Prime Minister Narendra Modi communicates with the public a lot. He's on Twitter, he's got a fortnightly radio show, he gives plenty of speeches and he's even on Weibo now. What Modi doesn't do, however, is talk frequently to the press. So when he does speak, it becomes newsworthy. Especially if he has just given an interview to Time magazine, which just last month featured a small snippet about Modi penned by US President Barack Obama calling Modi India's "reformer-in-chief."
Nancy Gibbs, Zoher Abdoolcarim and Nikhil Kumar of Time sat down with Modi on May 2 in an interview that the magazine has just put online. And while much of it is broad, perfunctory responses to questions about his intentions as PM – and one moment where he reportedly "chokes and tears up" – a few responses ended up being quite interesting.
1. Defining terror
The PM spoke at length about having to tackle the problem of terrorism. Modi insisted that "human values" ought to be the platform on which countries come together to fight the "evil force." He offered a few suggestions on how to do this.
First, he said the world needs to pass the United Nations Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, a treat that has been pending international for years. "At least it will clearly establish who you view as terrorist and who you do not view as terrorist," Modi said. "The definitional aspects of terrorism will get addressed."
2. Good terrorists/bad terrorists
The PM insisted that beating terrorists would not come about by looking at it politically. Instead the approach should be based on human values. "If you view terrorism in categories such as good terrorism and bad terrorism, that too can create its own challenges," Modi said, citing both Syria and the Taliban.
"All the countries that believe in human values need to come together and fight this evil force as an ideological force, and look at it comprehensively rather than looking at it as Taliban, ISIS, or individual groups or names," he added.
3. Terror has no religion
Answering the question of what he would do differently if countries came together to fight the threat of international terror, Modi said he would want to undertake a "focused measure" to de-link terrorism from religion. Modi said he had asked Obama to lead this effort when he visited India and explained why it is important.
This is easily the most interesting statement of the interview, with the PM claiming that the conflation of religious ideologies and terrorists leads to emotional blackmail. Splitting up that connection, which won't be easy, could make it easier for governments to address the problems of terror, Modi said.
4. Five-year plan
Modi may have ended the Planning Commission, but five-year plans are still around and he has a broad idea of what he wants to achieve over the next four years of his tenure.
5. Throw-away culture
Modi would like to change the lifestyles of most people on earth, and use the Indian approach as a way of getting there.
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Nancy Gibbs, Zoher Abdoolcarim and Nikhil Kumar of Time sat down with Modi on May 2 in an interview that the magazine has just put online. And while much of it is broad, perfunctory responses to questions about his intentions as PM – and one moment where he reportedly "chokes and tears up" – a few responses ended up being quite interesting.
1. Defining terror
The PM spoke at length about having to tackle the problem of terrorism. Modi insisted that "human values" ought to be the platform on which countries come together to fight the "evil force." He offered a few suggestions on how to do this.
First, he said the world needs to pass the United Nations Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, a treat that has been pending international for years. "At least it will clearly establish who you view as terrorist and who you do not view as terrorist," Modi said. "The definitional aspects of terrorism will get addressed."
2. Good terrorists/bad terrorists
The PM insisted that beating terrorists would not come about by looking at it politically. Instead the approach should be based on human values. "If you view terrorism in categories such as good terrorism and bad terrorism, that too can create its own challenges," Modi said, citing both Syria and the Taliban.
"All the countries that believe in human values need to come together and fight this evil force as an ideological force, and look at it comprehensively rather than looking at it as Taliban, ISIS, or individual groups or names," he added.
3. Terror has no religion
Answering the question of what he would do differently if countries came together to fight the threat of international terror, Modi said he would want to undertake a "focused measure" to de-link terrorism from religion. Modi said he had asked Obama to lead this effort when he visited India and explained why it is important.
"I think if we are able to achieve this and if we go down this path, it would at least put an end to the emotional blackmailing which is inherent in this particular concept," Modi said. "It would also help us additionally to isolate the terrorists completely who tend to use this interchange of arguments between terrorism and religion."
This is easily the most interesting statement of the interview, with the PM claiming that the conflation of religious ideologies and terrorists leads to emotional blackmail. Splitting up that connection, which won't be easy, could make it easier for governments to address the problems of terror, Modi said.
4. Five-year plan
Modi may have ended the Planning Commission, but five-year plans are still around and he has a broad idea of what he wants to achieve over the next four years of his tenure.
"In the next four years, we have step-by-step measures that would unfold as we go along... It is not simply a question of policy reforms that my government has taken. We have also undertaken focused administrative reforms. To establish (i) ease of doing business; (ii) making government more accountable; (iii) reforms at the level of technology and governance; (iv) reforms at all layers of the government, whether it’s local government or state government or central government," he said.
5. Throw-away culture
Modi would like to change the lifestyles of most people on earth, and use the Indian approach as a way of getting there.
"Perhaps international community is still not ready to focus on it or does not focus on it yet, is the need to change our lifestyles. I think the throw-away culture, the culture of disposables, causes a huge burden on the environment. I think recycling, or the re-usage of the resources of the earth, is an important aspect which should be ingrained in our daily lifestyle. I think it is important to change our lifestyles.