Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Times Now, his first TV interview since taking office, on 27 June 2016. As with his Wall Street Journal interview the month before (critiqued here), Modi covered a lot of ground, from economic reform to domestic politics to foreign policy. Here we specifically examine some of his claims regarding his ambitious development agenda.

Modi has developed a flair for presenting evolutionary policy steps, built on his predecessors’ work, as revolutionary and original contributions to national development. Take his repeated claim regarding the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY):