(Image culled from BJP's 2024 Union Budget Presentation)

 

"DATA is the new oil...Data is the new gold," exuded Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Houston on 22nd September 2019. He was addressing an Indian community event dubbed as #HowdyModi. Mr. Modi added: "Answer to Howdy Modi is ‘Everything is fine in India '."

Any accountability-seeker would disagree with his reply as many things are wrong in the country right from ground reality to the national dream named Viksit Bharat @ 2047.

Mr. Modi has been marketing his resolve of transforming India into a developed country by 2047 since 15th August 2022. He has, however, shied away from referring to NDA's earlier failure to realize this dream by 2020. ( https://bit.ly/3KlWbB4 and https://bit.ly/3AqEVpw ).

This ostrich-like approach to bitter truth conflicts with BJP's 2004 Vision to connect past with the present and the future to attain present goals. The Vision document articulated this belief by quoting Swami Vivekananda as having said: "It is out of the past that the future is moulded. It is the past that becomes the future."

No nationalist would, however, like Viksit Bharat @ 2047 dream to go the "India, a Developed Nation by 2020" way. The latter slogan was trumpeted by Vajpayee Government. Hence this column's resolve to flag flaws in the Viksit Bharat (VB) model to pave the way for guaranteed success.

With no lessons learnt from previous regimes & its own previous terms, Modi Government is building VB dream house without three pillars. The structure is being constructed, currently only on one pillar and that too a weaker one.