New Delhi: Featuring India Prime Minister Narendra Modi on its cover, the American Time Magazine termed his as ‘India divider-in-chief’. The article "India's Divider in Chief" is written by Aatish Taseer, son of Indian journalist Tavleen Singh and late Pakistani politician and businessman Salmaan Taseer. The article also says the Indian National Congress (INC has little to offer other than the dynastic principle.
While other edition of the Time magazine narrates Modi as a reformer. The article "Modi the Reformer" is authored by Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, a global political risk research and consulting firm.
The two articles on Modi seems to be unlike poles as the articles inside the magazine have the titles "Can the World's Largest Democracy Endure Another Five Years of a Modi Government?", written by Taseer and "Modi Is India's Best Hope for Economic Reform", by Bremmer.
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Taseer article slams PM Modi and says, “If in 2014 he (Modi) was able to exploit differences in order to create a climate of hope, in 2019 he is asking people to stave off their desperation by living for their differences alone.”
“Then he was a messiah, ushering in a future too bright to behold, one-part Hindu renaissance, one-part South Korea's economic programme. Now he is merely a politician who has failed to deliver, seeking re-election. Whatever else might be said about the election, hope is off the menu,” the article by Taseer added.
As per the article, “Not only has Modi's economic miracle failed to materialize, he has also helped create an atmosphere of poisonous religious nationalism in India. Far from his promise of development for all, he has achieved a state in which Indians are increasingly obsessed with their differences.”
While Bremmer article in Time magazine says otherwise. According to Bremmer, “India still needs change, and Modi remains the person most likely to deliver. He has improved relations with China, the US and Japan, but it's his domestic development agenda that has done the most to improve the lives and prospects of hundreds of millions of people.”
“Modi has the instinct to dominate and the thin skin of other strongmen, but he also has a genuine track record in providing the kind of reform that developing India urgently needs,” Bremmer added.
The article also outlined PM Modi achievements. The article highlighted, the Goods and Services Tax enacted in 2017, the "unprecedented amounts" of money directed towards the country's new infrastructure, expansion of the Aadhaar biometric identification system that began under the previous Congress–led government.
While Taseer article also criticised the Congress and said, India's oldest party has no more political imagination than to send Priyanka Gandhi - Rahul Gandhi's sister - to join her brother's side. It would be equivalent to America's Democratic Party fielding Hillary Clinton again in 2020, with the added enticement of her daughter Chelsea as Vice President.
"Modi is lucky to be blessed with so weak an opposition - a ragtag coalition of parties, led by the Congress, with no agenda other than to defeat him,” the article added.