Modi was born on 17 September 1950, to a family of grocers in Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Bombay State (present-day Gujarat). He was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand (1915–1989) and Heeraben Modi (b. c. 1920). Modi's family belonged to the Modh-Ghanchi-Teli (oil-presser) community, which is categorised as an Other Backward Class by the Indian government.

As a child, Modi helped his father sell tea at the Vadnagar railway station, and later ran a tea stall with his brother near a bus terminus. Modi completed his higher secondary education in Vadnagar in 1967, where a teacher described him as an average student and a keen debater, with an interest in theatre. Modi had an early gift for rhetoric in debates, and this was noted by his teachers and students.[ Modi preferred playing larger-than-life characters in theatrical productions, which has influenced his political image.

As a child, Modi helped his father sell tea at the Vadnagar railway station, and later ran a tea stall with his brother near a bus terminus. Modi completed his higher secondary education in Vadnagar in 1967, where a teacher described him as an average student and a keen debater, with an interest in theatre. Modi had an early gift for rhetoric in debates, and this was noted by his teachers and students. Modi preferred playing larger-than-life characters in theatrical productions, which has influenced his political image.

Early political career, 1975–2001

On 26 June 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India which lasted until 1977. During this period, many of her political opponents were jailed and opposition groups (including the RSS) were banned. As pracharak in-chargeof the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, Modi was forced to go underground in Gujarat and frequently traveled in disguise to avoid arrest. He became involved in printing pamphlets opposing the government, sending them to Delhi and organising demonstrations. During this period, Modi wrote a book in Gujarati, Sangharsh ma Gujarat (The Struggles of Gujarat), describing events during the Emergency.

He was assigned by the RSS to the BJP in 1985. In 1988, Modi was elected organising secretary of the party's Gujarat unit, marking his entrance into electoral politics. He rose within the party, helping organise L. K. Advani's 1990 Ayodhya Rath Yatra in 1990 and Murli Manohar Joshi's 1991–92 Ekta Yatra (Journey for Unity). As party secretary, Modi's electoral strategy was considered central to BJP victory in the 1995 state assembly elections. In November of that year Modi was elected BJP national secretary and transferred to New Delhi, where he assumed responsibility for party activities in Haryana andHimachal Pradesh. The following year, Shankersinh Vaghela (one of the most prominent BJP leaders in Gujarat) defected to the INC after losing his parliamentary seat in the Lok Sabha elections. Modi, on the selection committee for the 1998 Assembly elections in Gujarat, favoured supporters of BJP leader Keshubhai Patel over those supporting Vaghela to end factional division in the party. His strategy was credited as key to the BJP winning an overall majority in the 1998 elections, and Modi was promoted to BJP general secretary (organisation) in May of that year

Chief Minister of Gujarat (2001–14)

Chief Minister Modi and his cabinet ministers at a Planning Commissionmeeting in New Delhi, 2013.

In 2001, Keshubhai Patel's health was failing and the BJP had lost seats in the by-elections. Allegations of abuse of power, corruption and poor administration were made, and Patel's standing had been damaged by his administration's handling of the2001 Bhuj earthquake. The BJP national leadership sought a new candidate for chief minister, and Modi (who had expressed misgivings about Patel's administration) was chosen as a replacement.[ Although senior BJP leader L. K. Advani did not want to ostracise Patel and was concerned about Modi's lack of experience in government, Modi declined an offer to be Patel's deputy chief minister and told Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee he was "going to be fully responsible for Gujarat or not at all". On 3 October 2001 he replaced Patel as Chief Minister of Gujarat, with the responsibility of preparing the BJP for the December 2002 elections. As Chief Minister, Modi favoured privatisation and small government; this was at odds with political commentator Aditi Phadnis' description of the RSS as anti-privatisation and anti-globalisation.

Development debate

Modi addressing graduates at Gujarat National Law University, 2012.

Modi's government has branded Gujarat as a state of dynamic development, economic growth and prosperity with the slogan, "Vibrant Gujarat". He has been praised for facilitating ease of doing business and ending bureauratic logjam which made investment in India an olympic feat. Gujarat topped the World Bank's ease of doing business rankings for two consecutive years.] of which the first report was blocked by the then UPA government.[ Narendra Modi-led Gujarat continued to remain the top-ranked Indian state in terms of "economic freedom" - an index that measures governance, growth, citizens' rights and labour and business regulation among the country's 20 largest states. However, critics have pointed to its relatively poor record on human development, poverty relief, nutrition and education. Gujarat ranks 13th in India in poverty and 21st in education. Nearly 45 percent of children under five are underweight and 23 percent are undernourished, putting the state in the "alarming" category on the India State Hunger Index. According to state officials, Gujarat outperformed India as a whole in improving several human-development indicators (such as female education) from 2001 to 2011; school drop-out rates declined from 20 percent in 2001 to two percent in 2011, and maternal mortality fell by 32 percent during the same period.[ In a review of the 1894 Land Acquisition Act, the Supreme Court of India identified Gujarat as one of the few states from which there were no complaints of forcible land acquisition.[

According to political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot, development in Gujarat has been limited to the urban middle class as rural residents and the lower castes have become increasingly marginalised. The state ranks 10th of the 21 Indian states in the Human Development Index, which he attributes to less rural development. Jaffrelot says that under Modi the number of families below the poverty line has increased and conditions for rural adivasi and dalits, in particular, have declined.[ In July 2013 economics Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen expressed disapproval of Modi's governance record, saying that under his administration Gujarat's "record in education and healthcare is pretty bad".] However, economists Arvind Panagariya andJagdish Bhagwati say that Gujarat's social indicators have improved from a lower baseline than that of other Indian states. According to them, Gujarat's performance in raisingliteracy rates has been superior to other states and the "rapid" improvement of health indicators is evidence that "its progress has not been poor by any means

Personal Life

In accordance with Ghanchi tradition, Modi's marriage was arranged by his parents when he was a child. He was engaged at age 13 to Jashodaben Narendrabhai Modi, marrying her when he was 18. They spent little time together and grew apart when Modi began two years of travel, including visits to Hindu ashrams. Reportedly, their marriage was never consummated and he kept it a secret because otherwise he could not have become a 'pracharak' in the puritan Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). Although Modi kept his marriage secret for most of his career, he acknowledged his wife when he filed his nomination for a parliamentary seat in the 2014 general elections.

Awards and recognition

Modi was named Best Chief Minister in a 2007 nationwide survey by India Today. In March 2012, he appeared on the cover of the Asian edition of Time, one of the few Indian politicians to have done so, and made the 2014 Time 100 list of the world's most influential people.

Forbes Magazine ranked him the 15th-most-powerful person in the world in 2014 and the 9th-most-powerful person in the world in 2015.

In 2015, Modi was one of Time's "30 most influential people on the internet" as the second-most-followed politician on Twitter and Facebook.

In 2015, Modi was ranked fifth on Fortune magazine's second annual list of 'World's Greatest Leaders',] which showed numerous changes from its first publication in 2014 because of its requirement that people who had been previously named had to "requalify with new achievements in the past 12 months".

In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was ranked 8th in the TIME magazine’s Person of the Year. In 2016, his statue featured in the Madame Tussauds wax museum at London alongside other world leaders such as Barack Obama, David Cameron and Angela Merkel