Six months that make a leader

As time goes on, most elected leaders run out of ideas. It seems to hold as true for the world as for India

In early 2008, when he was running for the office of president, Barack Obama met Rupert Murdoch, the man who owned and ran News Corp, the world’s largest news media business. Mr Murdoch is three decades older than Mr Obama, and had, according to a report, of their meeting, “a simple thought to share with Obama.”

This thought was that he, Murdoch, had known and met every American president since Harry Truman, who left office in 1953. His advice was that “leadership was about what you did in the first six months.” Mr Murdoch was right about front-loading agendas: Mr Obama