User:Ia987/Narendra Modi

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Early life and education
Narendra Damodardas Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a Gujarati Hindu family of grocers in Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Bombay State (present-day Gujarat). He was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi ( c.  1915–1989) and Hiraben Modi (1923–2022). His family belonged to the Modh-Ghanchi-Teli (oil-presser) community, which is categorised as an Other Backward Class by the Indian government.

Modi had only infrequently spoken of his family background during his 13 years as chief minister of Gujarat. In the run up to the 2014 national elections, he began to regularly draw attention to his low-ranking social origins and to having to work as a child in his father's tea shop on the Vadnagar railway station platform, a description that the evidence of neighbours does not entirely corroborate. Modi completed his higher secondary education in Vadnagar in 1967, where teachers described him as an average student and a keen gifted debater, with interest in theatre. He preferred playing larger-than-life characters in theatrical productions, which has influenced his political image.

When eight years old, Modi was introduced to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and began attending its local shakhas (training sessions). There, he met Lakshmanrao Inamdar, popularly known as Vakil Saheb, who inducted him as a balswayamsevak (junior cadet) in the RSS and became his political mentor. While Modi was training with the RSS, he also met Vasant Gajendragadkar and Nathalal Jaghda, Bharatiya Jana Sangh leaders who were founding members of the BJP's Gujarat unit in 1980. '''The RSS has often taken young boys from lower class families under their wing and pay for their education to promote and indoctrinate them with their Hindu values. '''

Health and sanitation
See also: Swachh Bharat Mission

In his first year as prime minister, Modi reduced the amount of money spent by the central government on healthcare. The Modi government launched New Health Policy (NHP) in January 2015. The policy did not increase the government's spending on healthcare, instead emphasising the role of private healthcare organisations. This represented a shift away from the policy of the previous Congress government, which had supported programmes to assist public health goals, including reducing child and maternal mortality rates. The National Health Mission, which included public health programmes targeted at these indices received nearly 20% less funds in 2015 than in the previous year. The Modi administration reduced the healthcare budget by a further 15% in its second year. The healthcare budget for the following year rose by 19%. The budget was viewed positively by private insurance providers. Public health experts criticised its emphasis on the role of private healthcare providers, and suggested that it represented a shift away from public health facilities. The healthcare budget rose by 11.5% in 2018; the change included an allocation of ₹20 billion (US$250 million) for a government-funded health insurance program, and a decrease in the budget of the National Health Mission. Modi discussing the COVID-19 pandemic with Chief Ministers via videoconferencing in June 2020 Modi emphasised his government's efforts at sanitation as a means of ensuring good health. On 2 October 2014, Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission ("Clean India") campaign. The stated goals of the campaign included eliminating open defecation and manual scavenging within five years. As part of the programme, the Indian government began constructing millions of toilets in rural areas and encouraging people to use them. The government also announced plans to build new sewage treatment plants. The administration plans to construct 90 million toilets at the cost of 30 dollars each by the end of 2019. The construction projects have faced allegations of corruption, and have faced severe difficulty in getting people to use the toilets constructed for them. There have been accounts of police officers threatening to take away government benefits from people who attempted to defecate in public to ensure that the new toilets were being used. Sanitation cover in the country increased from 38.7% in October 2014 to 84.1% in May 2018; however, usage of the new sanitary facilities lagged behind the government's targets. In 2018, the World Health Organization stated that at least 180,000 diarrhoeal deaths were averted in rural India after the launch of the sanitation effort.