President Bola Tinubu has congratulated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “the historic milestone of becoming India’s longest-serving elected Prime Minister.”
“This remarkable achievement reflects the enduring confidence and trust the people of India have reposed in his leadership over three consecutive mandates,” the Nigerian leader said.
Mr Tinubu is right. But any real recognition of a leader must focus on his achievements, not the length of his time in charge
There is no better testimony about the impact Mr Modi has made in India than the one offered by External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, underlining a “clear, well-thought-out strategy” of four pillars, from which I pick these snippets:
Public infrastructure investment: from €36bn in 2014 to €127bn; in the rail sector, the government invested about $59bn in two consecutive years. In 10 years, it added 31,000km of new railway tracks and electrified 44,000km of rail networks. Aiming to “democratise” technology, the Digital India programme now serves over 400 million users, processing 17 billion transactions a month. The annual value of transactions is €2.8tn, but the settlement time is consistently less than two seconds.
