India In Focus - INDIAN ECONOMY: OVERVIEW, GROWTH and DEVELOPMENT - Boosting economy to bridging divide, Modi has his task cut out.

• Position: Brief article

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes charge for a second time, after a long, divisive and gruelling election campaign, it is time for India's political leadership to shift gears and turn on their governance lens.

Elections are critical to sustaining democracy. But the country has been in election mode for close to two years now. It began with the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections of 2017, and after a brief interlude, moved to the Gujarat assembly polls at the end of that year. Last year was punctuated by the Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya polls, followed soon after by the elections in Karnataka. After a brief lull, attention shifted to the heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. In each of these states, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) institutionally and PM Modi personally invested a tremendous amount of energy, with mixed results.

And over the past five months, it has all been about the Lok Sabha elections. Politics is important, but often, in election season, every decision begins to get taken...