Asia

Pakistan standoff helps India's Modi shift focus from jobs

Associated Press
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FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2019, file photo, Indians offer sweets to each other as they celebrate reports of Indian aircrafts bombing Pakistan territory in Mumbai, India. A standoff with nuclear rival Pakistan appears to have given Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the head of India's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, a boost ahead of national elections set to begin in April. Making the most of the confrontation with Pakistan and his party’s efforts to project him as a strong leader, Modi has been crisscrossing India addressing rallies and claiming that his government’s response to the suicide bombing shows that a “New India” is emerging. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

FILE - In this Aug. 28, 2014, file photo, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the launch of a campaign aimed at opening millions of bank accounts for poor Indians in New Delhi, India. Modi swept 2014 elections promising to reform India’s economy, but his signature demonetization policy, intended to reduce money laundering, choke terrorist financing and boost digital payments, has been largely deemed a failure. But a standoff with nuclear rival Pakistan appears to have given Modi, the head of India's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, a boost ahead of national elections set to begin in April, 2019. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das, File)

A standoff with nuclear rival Pakistan appears to have given Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a boost ahead of national elections set to begin in April.

After a suicide bombing killed 40 soldiers in Indian-controlled Kashmir, India's air force launched a strike on an alleged terrorist training camp inside Pakistan.

The crisis has helped the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led government to turn attention away from its mixed record on the economy.

Conflicting government accounts on the damage caused by the Indian strike in Pakistan have given opposition parties more ammunition to attack Modi. But Modi has used their doubts about the strike to polish his own "strongman" credentials.