After 3 years of Modi govt, I consider Modi to be one of the worst things that has happened to India. Despite all the corruptions, one positive thing about UPA II was that perhaps for the first time since independence a govt was held accountable for its misdeeds. The media was constantly on their case, there was huge public outcry, there was a working RTI system, and they were reduced to 44 seats in the following elections as a result. Now we have lost all of those in hero worshiping. Let's be honest, Modi's 3 years have been nothing but a huge disappointment in terms of governance. Economy is stagnant, job-growth is negligible to negative, industrial production is in shambles, export has actually decreased, national security has worsened, Kashmir militancy has gone up, and even diplomatically we aren't better off than we were before despite Modi's numerous paid vacations abroad. Heck we don't even have a full-time defense minister now. And to distract the masses from his failures, we now have Modi's pet dogs in the media feeding the masses with his propaganda. He will surely win the 2019 elections with absolute majority but when we look back at Modi's tenure 20 years from now, we'd realize what a massive clusterfuck it actually was.
I disagree on the economy part.
Most people donot realize that Congress left the economy in much worse condition that appeared on the outside. Not only was the treasury practically empty, it also left a declining sectoral economy.
Modi is not a magician (despite his claims and many supporters feeling so). He is doing all the right things that could be done. He cannot magically revive the economy, he can fix the fundamentals so that all the right conditions are there for growth to happen organically.
The three things that needed to be done to fix the economy:
1. Auction natural resources instead of allocating them - done
2. Enhance Ease of Doing Business - each year Govt is making it easier to open companies and close them.
3. Bankruptcy act - done
4. Aadhar act - needed to ensure stoppage in leaks of welfare
5. GST - needed to power the next growth phase of our economy by reducing economic barriers between states - done
All the economic binging of the corporates in the last decade made them unsustainably debt heavy. They cant recover easily without bailouts - that this govt is unwilling to provide.
The Banks are neck deep with NPA's. That cannot be resolved by wishing them away, it takes time. For example, the new bankruptcy act has been notified, now it is going to be stress tested against the system and courts. It will take atleast a couple of more years for it to become smooth and predictable.
And NPAs will take atleast 2-3 years to get resolved, that is how long the corporates will also take to recover.
Modi has done all the right things wrt the economy, now it will take time for these things to take root and show results. There is no escaping this. India(Indian economy) is paying for its past sins. What is being and has been done by Modi will take time to show fruits.
Sadly, a majority of people will not get this - everybody wants instant results - yes 3 years is also an instant when it comes to bringing a country and structurally overhauling its economic bedrock which had been damaged by Congress.
There are some things that Modi has not done which is needed by economy - due to political costs of doing it but they are as critical as GST or Bankruptcy Act were:
1. Labor reforms - there is no escaping it. We have possibly the worlds worst labour laws which ensure that small factories donot expand to become bigger factories, small businesses stay small and not hire more people to expand.
All in the name of our fake 'socialism'. We need to dump all our labor laws to be able to grow in employement.
2. Land Reforms - not just acquisition, but the whole hog of land leasing reforms.
3. CA reforms - we need an independent regulator that debars CA's when the companies file wrong returns. Currently this entire profession is geared to help people do illegal acts. We have self regulation in this industry right now. Its like asking real estate companies to become their own regulators or mutual fund industry to become the financial regulator.
@jaunty , I edited my post. Kindly go through it again.