Tuesday 2 August 2016

Modi's foreign trips

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited 38 countries (visiting some countries more than once) making 19 international trips till 8 June, 2016, traveling abroad for 97 of 743 days since he assumed office on 26 May, 2014.

Modi’s predecessor Manmohan Singh visited 23 countries (visiting some countries more than once) leaving the country 17 times during his second term in office over a similar period, until 8 June, 2011, traveling 76 of 747 days since he assumed office on 22 May, 2009. During his first term, Singh travelled for 64 days over a similar period, visiting 15 countries making 16 international trips (visiting some countries more than once) between 22 May, 2004 and 8 June, 2006.

The foreign trips of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet colleagues cost the exchequer Rs.567 crore in the last financial year (2015-16), an increase of more than 80% from the previous year. This is besides the over Rs 500 crore his bureaucrats spend on their travel each year on an average. The total tour expenses of the PM and his ministers went up from Rs 269 crore as estimated in the budget at the beginning of the 2015-16 fiscal to Rs 567 crore, as per the revised estimates towards the end of the year.

Ms.Sushma Swaraj, Union External Affairs Minister is doing excellent job as far as arranging Modi's visits to various countries. What else she is doing, I don't know. For this reason she got very high marks in the recent minister's evaluation got done by Modi.

Some hilarious jokes on Modi's foreign jaunts:

Someone asked what will happen after Modi's present foreign trip; answer is : another foreign trip


There are two types of countries in this world

   a) Modi visited
   b) Modi not visited.

Our last prime minister was on Silent mode, current prime minister is on Flight mode.

The only gain from Modi's jaunt seems to be a temple in the UAE.


My View:
Not withstanding tall claims, the benefits of of PM's foreign visits can not be quantified or measurable. The announcements made at the end of each visit are only intentions but actual happenings later are quite different. Most don't happen at all. However, too many trips in short duration will be viewed with suspicion and must be avoided.

Finally, what we are and do speaks more loudly than what we present ourselves.
Meaning that we must do ground work for inviting foreign investments properly and FDI's will flow in like water in pipeline with little campaigning.






No comments:

Post a Comment