From Air India sell-off to ONGC-HPCL deal, Vajpayee imprint on Modi moves

With Vajpayee's imprint, the Modi govt can refute critics who say it is rehashing UPA's initiatives

The buzz about the Narendra Modi government's reformist credentials has just got a bit louder, but one cannot avoid experiencing a sense of deja vu.

The nature of the initiatives made and the instruments of reforms that have been used by the Modi government will inevitably remind you of what the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had mooted, though with some variations, more than a decade and a half ago, almost at the fag end of the last century.

Three weeks ago, the Modi government had approved the strategic divestment of Air India, a task that was entrusted to a ministerial