Tag: Modi

Narendra Modi became the leader of India ten years ago by promising to improve the economy, and it’s clear that he has made progress. As he runs for prime minister again, the country’s economy is doing really well. The stock markets are growing, and there are lots of new buildings and highways being built.

There are problems in the government that his opponents want to use to their advantage. This includes many people not having jobs, being poor for a long time, and only a few people in India being able to benefit from the country’s success.

“Rich people are doing very well with the economy, but poor people are having a hard time,” explained Milan Vaishnav, who works at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party have stayed popular since he first became prime minister in 2014. He promised to prioritize Hindu interests and vowed to improve the economy by shifting from farming to industry, something past governments couldn’t do.

He said he would stop the corruption that has been around for a long time and use the large number of workers in the country to build a strong manufacturing industry. During his campaign this spring, Modi promised to make India’s economy the third-largest in the world, after the US and China. Votes will be counted on Tuesday.

Modi has done well. The economy is getting bigger by 7% and over 500 million people in India have opened bank accounts during his time in office. This is a big step toward making the economy more formal, because many jobs are still not officially recorded and no taxes are paid on them. His government has spent a lot of money on fixing the old infrastructure to attract investment. They also made the welfare program simpler and are using it to try to win support from poor and unhappy voters.

Despite these improvements, Modi’s economic strategies have not been successful in creating jobs that move people from low-paying, unstable work to stable, well-paid jobs. With more people unable to find good jobs, inequality has become a big issue in the election.

While there are more and more millionaires in India, almost 90% of the people who can work make less money than the country’s average yearly income of about $2,770, according to a study from the World Inequality Lab. The richest 1% have more than 40% of the country’s money, while the poorest 50% have only just over 6%, according to the study.

To stop people from being unhappy about the economy, Modi and the BJP want to win the support of poor and unhappy voters by giving them over $400 billion in support and money.

Their main plan for helping people is to give out free food to 800 million people. It was there before and it is a right in India’s National Food Security Act. During the pandemic, the program grew a lot to give free grain instead of just cheap. It will continue for another five years starting in January.

About 300 different programs have helped hundreds of millions of people get things they need for their homes, like cooking gas tanks and toilets, for free. Millions of houses have been made for people who don’t have a lot of money. Now, they can easily get water, Wi-Fi, and electricity. The government is giving more money to farmers and other important groups of voters.

When Rajesh Prajapati lost his job at a chemical factory in Prayagraj, a city in India’s biggest state, Uttar Pradesh, his family of five lived on food from the government.

“He said that for almost a year, the free food was the only thing that made them feel better. That’s why they voted for Modi again. ”

Indian political parties have always promised to help the people in order to get votes during elections. However, experts say that the BJP has performed better.

Now, the government gives benefits like money, retirement funds and loans directly to people’s bank accounts. This helps stop fraud and cheating by getting rid of middlemen.

These big giveaways help for now, but some people think they are just a quick solution and a sign that the economy is getting worse. To make things more equal, we need to invest in health and education. These areas have not improved much in recent years, according to Ashoka Mody, a Princeton University economist.

Subsidies can be good, but they cannot help people and their children have a better future.

Tuntun Sada, a farmer from Samastipur, a city in Bihar, said the 18 kilograms (40 pounds) of free food that helps feed his family of six each month has only slightly made their lives better. He still makes less than $100 a month by working for rich landowners in their fields.

“People like us don’t get a lot,” Sada said. “Modi needs to do what he says he will do. ” “If we don’t make enough money, how will we take care of our children. ”

The free food doesn’t last the whole month. There is no running water in his area, and there are no schools nearby for his four children to go to. He said he needs a better job.

Modi’s opponents, led by the Congress party, are hoping that the lack of jobs will hurt the BJP’s chances of winning the election. Prior to the election, a study by the Center for Study of Developing Societies discovered that over 60% of voters were concerned about not having a job and thought that it was harder to find one. Only 12 out of every 100 people felt that there were more job and money-making options available.

The government’s official data says that the unemployment rate is going down, but some experts are not sure if it is accurate. The International Labor Organization recently reported that many young people in India don’t have jobs. It also found that over 40% of Indians are still working in the same way as before.

