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Narendra Damodardas Modi (Gujarati: નરેંદ્ર દામોદરદાસ મોદી, ; born 17 September 1950) has been Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat since 7 October 2001.

He participated in the rise to political dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat as its elections organiser in the early 1990s. This was the period which led to the election of the party in 1995. He became Gujarat's Chief Minister in October 2001, promoted to the office at a time when his predecessor Keshubhai Patel had resigned, following the defeat of BJP in the by-elections.

He was re-elected in December 2002 as chief minister with 127 seats in the 182-member assembly. His term has been both attacked for mismanagement of and complicity in the 2002 Gujarat violence, and praised for outstanding administration for turning Gujarat into an economic powerhouse and controlling terrorism.

In July 2007 he became the longest serving Chief Minister in Gujarat's history when he had been in power for 2063 days continuously.

He was elected again for a third term on December 23, 2007 with an emphatic win in the state elections, which he had cast as a "referendum on his rule".

Biography

Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a middle class family in northern Mehsana district of Gujarat. He completed his schooling in Vadnagar and gained a postgraduate degree in Political Science from Gujarat University. As a young man, he joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a student organization and was involved in the anti-corruption Nav Nirmāṇ ("Reconstruction") Movement. After working as a full time organizer for the organization, he was later nominated as its representative in the Bharatiya Janata Party. He joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in the early 1980s. He helped maintain the relations between the RSS and the BJP. In 1988 he became the General Secretary of the Gujarat State BJP unit. He is believed to be a protégé of Lal Krishna Advani, who is a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party himself. Advani has praised Modi on numerous occasions, referring to him as "a leader who, after being subjected to a malicious and prolonged campaign of vilification, has been able to impress even his critics with his determination, single-minded focus, integrity and a wide array of achievements in a relatively short time.

He was believed to be a back-room operator for the political party in the beginning, but during the elections he portrayed himself as a pro-Hindu leader and campaigned on a platform of Hindutva.

Narendra Modi has often promoted vegetarianism as a lifestyle essential for purity of thought and action and considers meat eating as a resource intensive activity that burdens the world food resources.

Chief Ministership

Gujarat earthquake

In October 2001, he was asked by the party to head the government in Gujarat. In 2001, Gujarat was facing problems because of several natural calamities having struck in the preceding years, including the massive Gujarat Earthquake in January 2001. Modi immediately worked to re-organize and catalyze the local economy.

Economic growth

Modi re-organised the government's administrative structure and embarked upon a massive cost-cutting exercise in order to compensate for economic losses. Before his arrival to power, the economy was shrinking and domestic growth was stagnant. During his first administration, Gujarat registered a GDP growth rate of over 10%, the highest growth rate among all the provinces in India. Over the last year, growth has registered at 11.5%.

The Gujarat government credits Modi with reducing the fiscal deficit of the state exchequer by fifty percent and reducing the losses of the Gujarat State Electricity Board. He has increased the availability of electricity in many parts of rural Gujarat. One of the most significant achievements of his government has been successful raising of the height of the Narmada Dam from 95 to 110.64 metres, which resulted in increased irrigation, water supplies and hydroelectric power.

After getting bad experience from west bengal government, on 7-Oct-2008, TATA group shifted its NANO main production plant to Gujarat. Thi is viewed as a terrific achievement for Mr.Narendra Modi. Mr.Ratan Tata has all the praises for Mr.Modi for his cooperation and terrific management.

Social reforms

The Gujarat government under Modi tackled the issue of nutrition in schools by fortifying much of the food with folic acid. Also adding vitamins A and D in vegetable oils and iron in wheat flour. Due to these and other reforms, the number of children suffering from anemia and night blindness have decreased.

Women have also benefited from Modi's reforms. There have been a number of programs created to further education for girls, including the Vidyalakshmi bond program, which pays for a girls' education until age 7, the Vidyadeep program, which provides insurance for female students, and a philanthropic fund to offer financial support for families of female students. His Beti Bachao Andolan has improved Gujarat's sex ratio per 1000 males from 802 in 2001 to 870 in 2007. The Beti Bachao Andolan has reduced female infanticide to a large extent. Under his six year rule, the dropout rate among girls has reduced from 49% to 3%.

