With India Prime Minister Narendra Modi having completed a landmark trip to Japan and now more than 100 days in office, the hard work now begins of turning economic rhetoric into reality. As on Aug. 15, when Modi marked India's independence day by delivering his first "Address to the Nation" from the ramparts of India's historic Red Fort, he lived up to his reputation during his Japan visit for an ability to communicate with an audience, reaching out to political, business and other leaders.
It remains to be seen, however, what changes India's most dynamic leader in recent years can bring about in a country too often wedded to the past, and still desperately in need of overhaul. Or, as Russell Green, the Clayton Fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute and a former U.S. Treasury attache to India, puts it: "Modi has made a fast start on both weedy implementation and broader reforms — not house-on-fire fast, but still impressive. He though has yet to explain his big economic reform vision in enough detail to revive corporate investment and pull the public onboard."
The victory of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and the ascent of Modi took many political pundits by surprise for few predicted this "India Spring" and that the demise of the Congress Party, in power for decades, would be so dramatic. As with Indonesia soon also to be under a new president, it is a compliment to India that the transfer of power has been smooth and in accordance with constitutional law.