June 10th 2026, when PM Sh @narendramodi Ji became India’s longest serving elected PM, marked a watershed in the history of Independent India. In 2014, Modi Ji inherited an India that was different from how we know it today, which was even more far removed from the one with Pandit Nehru at the helm and the one in which I served as an officer of IFS from 1974 onwards. The India I represented was a serious country that had chosen to manage scarcity with as much dignity as its machinery allowed. The state had learned to allocate, but it had not learned to deliver. The distance between a scheme announced in Delhi and a benefit received in a village was where the money vanished. The state could plan, but it could not reach. PM Modi Ji’s inheritance in 2014 deserves the same honest accounting which several of his predecessors were accorded. He took charge of an economy the markets had filed among the Fragile Five, weighed down by stalled projects, double-digit inflation fresh in memory, and rampant corruption and scams. Modi Ji’s answer was a different machine altogether. The Planning Commission gave way to the NITI Aayog, which convenes the states rather than instructs them. Direct Benefit Transfer emerged as a decisive instrument to pay citizens directly instead of through intermediaries. It moved the test of governance from intention to receipt. PM Modi Ji reconceptualised the state as a platform. India built public digital rails, an identity system, and a payments network the world now studies. More than 50 crore Jan Dhan accounts opened formal banking to families it had never reached. Nearly 25 crore Indians moved out of multidimensional poverty, and the economy now grows faster than any other major economy. The state that once stood between the citizen and the thing the citizen needed now builds the road and stands aside. That is the substance behind the word Bharat. In 2014, ethanol blending in our petrol stood at 1.53%. This year we have reached 20%, a target once set for 2030 and met half a decade early, and the money that once left the country to buy crude now reaches the farmer, who is now an Urjadata, alongside the Annadata who feeds us. PM Ujjwala Yojana carried cooking gas into more than 10 crore poor households. This is Antyodaya rendered in litres and cylinders. The last person is no longer the one the scheme forgets. She is the one it is built around even as the government now focuses on women-led development instead of just being women-centric. My piece in the @SundayGuardian today… @PMOIndia @PIB_India @MIB_India @PetroleumMin @mygovindia @transformIndia

E85 ईंधन आ गया.......अब E20 अनुकूल गाड़ियों का क्या होगा? E20 और E85 दो अलग-अलग श्रेणियों के ईंधन हैं, जो अलग-अलग प्रकार के वाहनों के लिए बनाए गए हैं। E85 के आने का मतलब यह बिल्कुल नहीं है कि E20 या पेट्रोल वाहन बंद हो जाएंगे। E85 ईंधन सिर्फ और सिर्फ फ्लेक्स फ्यूल वाहन के लिए है, सामान्य E20 अनुकूल वाहन के लिए नहीं। ब्राज़ील में दशकों से E85 ईंधन का इस्तेमाल हो रहा है। फ्लेक्स फ्यूल वाले वाहन के इंजन E20 से लेकर E100 तक के विभिन्न इथेनॉल-पेट्रोल मिश्रणों पर चल सकते हैं। यह किसानों की आय बढ़ाने, कच्चे तेल के आयात पर निर्भरता कम करने के साथ-साथ देश की ऊर्जा सुरक्षा को भी मजबूत करेगा। यह भारत के स्वच्छ और आत्मनिर्भर भविष्य की ओर निरंतर बढ़ते कदम को दर्शाता है। #E85