Why was Atal Bihari Vajpayee govt regarded as transformational
   ------------------------------------------------------
ABV: Highways, Rural roads, Telecom and Delhi metro. The growth of autos, agriculture, real estate, commerce, IT services, etc

Why Congress under "Gandhis" were disasters
---------------------------------------------
Indira Gandhi: Nationalisation ruined value & limited private sector.
Rajiv Gandhi: Borrowings invested poorly.
MMS: Easy bank credit wasted on overly optimistic projects or stolen. Policy paralysis resulted in stalled projects and lost opportunities.

Narrative
----------
Transformational reforms create a cascade of growth in several sectors, incl. promote ease and cost of doing business, and facilitate ordinary activities. Disasters happen when investments are poorly conceived or executed, or investments happen in a faulty business ecosystem.

Indira Gandhi chose not to follow the East Asian tiger economies. The author suggests IG wanted to minimize West's role in India. Rajiv Gandhi borrowed and invested poorly. India was not in a position to cope, when a confluence of events in the late 1980s, lead to the Balance of Payment crisis in 1991. The author suggests the path-breaking 1991 budget was framed around IMF stipulations. Later, income tax reforms though radical & raised revenue did not spur much growth.

The author has high praise for stellar infrastructure initiatives under ABV in Telecom, Highways, Rural roads and Delhi Metro. He adds that India had finally begun to put its idle capacity to use. A virtuous cycle of growth was set off, that had growth after-effects in so many other activities. To wit, India had begun to transform. 

He identifies areas that Modi Govt will target:
1. Employment generation
2. Agriculture
3. Rural empowerment  (rural infra and jobs)
4. Aadhaar ID
5. Jan-Dhan Yojana  (DBT, financial inclusion)
6. Governance  incl bureaucracy, digital governance (online tendering)
7. Project handling & monitoring. Speed & scale of decision-making.
8. Foreign policy (decisiveness and clarity).

He says the future will present different challenges. The task is to formulate new approaches. This means doing the following:
1. Use Technology
2. Maximize human development skills.
3. Capacity build in the right areas
4. Take bold steps to catch up
5. Plan to get ahead of the rivals.

25 years of reforms: India still needs to go the distance