsensical concerns of the security establishment that had bullied Manmohan Singh into buying into its fears. Modi has taken a leaf out of the US policy on China -embracing Beijing and believing the benefits of the embrace will persuade it to tread more carefully on Delhi's toes. Modi is sharp enough to realise his public bonhomie with "good friend Barack" (Obama) will hold him in good stead with that other great Asian power. He knows there is nothing the Chinese respect more than strength.

Bureaucracy and administration too much centralisation

Perhaps the best administrative sketch of how the government has functioned over the last 12 months comes from studying the relationship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the steel frame that actually runs the country-the bureaucracy. The two had started their journey together on a shaky footing, amid reports of better timekeeping of hours spent in office and early reporting for duty.

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO), meanwhile, had been assembled in a controversial manner. Former TRAI chief Nripendra Misra was appointed as principal secretary to the PM after the government passed an ordinance to change the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Act, 1997, which forbade a chief of the regulatory body from "fut-ure employment under the central and state governments".

Modi, however, moved quickly to restore the morale of the bureaucracy that had taken a hit after former coal secretary P.C. Parakh was chargesheeted in the coal block allotment scandal during the last days of UPA 2. Soon after taking over, Modi met secretaries of all ministries and "encouraged officers to take decisions and assured them that he would stand by them" while also asking them to simplify procedures. The government has since moved amendments to assure bureaucrats that they will not be hounded by investigative agencies after retirement for decisions they took in good faith.

As a result, the sense of discomfort among bureaucrats seems to have eased considerably, even if the pressure has increased dramatically. An overwhelming sense among senior officers is that the biggest accomplishment of Modi's PMO is that it has dramatically reduced the influence of corporate lobbyists in policy matters, especially in sectors such as coal, petroleum and power, leading to cleaner and swifter governance.

There is no doubt that this freedom to perform has increased activity in the government manifold. But does activity always mean action? A number of senior bureaucrats believe the Modi regime is stuck in the announcement hangover of his poll campaign-promises are being made without plans being drawn on how to deliver them.

Fingers are being pointed at the PMO's penchant for over-centralisation. Even though secretaries have been given room to work, the PMO likes to have its hand in everything. Insiders say the Modi regime is perhaps suffering from the fallacy of centrality: the presumption that if something serious is happening, you know about it; and since you don't know about it, it isn't happening.

Infrastructure gaining pace

Even before the BJP won the Lok Sabha elections and Modi became PM, India's infrastructure sector was in dire straits. The general economic slowdown had hurt developers and investors in this sector as well. Funds were scarce as banks had become cautious after their loan portfolios came under stress. The activist outlook of UPA 2 had blocked clearances and confidence was in the pits as the Modi government inherited 189 projects worth over Rs 180,000 crore that were either delayed or stalled.

One of Modi's first tasks was to form an informal Group of Ministers headed by Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari to identify bottlenecks and look beyond the turf wars between the ministries of highways, environment, railways and others to resolve differences and boost the sector. While the public-private partnership (PPP) route was the mantra for the infrastructure sector under NDA 1 and UPA, Gadkari sought to circumvent this lack of confidence in the sector by reviving activity through the EPC (Engineering Procurement Construction) mode. Under this, the government provided funds for the private contractor to develop projects. The government decided to undertake every project worth above Rs 50 crore through the EPC mode to provide the initial momentum in the sector before the private sector developed the confidence to participate through the PPP mode.

In another move to unlock capital for the sector, the government made it easier for developers to exit PPP projects if they were stuck in them and could not honour their contracts. It also came up with a hybrid annuity model of funding under which it would provide 40 per cent of the funds during construction while the private sector would have to invest only 60 per cent. Financial institutions have been roped in with the RBI asking them to consider loans to highway projects as secured. The government also provided for securitisation of toll flows to allow investments into fresh projects and got the approval for setting up infrastructure debts funds to facilitate flow of long-term debt.

The outcome: the government claims it is now building 13 km of roads per day, up from 3-4 km/day, and aims to raise this to 30 km/day. Government managers say that the measures will declog the system, clear the mess that had collected over the years and consolidate viable projects. And that in turn is expected to place newer projects on a higher trajectory.

Railways yet to gather steam

Its ministers have either made or marred Railways' fortunes. This is because it's individual-centric, excessively centralised and influenced by strong decision-making. In NDA 2, D.V. Sadananda Gowda passed the reins of the ministry to Suresh Prabhu after a listless five months in the saddle. It is still early days for Prabhu, who has commissioned a series of expert reports that have guided his decisions on how to turn Railways into an engine for economic growth.

A Niti Aayog document notes that in 2014-15, Railways exceeded its annual target on four parameters-it converted 527 km of metre gauge track to broad gauge, electrified 1,375 km of track, doubled 705 km of it and laid 313 km of new track. The speed of nine corridors where trains run at 110-130 kmph will be increased to 160-200 kmph to make journey between metros such as Delhi and Mumbai a one-night trip.

