Narendra Modi is the fourteenth Prime Minister of India, who took office on May 26, 2014. Before taking over as the PM, Modi was the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat for three consecutive terms (2001 to 2014). As the CM, he is credited with boosting Gujarat's economy and making it a lucrative investment destination for industrialists.
A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Modi is a Hindu nationalist and member of the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Aiming to transform India into a global manufacturing hub, Modi took the initiative of launching the ' Make in India' campaign on September 2014.
On November 8, 2016, in a surprise announcement, he ordered to ban higher denomination currency notes (Rs 500 and Rs 1,000) to weed out black money and end corruption.
Ever since he has taken over the office, Modi has tried to raise foreign direct investment in the Indian economy, increased the budget on infrastructure and reduced spending on healthcare and social welfare programmes. He also initiated a national-level sanitation campaign and abolished environmental and labour laws.
BHARATIYA JANATA PARTY : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is one of the major political parties in India. The BJP's origins lie in the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, formed in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mookerjee. After the State of Emergency in 1977, the Jana Sangh merged with several other parties to form the Janata Party. After three years in power, the Janata party dissolved in 1980 with the members of the erstwhile Jana Sangh reconvening to form the BJP. After the 1998 general election, the BJP-led coalition known as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) formed a government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for a year. Following fresh elections, the NDA government, again headed by Vajpayee, lasted for a full term in office. For the next ten years the BJP was the principal opposition party. In the 2014 general election, Narendra Modi led it to a landslide victory. Narendra Modi was sworn in as the 15th Prime Minister of India on 26 May 2014.
BJP won the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections by an overwheming three-quarter majority of 325 seats, despite not projecting a chief ministerial candidate before the election.
It also won the state assembly elections in Uttarakhand. The BJP-SAD alliance in Punjab lost the 2017 assembly elections with each winning 3 and 15 seats respectively. In Manipur BJP won 21 seats and 13 seats in Goa.
Make in India : Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the initiative of ‘Make in India’ campaign was launched. The campaign was initiated in September 2017 with a view to transform India into a global manufacturing hub
This initiative is aimed to boost multi-national and national firms to manufacturing their products in India. On a broader perspective, the campaign aims to encourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by gaining confidence amongst the potential partners abroad about India’s economic capabilities.
One of the major objectives of ‘Make in India’ is employment generation and skill enhancement in nearly 25 sectors of the economy. It looks forward to capital and technological investments in India by reaching out to a vast local and global audience with the help of social media in order to keep them updated about various opportunities and reforms.
DEMONETISATION : Demonetisation is a situation where the Central Bank of the country (Reserve Bank in India) withdraws the old currency notes of certain denomination as an official mode of payment.
On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a surprise announcement said the existing higher denomination currency (Rs 500 and Rs 1000) will cease to be legal tenders. PM said this is government’s biggest push to fight black money and end corruption. The opposition, however, criticised the government for poor implementation of the scheme and said a lot of people have died standing in queues trying to get their hands on the new currency.
The government also introduced new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes and urged people to move towards cash-less economy. But the opposition has been protesting the government’s decision, even stalling Parliament. A ‘Jan Aakrosh Diwas’ was observed by Left and other major parties.
This is not the first time that demonetisation has been implemented in India. In 1936, Rs 10,000, which was the highest denomination note, was introduced but was demonetised in 1946. Though, it was re-introduced in 1954 but later, in 1978, the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai in his intensive move to counter the black money, introduced The High Denomination Banks Act (Demonetisation) and declared Rs 500 , Rs 1000 and Rs 10,000 notes illegal.
A lot of analysis in India and abroad claimed that demonetization of November 2016 has failed to do what it was supposed to do and its impact has turned out to be more protracted than initially expected.
Even from the point of view of promoting digital money, the government need not have put 86 per cent of all currency out of circulation. Further studies pointed out that very little black money was caught.
The Reserve Bank of India on August 30, 2017 released its report on demonetisation. In the report, it said 99 per cent of the banned notes came back into the banking system which trashes all claims of Narendra Modi that the move will flush out the black money and counterfeit currency.
With 99 per cent currency back in the system, the failure of demonetization hints two things, either the black money held in cash was very low or the government failed to implement the demonetization efficiently and all the black money held in Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 bank notes laundered back to the banking system.
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