Dear Comrades,
Narendra Modi's popularity and his reach among the masses — be that India or US — has been spoken about a tad bit much in the media. Be the crowd which thronged Madison Square Gardens in New York City to see the newly-elected prime minister or the prime minister's address to children across the country on Teacher's Day, all were well recorded and written about.
PM Narendra Modi. Reuters
But Modi is now also inspiring people to revive a system which has almost become obsolete.
With the youngsters these days hiding their faces behind their smartphones, laptops, tablets and the likes, the PM invited people to write to him -- handwritten letters.
And this invitation to the nation, writes Wall Street Journal, has served as a new life to the dusty Indian Postal Service.
As part of his show, Mann ki Baat, Narendra Modi in his national radio addresstold the audience of All India Radio that all those who do not have the access to the internet can pen down their thoughts and mail it to him.
"Send me a letter, with your ideas and suggestions. I assure you that it will reach me and I will look at it with utmost attention."
And they did and how. Number of letters that the PM receives in a day ranges somewhere from 3,000 to 5,000 and the numbers have the postal officials baffled as well.
An official at the post office of Nirman Bhawan, where all the letters for Modi arrive, said that when India was still new to internet, letters to the PM were rampant then but none of the leaders "kept the local post office so busy."
PM Modi's diligence in replying to these letters could be one of the many reasons why people from all corners write to him. Borivili resident, Aishwarya Kanke, could not believe it when she received a reply from the Prime Minister himself. The 16-year-old told NDTV that she has never bothered to write to her state (Maharashtra) leaders because she does not have any expectations from them.
"His Excellency," "Mr. Narendra Modi," "The Pride of India: Narendra Modi," and even a simple "Modiji" flood the Nirman Bhawan post office (part of India Post)which till a few years was drowning in loss.
http://www.firstpost.com/