Such modest reform is, however, unlikely to make up for a funds crunch. Railways spends 96 paise to earn every rupee, leaving just four paise to fund new projects. It sorely needs an infusion of over Rs 8.5 lakh crore over five years to build new lines, complete existing projects and improve safety. And this is not counting the cost of the proposed bullet trains.

Prabhu has implemented some measures-upgraded the rail accounting system; introduced paperless tickets and a tracking system to monitor projects; exhorted railway staff to travel second class to understand the realities of train travel and deputed senior officials for surprise inspections of stations for cleanliness. His approach is one of incremental steps over the next five years. He has only begun to find the massive capital needed to fund railway modernisation with a Rs 1.5 lakh crore credit line from the LIC.

An unprecedented 27 per cent hike in freight rates over the past few months, without any improvement in services, has boosted revenues by Rs 4,000 crore but on the downside, it has made road transport more attractive. The railways now haul only 31 per cent of goods compared to over 60 per cent goods carried by road transport. Railways has not focused on a transformative infrastructure project that could arrest its decline as a goods carrier. For example, the 3,300-km Delhi-Mumbai Dedicated Freight Corridor, estimated to cost Rs 81,000 crore, will reduce freight haulage time from two-three days now to less than 24 hours by increasing train speeds from 25 to 70 kmph, but the project is over two years behind schedule and will now be completed only by 2019.

Judicial reforms a bumpy ride

"God has chosen you for a divine purpose. But the judiciary is not as fearless today as it used to be 10 years back. Are five-star activists not driving the judiciary?" A stillness fell over the crowd, punctuated by uncomfortable coughs, at Vigyan Bhavan in Delhi on April 5. It was the biennial meet of chief justices and chief ministers, where etiquette plays its part: speeches and small talk, cards close to chest and no stepping on toes. But the new chief executive of the nation, Narendra Modi, took this moment to put the judiciary on a pedestal only to knock it down.

It was the moment that added the finishing touch to a tumultuous year between Modi's government and the judiciary. Prime ministers usually leave the judiciary alone. But that's not Modi's way. It's a whole new legal regime. The clash with the judiciary is just one of the many changes underway. To begin with, it has been an unusually hectic year of activity in parliament.

Both the Houses have been a flurry of activity, with 47 Bills becoming law. Research by PRS Legislative shows, the Lok Sabha worked for 123 per cent of its scheduled time while Rajya Sabha topped its record in the last 10 years. "The record on passage of laws is quite impressive," says Upendra Baxi, professor of law at University of Warwick, UK. "A particularly brilliant stroke was the passage of two Constitutional Amendments on the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) and Bangladesh land swap. That's a plus point for this government." But the 'iron hand' of ruthless efficiency has not worked with the judiciary. What could have been the crowning glory of Modi's first year has lost its sizzle. The fate of the NJAC, aiming to replace the collegium of senior judges with a commission, giving the executive power to influence judicial appointments, is already uncertain. Through the year, the judiciary has expressed displeasure at executive excesses: from rejecting the candidature of Gopal Subramanium as Supreme Court judge to paltry budgetary allocation, from a lack of stand on ministers with criminal cases against them to meddling with judicial appointments.

Should a hyperactive Parliament and performance in numbers be an indication of the Modi government's success? "This government holds the first parliamentary majority in India in three decades. It's fairly easy for laws to be taken through Parliament when you enjoy such a status," says Mrinal Satish, who teaches at the National Judicial Academy, India, in Delhi. Despite that, one wonders why the Modi government is bypassing Parliament by taking the easier ordinance route. With eight ordinances in 225 days since coming to power in May, Modi's record is comparable to Indira Gandhi's-an average of one every 28 days. Mere passing of laws will not be enough. What sort of laws are being brought in? Will they help or hinder? It's too early to assess that.

Education on a learning curve

If blackboards could read, even they might have appeared rosy after reading the part in the BJP manifesto dealing with education. Education, it said, is the "most powerful tool for advancement of the nation, and the most potent weapon to fight poverty". The overall optimism gave way to apprehension among some sections in the early months as HRD Minister Smriti Irani hogged media space. She pushed out Delhi University's controversial Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) and pushed for Sanskrit in Kendriya Vidyalayas at the cost of German as a foreign language, among others, even as the likes of Hindutva activist Dina Nath Batra stirred controversies.

A year on, even her critics perhaps want Irani to hog a bit more limelight-to have the government pay more attention to "the most powerful tool for advancement of the nation". The annual budget allocation for the education sector, for one, is Rs 69,074 crore for the ongoing fiscal-down from Rs 70,505 crore in the 2014-15 revised estimate. While the higher education sector has received a 22-per cent allocation boost, educationists say many of those students will eventually leave for foreign shores, leaving the rest to battle with the hole in elementary and secondary education.

