9 Years Of PM Modi: A Look At Nine Defining Moments Of NDA Government

The Modi government abrogated Article 370 which granted Jammu and Kashmir a special status and suggested splitting the state into two union territories: Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh. The government detained all the main political leaders of J&K and imposed a strict lockdown on the entire Valley. The move also lifted the restrictions on property purchases by outsiders and removed the quotas for state residents in government jobs and some college seats.

The Modi government enacted the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which was seen as another brilliant move. However, the contentious CAA, which allows granting of Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, faced protests in different parts of the country after it was passed by Parliament eight months ago. The government told the Lok Sabha in 2022 that it had given Indian citizenship to 4,844 foreigners in the past five years.

The Modi government implemented the goods and services tax (GST), which was India’s most significant tax overhaul since independence, replacing over a dozen central and state taxes. Officials claim it brought millions of businesses into the tax net, increasing government revenues. The tax required firms to upload their invoices to a portal that will match them with their suppliers or vendors. Companies that did not register for a tax number risked losing customers.

The pace of expansion of national highways has undoubtedly increased under the current regime. There has been a change in the methodology of counting road length, but it is faster even if you factor that in. The Modi government has added 49,903 km of national highways in eight years, according to a Lok Sabha response by Gadkari in March 2022. This means national highways were built at a rate of 17.1 km per day under this regime. 

India-Pakistan relations witnessed two defining moments when Indian special forces conducted ‘surgical strikes’ inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in September 2016 and Indian Air Force carried out ‘airstrikes’ against terrorist camps at Balakot inside Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in February 2019. India’s actions were driven by its intention to change the status-quo in India–Pakistan relations by punishing Pakistan for its persistent use of terrorism.

The government introduced the EWS quota in 2019 by amending the constitution. The EWS quota gives reservation to the economically weaker general category in education and jobs. This quota is based on income, not caste or class. To qualify for the EWS quota, a person or his family should earn less than ₹8 lakh per year. Here, the source of income also includes agriculture, business, and other professions.

The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched by PM Modi on Gandhi Jayanti in 2014 to promote universal sanitation in the country. The mission achieved open defectation free (ODF) status for rural India by building over 100 million toilets in five years. The government claims to have provided toilets to over 11.5 crore households. The second phase of the mission aims to make all cities garbage free and all small towns ODF.

The bank merger was announced by Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in 2020, creating seven large PSBs with scale and national reach. It helps banks achieve a scale comparable to global banks and capable of global competitiveness. "Bank mergers have been beneficial for the banking sector as they have resulted in wealth gains for shareholders of the acquired banks and have also enhanced the efficiency of the acquiring bank," says a RBI research paper.

The bill that criminalises instant triple talaq got Parliament’s approval in July, 2019 after Rajya Sabha passed it with BJD’s support and JD-U and AIADMK’s walkout. Lok Sabha had already passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill earlier. Now, Muslim men who practice instant divorce face up to three years in jail.