Time U-turn, says ‘Modi united India like no PM’

New Delhi: Days after a cover story calling the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi India’s “divider-in-chief”, Time magazine changed its stance. Following Mr Modi’s spectacular electoral victory the magazine has now come up with a story screaming “Modi Has United India Like No Prime Minister in Decades”.

The story was  published on the Time website on Tuesday.

Changing its tone and virtually eulogising Prime Minister Modi the article stated, “Despite the strong and often unfair criticisms leveled at Modi’s policies both throughout his first term and this marathon election, no Prime Minister has united the Indian electorate as much in close to five decades. The last time an Indian Prime Minister was re-elected with a parliamentary majority was in 1971. His coalition won just under 50 per cent of the national vote.”

Before the elections, Time magazine’s cover story tore apart Modi. It stated: “Not only has Modi’s economic miracle failed to materialize, he has also helped create an atmosphere of poisonous religious nationalism in India.”

The article on the Time website now writes that a “key factor is that Modi has managed to transcend India’s greatest fault line: the class divide”.

The author describes PM Modi’s second term as “a victory for meritocracy, and for opportunity, thanks to a slate of welfare policies for the country’s extreme poor”.

Taking a sharp turn from the previous cover story, the Time mgazine now maintained that Mr Modi “has brought many Indians, both Hindus and religious minorities, out of poverty at a faster rate than in any previous generation”.  

The author of the article is Mr Ladwa, the founder and CEO of Britain-based media company India Inc., which publishes India Global Business.

The previous article written by British-born writer Aatish Taseer had f;ayed the Prime Minister and maintained that under him “minorities of every stripe-from liberals and lower castes to Muslims and Christians-have come under assault.