- Thursday, April 18, 2024
By: ANI
THE world will not respect our indigenously developed weapons unless we do it ourselves, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said on Monday (18).
Speaking at Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Organisation (NIIO) seminar ‘Swavlamban’ at Ambedkar International Centre in New Delhi, Modi said, “If you do not give love and respect to your own child and expect the same from your neighbours, can it be done? If we do not value our products, how can we expect the world to invest in us? When we showed confidence in our indigenously developed BRAHMOS, the world came forward too.”
He added that innovation is a necessity and it should be regular and only indigenous, no innovation can be done from items available for sale.
“We developed the habit of being dependent on foreign countries for even the simplest products. Like drug addicts, we were addicted to the products imported from abroad. To change this mindset, we worked on mission mode after 2014, after learning from the approach of the past, to create a new ecosystem of defence with the help of ‘Sabka Prayas’,” he said.
He added that ‘Aatmanirbharta‘ (self-sufficiency) in defence is very crucial for the India of the 21st century.
“Creating 75 indigenous technology for the Navy by August 15 next year is the first step; goal should be to take India’s defence to unprecedented heights by the time we celebrate 100 years of independence,” he said.
Modi also said on the occasion that India was moving fast from being the biggest arms importer to a big exporter in the defence sector.
He said India used to be an important supplier of defence equipment in World War II (1939-45).
“Our howitzers, machine guns made at the Ichhapur Rifle Factory, were considered the best. We used to export a lot. But then what happened that at one point in time we became the world’s biggest importer in this field?” Modi asked.
“We have given new strength to our public sector defence companies by organizing them in different sectors. Today we are making sure that how we connect our premier institutions like IITs with defence research and innovation,” he then added.
Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh, chief of the naval staff admiral R Hari Kumar and SP Shukla, president of the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers, New Delhi, were also present on the occasion.
“Innovation and indigenisation are two components of Aatmanirbhar Bharat. In a few cases, the ingenious equipment in defence manufacturing has reached upto 90 per cent. Today, India is fulfilling the defense requirements of other nations,” Singh said.