In the last ten years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had political successes. This has made people think he cares about the Hindu people in India. India’s 200 million Muslims feel like they have less influence in the country’s politics, even though they live in the world’s biggest democracy.

According to some people, Mondi has been able to do this after stopping Muslim people from becoming citizens and taking away the special self-governing status of the country’s only region where most people are Muslim. Constructing a Hindu temple where a group of angry people destroyed a mosque.

There have always been problems between Hindus and Muslims in India, but things have gotten worse with Modi as the leader of Bharatiya Janata Party, which follows a Hindu nationalist philosophy. With Modi likely to win a third term in office, things don’t look good for Muslim politicians and citizens. The final decision for this year’s vote will happen in June.

Not only has Modi increased his criticism of Muslims in his campaign speeches. Since the BJP started gaining power in the mid-1980s, there are fewer Muslim lawmakers in parliament and state legislatures.

Muslims are not being represented as much in the ruling BJP or in opposition parties.

When Modi became the leader in 2014, there were 30 Muslim lawmakers leaving the parliament – and only one of them was from the BJP party. Muslims now have 25 seats out of 543, but none of them are members of the BJP.

India has changed from a place where Muslims were mostly left out to a place where they are intentionally kept out, according to Ali Khan Mahmudabad, a political scientist and historian at Ashoka University in New Delhi.

“If you don’t have someone to speak for you, you can’t ask the government for things that your community needs, like education, jobs, healthcare, or roads,” Mahmudabad explained.

In the mid-1980s, 11 out of every 100 people in India were Muslims, and nine out of every 100 seats in parliament were held by Muslims. Today, 14 out of every 100 people in India are Muslims, but less than five out of every 100 seats in parliament are held by Muslims.

Nine out of 10 people in parliament are Hindu, and 80% of India’s 1.4 billion population are also Hindu.

Muslims are not represented well in state politics. India has over 4,000 lawmakers in state legislatures in 28 states, and about six percent of these lawmakers are Muslim.

A report from the government in 2006 showed that Muslims in India are not doing as well as Hindus, Christians, and people from lower castes when it comes to being able to read and write, how much money they make, and being able to go to school. They have improved a little bit, but are still in a tough spot, according to many different studies.

During Modi’s ten years in power, the BJP has made different laws that Muslim leaders believe treat them unfairly.

Some states governed by the BJP made laws to stop people from different religions marrying each other. They say they want to protect Hindu women from marrying Muslim men and changing their religion.

One state that was ruled by the BJP party made a rule that girls can’t wear hijabs in school. The law changed after the BJP no longer had political power.

The BJP wants to change some laws in India’s constitution that deal with marriage, divorce, and inheritance. This could affect certain religious practices.

Many Muslims are often subjected to violence, and Modi has done little to stop it. Hindu mobs have killed Muslims because they were accused of eating beef or smuggling cows, which Hindus believe are sacred animals. Their houses and shops have been destroyed by bulldozers, and their places of prayer have been set on fire.

At recent campaign rallies, Modi said that he thinks Muslims are not supposed to be in the country and that they have too many children. He also said that the BJP’s main rival, the Congress party, wants to take money from Hindus and give it to Muslims. However, he didn’t have any proof for these statements.

Lots of Muslims think that Modi is trying to create disagreements as a way to win votes.

“They are keeping the Hindu-Muslim problem controversial and ongoing. ” Mehmood Bhai Khatri, a 64-year-old Muslim voter from Gujarat, said that they still don’t get along. This is Prime Minister Modi’s home state and a place where the BJP is very popular.

Khatri said, “But who will speak up. If they do, they might get arrested or have their homes destroyed by a bulldozer. ” “Nobody talks because they are scared. ”

No Indian state has a Muslim as the top leader, and the BJP and its allies have leaders in 19 states.

In Uttar Pradesh, where many people are Muslim, only a few of the state’s lawmakers are Muslim.

As the BJP gets stronger, experts say that other Indian political parties are less likely to choose Muslim candidates because they are afraid of upsetting Hindu voters.

Most Hindus support the BJP, but it’s hard for Muslims to agree on what they want because they are very different from each other in terms of their religion, ethnicity, language, customs, and culture.

