The Wuhan virus pandemic was always going to be a test of nerves of the world leaders around. The exponential increase in the number of cases worldwide—which has crossed two million reflects the severity of the deadly virus. Therefore it becomes paramount that a country’s leader is in a purple patch to sail them through these torrid times. Courtesy Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India till now has been able to manage the spread of the virus efficiently—much better than many developed and developing nations put together.
Now, a US-based pollster Morning Consult has released approval ratings for world leaders amidst the outbreak and PM Modi has stamped his authority by topping the charts. His diligent work on the field has paid dividends in the form of faith bestowed in him by the masses at large.
India’s PM Narendra Modi has the highest popularity amongst the world leaders. As of April 14, his net approval rating is 68, up from 62 at the beginning of the year. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has the second-highest net approval over that period (36) with Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of UK, managing to turn the corner with an upward curve (35).
The American President Donald Trump’s approval rating has nose-divided to a negative (-3) —although it is an improvement from his beginning of the year ratings (-10). The shocking entry in the list is of Japanese PM Shinzo Abe who had recently announced a whopping 108.2 trillion yen (US$993 billion) economic stimulus package for his country. He lingers at the bottom of the graph with a (-33) approval ratings.
The approval ratings from the beginning of the year to April 14 paint a clear picture that the popularity of PM Modi has only increased and that the critics of the government have been given a tough pill to swallow.
It has not been an easy ride for the Indian government. To keep a population as dense as ours protected from the contagion virus, unprecedented measures were required. A hard taskmaster like PM Modi took the onus upon himself and appealed to the 1.3 billion population to go under lockdown, which of course the masses accepted graciously. PM Modi time and again reiterated that “Jaan hai to Jahaan hai”—thereby making his intentions clear that human lives of the countrymen are the top priority for him in the pandemic. The figure sounds good to throw around but the implementation required another level of optimizing the state machinery.
The Tablighi Jamaat fiasco had set India’s flattening the curve measures in a tizzy, yet the government machinery did not get bogged down. A nationwide aggressive manhunt was started to nab the Jamaati’s who were not co-operating. It did put a considerable dent in India’s hope to completely remove the virus in the first phase of lockdown, but the urgency showed by the Modi government mitigated the disaster which could have been rather catastrophic for the country.
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The lockdown has now been increased till May 3rd and the cases have also crossed the 20,000 mark. The battle is one uphill task but the leader of the country is more than capable to face it and ultimately overcome it. In Modi we trust.