1. DESI TIMES AND INFORMATION
[DTAI] DESI INTERNATIONAL EMAIL DIGEST
DINESH VORA
FORTUNE
World’s Greatest Leaders
Narendra Modi
Prime Minister of India
Number - 5

2. Narendra Modi

3. Modi rode to victory in elections last year on a wave of economic
dissatisfaction. But while many reformers before him have talked a
good game, Modi has actually begun to deliver on his promises—
making genuine progress in his efforts to make India more business-
friendly and less regulated, addressing violence against women,
improving sanitation, and patching up relations with other Asian
countries and the U.S. There is, to be sure, a long way to go. Fully
achieving any of his goals will require reforming India’s powerful,
widely corrupt bureaucracy. But he has put the bureaucrats on notice
while taking action where he can—for example, by substantially
increasing allowable foreign investment in the insurance industry.
And in greatly simplifying the procedure for getting a visa to visit
India, he has symbolically lowered the status of bureaucrats and
raised that of potential outside investors. Modi still faces such huge
challenges as privatizing India’s vast portfolio of state-owned
businesses and deregulating labor markets.

4. But simply by declaring those as goals, he has
seized control of the national agenda and sent a
message that it’s time for all of India—not just
its infotech services sector—to join the 21st
century. The IMF and other forecasters now
believe India will be growing faster than China
in a year or two.
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Dinesh Vora