Security

Gujarat is on the list of terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba especially since the 2002 Gujarat Violence. However, since 2002 Gujurat violence till July 25 2008 not a single terror attack has taken place in Gujarat, even though it borders Pakistan. On July 26 2008, 17 serial bomb blast occurred in Ahmedabad.

2007 elections

Like earlier campaigns, Mr. Modi played a very key and important role in the steering a victory of his party. Brand "Modi" or Moditva as the media termed it, was yet again the key role player for this victory. His party won the 2007 Gujarat state assembly elections, which had its results declared on 23 December 2007. He was sworn in for a third term as Chief Minister on 25 December. The Bharatiya Janata Party, under the leadership of Narendra Modi, won a landslide victory bagging 117 out of 182 seats. Mr. Modi's 2007 election campaign was marked with some zealous speeches made by Mr. Modi, which reflects his passion for Gujarat and his aggressive leadership. One such speech in response to Sonia Gandhi calling him a "merchant of death", was at Magrol that referred to Sohrabuddin's killings. For this the Election Commission of India, a constitutional body governing election proceedings in India, cautioned Mr. Modi about his election campaign speech at Mangrol and considered it as indulging in activity which may have aggravated existing differences, creating mutual hatred and causing tension between different communities (namingly Hindu-Muslims) and involved violation of the provision of clause [1] and [3] of the Model Code of Conduct during an election campaign, however similar procedure was not followed in the case of Sonia Gandhi.

Gujarat violence

Nanavati report gives clean chit to Modi: September 25, 2008 Read report by NDTV.com. In February 2002, while Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, violence broke out across the state claiming around a thousand lives. An official estimate stated that 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed, 223 people were reported missing and 2,500 were injured. Independent estimates by rights groups and NGOs place the figure higher, nearer to 2000. More than one hundred and fifty thousand people were displaced. Organisations such as Human Rights Watch criticised the Indian government for failure to address the resulting humanitarian condition of people, "overwhelming majority of them Muslim," who fled their homes for refugee camps in the aftermath of the riots. The riots followed the Godhra Train Burning incident, where 58 Hindu Kar Sevaks were burnt alive on a train carriage that was torched. The carriage carrying the pilgrims was set on fire by a Muslim mob following an altercation between the Hindu pilgrims and local Muslims when the train was at the station. The police investigation determined that the attack had been a conspiracy planned the previous day by Muslim citizens.

The United States revoked a visa for Modi the following year, on the accusation that he was responsible for violations of religious freedom as per the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. In August of 2008, Modi was again denied a United States visa.

Investigations, judicial and non-governmental

Subsequent reports from Human Rights Watch and the national Human Rights Commission have claimed that Modi and his ministers had complicity in the riots that was tacit, if not explicit. The report was quoted and expanded on by the United States State Department's country human rights reports for 2003. The National Human Rights Commission criticized the government, pointing to "a comprehensive failure on the part of the State Government of Gujarat to control persistent violations of rights". The claims of Human Rights Watch and associated groups have been rejected by Modi, and the BJP and the BJP's supporters have also stated that the reports are politically motivated.

A judicial commission constituted to examine allegations of Gujarat state administration's involvement in the riots of 2002 has twice so far said that there was no evidence as yet to implicate either Modi or his administration in the riots.

An October 2007 report by the investigative newsmagazine Tehelka quoted several Sangh Parivar activists claiming that Modi was personally aware of the planning for the riots. However this was toatlly rejected by nabanavati commission, which demolished such false theories The Hindu Times of India

Political fallout

As an aftermath to the riots, there were calls for Modi to resign as chief minister of Gujarat.The opposition parties stalled the national parliament over the issue. Even DMK and TDP, allies of the BJP, were asking for Modi's resignation. Modi submitted his resignation to the Governor and recommended the dissolution of the 10th Gujarat Legislative Assembly. In the following state re-elections, the BJP, led by Modi, won 127 seats in the 182-member assembly. In the elections in December 2007, Modi and the BJP won 117 out of 182 assembly seats.

Position on terrorism

On 18 July 2006, Modi delivered a speech criticizing Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "for his reluctance to revive anti-terror legislations" such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He asked the Centre to empower states to invoke tougher laws in the wake of the blasts in Mumbai. Quoting Modi:

Terrorism is worse than a war. A terrorist has no rules. A terrorist decides when, how, where and whom to kill. India has lost more people in terror attacks than in its wars.