Modi's fight against terror sees whopping 21% decline in support in just one year

By Rajiv Shah
There is a whopping 21% decline in just one year among urban Indian youth who believe that the Narendra Modi government has been successful in its fight against terrorism. Top Delhi-based consultant, LocalCircles, headquartered in Santa Clara, US, had found that last year 72% urban citizens felt terrorism had reduced under Modi, but this year it is down to 51%.
LocalCircles report on the survey says, “Terrorism has been a huge issue in India for the last few decades. The current Government has taken some tough stance on terrorism in the last couple of years.” However, when asked if “they felt that acts of terrorism and related activities have reduced in the last 3 years”, 51% citizens agreed, 42% disagreed, 7% chose not to answer.

Though ironical it may seem, a huge majority, of those surveyed, 61% of mainly city youths, felt the Modi government has handled “communalism related issues” quite well, which is just a marginal drop of 2% from last year.

At the same time, the survey finds that if last year 34% citizens approved of the way India handled Pakistan, this number jumped almost 2-folds to 64% this year due to, to quote from the report, “the strict measure taken by the government in the last 1 year.”
Further, the report finds that 81% citizens – down from 90% last year – “feel that India’s image and influence in the world has improved under the leadership of the current government in the last 3 years”.
An organization which primary focused on urban daily life, even as addressing urban communities’ “common issues”, LocalCircles claims its survey is “largest” of its kind, involving “over 40,000 unique citizens”, 68% of which are males -- 42% from tier 1 cities, 28% from tier 2 cities, and the rest from tier 3 cities and rural locations. Average of those surveyed is 32 years.

The survey, taken to mark three years of Modi in power, finds that 51% felt the demonetization exercise “was successful in cracking down on black money.”
If last year 35% people in 2016 said that unemployment had reduced under the Modi government, “this number was 21%, indicating that an increased percentage of citizens now believe that the government is unable to address unemployment”, the report states.
According to the report, “Around 44% citizens this year said that government met their expectations; this is marginally down from 46% last year. Dissatisfaction has also risen – last year only 36% citizens said the performance of the government was below expectation. This has gone up to 39% in the third year.”
It adds, “While last year 18% said that the government had exceeded their expectations, this year 17% say that. Overall, as change hasn’t come fast enough for most people, there is a decline in citizens rating of the government in most areas as compared to last year. If we combine met expectations and exceed expectation there are 61 % who are satisfied with the government.”
The survey report further says, “Only 28% of the citizens believe that crime against women and children has come down in the last one year”, adding, “While police is not a central government subject, perception about safety is linked to central government. And 60% citizens believe that crime against women and children has not come down, this is up from 38% last year, a substantial rise.”
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Click HERE to read full survey

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