“Mahmudabad, the political scientist, said that the only way to bring together this diverse group of people is by making Islam the thing they all have in common. ”

However, when political parties do not have many Muslims as candidates, important issues for them, such as minority rights and hate speech, are rarely discussed in parliament. This was expressed by Muhammad Saad, a Muslim cab driver in New Delhi.

Saad asked, “If there are no Muslims in the parliament, who will speak up for us. ”

Experts say the BJP has been trying to connect with Muslims by asking for their help as volunteers and at election time. However, the party only had 13 Muslim candidates in total in the 2014 and 2019 elections, and none of them were chosen.

The BJP says it does not treat Muslim people unfairly.

party allows all people to join, not just Hindus, according to M Abdul Salam.

A group of 41 workers were greeted with cheers as they came out from a collapsed tunnel under the Himalayas. It was the end of a risky and amazing rescue mission that took weeks to drill through rocks and debris.

The men were stuck for 17 days while teams drilled a way out of the mountain. They faced problems but eventually drilled the last few meters by hand.

Video from the scene showed Pushkar Singh Dhami, the leader of Uttarakhand state, meeting with the workers as they came out of the tunnel. Everyone seemed very happy.

Dhami said at a press conference on Tuesday night that all 41 workers are healthy.

Because they have grown up in a different place, we will do what the doctor recommends. They will be watched closely at the beginning. “No one is being harsh or negative,” Dhami said.

They don’t have any signs of being weak or having a fever, they are all healthy. They could have used stretchers to come out, but they chose to crawl out by themselves,” he said. Then he thanked the workers, engineers, and government departments who helped with the rescue.

The workers who were saved will get a check for 100,000 rupees (about $1,200) each, Dhami said.

Dhami said we will also ask the company if the 41 workers can go home and be with their family for 15 days, 20 days, or 1 month.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the successful rescue is making everyone feel emotional. He said this in a statement on X.

“I want to tell the men stuck in the tunnel that your courage and patience are inspiring everyone,” he wrote.

I also praise the determination of everyone involved in this rescue. Their courage and persistence have given our hardworking brothers a new chance at life. Modi said that everyone working on this mission has shown a great example of people helping each other and working together.

The men were stuck since November 12 when the tunnel they were building in India’s Uttarakhand state collapsed, blocking their only way out with a lot of rocks, concrete, and metal.

The first workers were taken out after many painful problems. The machines used to dig through the rubble broke down, so the workers had to dig by hand and use more dangerous methods to rescue them.

The engineers tried using a drill to clear the debris, but it broke down. They had to stop using it and instead, dig by hand to rescue the trapped men.

At the same time, rescuers were drilling down through the unstable mountain to reach the trapped men in case the first way didn’t work. However, the first plan ended up being successful.

After finishing drilling, the rescuers put a big pipe through the exit shaft to bring the men to safety.

The workers, who came from poor states in India, are getting food, water, and oxygen through a long pipe. The authorities say they are still healthy.

The doctors at the location have been talking to the men inside regularly, giving them advice on how to stay positive and calm. Their families have been meeting at the end of the tunnel every day to pray for their loved ones to come back safely.

The tunnel is a part of a big project called Modi’s Char Dham Highway. It’s supposed to upgrade the road, but some people think it’s a bad idea. The country wants to make its roads and transportation better so that people can easily get to important Hindu pilgrimage sites.

Environmentalists are upset about the project because they think it might harm the Himalayan region, where many people are already feeling the effects of the climate crisis.

A group of experts told India’s highest court that building highways will cause more landslides and soil erosion in a fragile environment, as stated in a 2020 court report.

Officials are looking into why the tunnel collapsed and they will probably check if drilling on the mountain had something to do with it. CNN has reached out to the Indian government’s department for environment and climate change.

A tunnel in India collapsed recently, adding to a list of construction accidents in the country. India has been working hard to improve its infrastructure and transportation system, spending a lot of money to do so.

In August, a lot of workers died when a bridge being built fell down in the northeastern state of Mizoram. In June, a big bridge being built over the River Ganges in Bihar collapsed for the second time in a year. People are wondering if it was built well.