ISAS Special Reports

On 26 May 2016, exactly two years since India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office, ISAS hosted a panel of distinguished Indian speakers on the theme, India under Modi: A Mid-Term Appraisal. For the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the sixteenth general elections marked its emergence as a national party, giving the BJP a clear majority and a strong mandate to deliver inclusive development and good governance - two of its stated priorities. Taking over after 10 years of Congress-led coalition governments, the expectations of change were sky-high. The momentum and energy generated by the election, and captured in the persona of Narendra Modi himself, warranted a serious assessment of the achievements of a government two years into the job. Covering a wide spectrum of topics, across politics, governance, the economy and foreign policy, the panel brought out the nuances and challenges of how to assess change, taking into account the perceived stalemate of previous decades, and what to use as its benchmark. Should it be the pace or quality of change measured in terms of policy and output; effectiveness and impact captured through socio economic indices; the strengthening and weakening of institutions or the intangibles of reviving qualities such as professionalism, integrity and civic consciousness