Swachh Bharat Clean India
A country-wide campaign on sanitation and the upkeep of public places, opened in 2014. It became one of the most visible government drives of his first term.
Prime Minister of the Republic of India
Narendra
Modi
He has led the Government of India since 2014. For thirteen years before that he ran the state of Gujarat. What follows is a plain reference to his life, the offices he has held, and the work his governments are known for.
- Born
- 17 September 1950
- From
- Vadnagar, Gujarat
- Party
- Bharatiya Janata Party
The record in one place
- Full name
- Narendra Damodardas Modi
- Office held
- Prime Minister of India, sworn in first on 26 May 2014
- Earlier post
- Chief Minister of Gujarat, 2001 to 2014
- Seat in the Lok Sabha
- Varanasi
- Terms as Prime Minister
- Three, won in 2014, 2019 and 2024
From a railway platform in Vadnagar
Narendra Modi was born in September 1950 in Vadnagar, a small town in the north of Gujarat, into a household of little means. A well-worn part of his life story has him as a boy helping his father sell tea to travellers on the local railway platform.
While still young he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a civic organisation where he rose from an ordinary volunteer to the work of an organiser. He went on to take a master's degree in political science and gave himself over to party work.
The decade that followed was spent building the Bharatiya Janata Party inside Gujarat. He ran campaigns, learned the machinery of elections from the inside, and became one of the party's sharper strategists at both the state and the national level. The post of chief minister, which came in 2001, grew out of that long apprenticeship.
Years in office
One continuous public career, read left to right. The widths follow the length of each term.
The programmes his government is known for
Open any heading to read what it set out to do.
Make in India Manufacturing
An effort to pull manufacturing back home and draw investment into industry, framed around the idea that more should be built within the country.
Digital India Services online
A push to move public services onto digital rails, widen internet access and make electronic payment ordinary rather than exceptional.
Jan Dhan Yojana Banking for all
A financial-inclusion programme built around opening bank accounts for people who had been left outside the banking system.
Ayushman Bharat Health cover
A health initiative meant to put medical care within reach of lower-income families, partly through cover for the cost of hospital treatment.
Abroad, the through-line has been steady: India presented as a fast-growing economy and an independent voice, not a junior partner.
India on the world stage
-
2023
India held the presidency of the Group of Twenty and hosted the summit in New Delhi, among the largest international gatherings the country has run in recent memory.
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Yoga
At India's proposal the United Nations marked 21 June as the International Day of Yoga, now observed each year around the world.
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Region
Relations with immediate neighbours were put first under the banner of "Neighbourhood First", alongside closer ties with the major economies.
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Diaspora
Large public gatherings with the Indian community overseas became a recurring and well-noticed part of his foreign visits.