Narendra Damodardas Modi (locally: [nrendd r dd modd rdd s modd i] (

1950) is the 15th and current Prime Minister of India, in office since May 2014.

listen),
[1][2]

born 17 September

Modi, a leader of

theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP), previously served as the Chief Minister of Gujarat state from 2001 to
2014. He is currently the Member of Parliament (MP) from Varanasi.
Modi led the BJP in the 2014 general election, which resulted in an outright majority for the BJP in the Lok
Sabha (the lower house of the Indian parliament) the last time that any party had secured an outright
majority in the Lok Sabha was in 1984. Since then, Modi has also been credited for the BJP's electoral
victories in the states of Haryana and Maharashtra in October 2014.

[3]

Modi is a Hindu Nationalist and a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).[4][5] He is a
controversial figure both within India as well as internationally [6][7][8][9] as his administration has been criticised
for failing to act to prevent the 2002 Gujarat riots.[9][10] Modi has been praised for his economic policies,
which are credited with creating an environment for a high rate of economic growth in Gujarat. [11] However,
his administration has also been criticised for failing to make a significant positive impact upon the human
development of the state.[12]
Narendra Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a family of grocers in Vadnagar, Mehsana district,
in Bombay State (present-day Gujarat).[13][14][15] His family belonged to the Ghanchi(oil-presser) community,
which is categorised among the other backward classes by the Indian government. He was the third of six
children born to Damodardas Mulchand and Heeraben Modi. [16] As a child, he helped his father
Damodardas sell tea at the Vadnagar railway station, and later ran a tea stall with his brother near a bus
terminus.[17][18] He completed hisschooling in Vadnagar in 1967, where a teacher described him as being an
average student, but a keen debater with an interest in theatre. [17][19] An early gift for rhetoric in debates was
noted by teachers and students at the time. [20] Modi also showed a preference for playing larger than life
characters in theatre performances which has influenced the image he portrays of himself in politics.
On 26 June 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a unilateral state of emergency throughout the
country, which lasted until 1977. During this period, many of her political opponents were jailed, and
organisations opposing her, including the RSS, were banned. [41][42] At the time, Modi was the pracharak incharge of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS. He was forced to
go underground in Gujarat, and frequently traveled in disguise to avoid being arrested. He became
involved in printing booklets against the central government and distributing them to Delhi, as well as
organising agitations.[17][43][44][45] During this period, he also wrote a book in Gujarati titled Sangharsh ma
Gujarat (The struggles of Gujarat) which described events during the emergency.
In 2001, Keshubhai Patel's health was failing, and the BJP had lost seats in the by-elections. Allegations of
abuse of power, corruption and poor administration were being made, and Patel's standing had been
damaged by his administration's handling of the Bhuj Earthquake of 2001.[50][55][56] As a result, the BJP's
national leadership sought a new candidate for the office of chief minister, and Modi, who had aired his
misgivings about Patel's administration, was chosen as a replacement.
Modi is a vegetarian.[189] He has a frugal lifestyle, is a workaholic and an introvert.[190] He writes poems in
Gujarati.[191] As a speaker, he is known as a crowd-puller.[192] In the critical opinion of Somini Sengupta,
writing for The New York Times in a 2009 article on the Supreme Court's ordering of an investigation into
Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, "Mr. Modi has assiduously sought to reinvent himself from a scruffy
mascot of Hindu nationalism to a decisive corporate-style administrator". [69] He emerged as social media
savvy politician and since September 2014 is the second most followed leader in the world with over 6
million followers on Twitter.[159][193] His interaction on Google Hangouts on 31 August 2012 made Modi the
first Indian politician to interact with netizens through live chat on the internet.