That 'hole', by the way, is visible-and markedly so-in another key area: teachers and faculty members. Both the NCERT and CBSE, for instance, are without a head, as is the All India Council of Technical Education. And despite Arun Jaitley's budget announcing plans for an IIT in Karnataka and the upgrade of the Indian School of Mines in Dhanbad into a full-fledged IIT, as also proposing IIMs in Jammu and Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh, the faculty at the premier institutions is hardly in the pink of health. According to a report tabled recently in Parliament, more than 2,500 faculty positions are lying vacant in all IITs put together.

All is not as black as the blackboard, however. The budget, for instance, announced plans to set up research and technical institutions in almost all states-from Odisha, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland in the east to Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in the north and Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in the south.

Almost as an offshoot of the education process is the government's decision to set up "centres of excellence" to provide skill development opportunities. To address the issue, a separate Ministry for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship was created in November last year, a move hailed by most educationists, as India Inc is estimated to require nearly 150 million skilled workers between 2012 and 2022. When he took charge of the ministry last year, Rajiv Pratap Rudy had said this ministry will play a crucial role in fulfilling the objectives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make in India campaign. For that to materialise, the need of the hour is to zoom in on both education and skill.

Health and social welfare not in the pink of health

Healthcare has been PM Modi's biggest challenge in his first year. According to PRS Legislative Research, the Union Ministry of Health has the maximum number of pending bills (11) followed by the law (8) and labour (7) ministries. The Modi government just does not have the numbers in the Upper House to ensure their passage. That's the first disappointment in the field of healthcare in the last one year.

"With the government focusing on investment inflows, both international as well as domestic, it has not had the time to focus on healthcare as a major policy initiative in the initial round," says Dr K. Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India who also teaches at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The promise of "Free Drug Service" of his 2014 budget speech died a quiet death. The free distribution of many essential drugs at public health facilities since 2013 has dried up. In December 2014, despite objections from the health ministry, the country's healthcare budget was slashed by 20 per cent unexpectedly, although the Union government spends only about 1 per cent of GDP on public health.

There are too many unanswered questions and too few answers. Free drugs, free diagnostic services and health insurance covering serious ailments for all: that was Modi's manifesto ahead of the elections. Based on it, the Union health ministry had prepared an ambitious National Health Assurance Mission draft document, to take off from April 2015 and estimated to cost $25.5 billion over four years. With the PM asking for repeated and drastic cutbacks, that work is yet to roll. Will it ever?

The BJP's election manifesto had also specified some key areas of action in the social welfare sector: a mission against poverty and malnutrition; efficient implementation of universal food security; providing health assurance to all; strengthening school education; more social security schemes for the elderly, disabled and children and a programme for women's healthcare. These are ambitious goals which will need increased and long-term expenditure. True to these promises, the government has announced a range of social security schemes, yet it is in the line of fire as there have been heavy cuts-to the tune of Rs 439,192 crore-in budgetary allocations in social sectors ranging from agriculture, drinking water and sanitation to panchayati raj, water resources and women and child development ministries.

Social activist Harsh Mander says the ideology of the BJP is that it firmly believes in a market-driven approach to provisioning public goods. "But it is difficult for them to announce upfront the closure of a whole set of social sector schemes. So it's following the approach of significantly under-provisioning these programmes," he says.

But with the Opposition attacking the government as being anti-farmer, Jaitley said on May 14 that in the second year, the government would focus more on spending on rural infrastructure, irrigation and social sector schemes. That, when it happens, would be another course correction.

Social media the trend-setter

Modi has long been India's foremost digital warrior. As Prime Minister, he has taken his online persona to the next level, using the internet not just to share moods and moments but also as a disseminator of public policy. With over 12 million followers on Twitter, @narendramodi is the most-followed politician in the world after US President Barack Obama. Though he uses his personal handle more for direct interactions and congratulatory messages-and sometimes to break the ice on foreign policy matters by directly tweeting to other world leaders-his official @PMOIndia handle, with 6.1 million followers, is used to share information. Ministers and secretaries in the government are also encouraged to tweet about government schemes.

Still, a big challenge for Modi, the online personality, has been to transition from a challenger taking potshots at the establishment to an incumbent who becomes the object of online ire in an irreverent new age. His online warriors, located in the BJP's National Digital Operations Centre (N-DOC) in Delhi have to work harder than ever before to protect his image from a series of memes, jokes and hashtags.

"There is no denying that opposing voices have got consolidated, which was bound to happen," says Arvind Gupta, the head of the BJP's digital operations. "Any incumbent faces that. But the overall sentiment is still positive. The people feel they have a leader they can engage with at the press of a button. They feel in touch with him, and can get information directly from the government." And they can get this without editors, columnists, TV anchors and analysts serving as middlemen-which is perhaps Modi's biggest achievement as a rare social media icon of our times.

by Y.P. Rajesh, M.G. Arun, Anshuman Tiwari, Sandeep Unnithan, Jyoti Malhotra, Ravish Tiwari, Kunal Pradhan, Damayanti Datta, Maroosha Muzaffar, Kaushik Deka and Shweta Punj

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