Making news and making it to the news : Modi at the Sangai Festival
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 25, 2014 -

Making news and making it to the news. That is Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Something discernible ever since he led the BJP to a landslide victory at the Lok Sabha election held earlier this year.

Not yet six months in the office of the Prime Minister, but it should be evident to all that here is a man who will not stop short of projecting the image of someone who means business.

A trait brought to the fore in all his foreign jaunts including the much publicised trips to Japan, the United States and Australia.

Other than these two countries, the Prime Minister has already visited Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and addressed members of the Association of South East Asian Nations some time back.

Not for nothing is it that President Barack Obama has decided to accept the invitation to attend the Republic Day celebration next year taking the bite out of the decision of the Congress not to invite Modi to the 125th birth anniversary of the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

However to understand the Prime Minister only through his foreign visits would be missing the woods for the trees for he has already demonstrated that India can mean business when it wants to as in the recent border stand off with Pakistan.

The visit of Chinese President Xi Xinping has only added more weight to the persona of the Prime Minister as a man who is ready to look beyond the border of India.

The feel good factor that has been generated is unmistakable, particularly from the manner in which the country as a whole has taken up the Swacch Bharat campaign with purpose.

New developments, one may say and it is amid these that the Prime Minister will be here on the concluding day of the Sangai Festival on November 30.

Chief Minister O Ibobi must surely be a satisfied man since his invitation to the Prime Minister has been reciprocated positively.

Still too early to say whether the scheduled visit of the Prime Minister will bring anything positive to the State as a whole and more importantly to the people, but it is nonetheless significant to note that Modi will be here.

This is not to puncture the spirit of the State Government but one cannot help but raise the question of whether the Prime Minister will be attending the Sangai Festival since he has to go to Nagaland to attend the Hornbill Festival.

A question which the Government should seriously deliberate over given the fact that the nod of the Prime Minister came much later after he had agreed to attend the Hornbill Festival.

At the same time this is also the right time to question whether the State Government adopted the correct means while inviting the Prime Minister.

An invitation to someone like the Prime Minister cannot be done casually. An important point which should not blow over the head of the State Government.