- Saturday, May 18, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN prime minister Narendra Modi on Sunday (26) hailed his country’s “way of innovation” saying it was leading the world with one unicorn emerging every 10 days. He said this in Munich, Germany, where he has gone to attend the G7 summit. Modi’s words came during an address to the local Indian community.
“There was a time when India was nowhere in the race of startups. Today, we are the third-largest startup ecosystem. Similarly, we used to import even the simplest phones, today, we are the second-largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world,” he said.
“Not only this, in India, on an average, we have a ‘unicorn’ every 10 days,” the prime minister added.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader also said that the spirit of innovation is visible at all corners of the country, adding that an average of 5,000 patents are filed in India every month.
Modi said India was also keeping pace with digitisation, with “40 per cent real time digital transactions of the world taking place” on its soil.
He said the push towards digitisation has eased living and cited an example from the railways. He said around “12 to 15 lakh (1.2 to 1.5 million) people travel by train daily by booking online tickets”.
Pointing out that the country’s agricultural sector is also benefiting from the use of technology, Modi said, “You will be surprised to know that we have started spreading fertiliser using drones in India.”
He added that mapping of land and houses in India is also done with the help of drones.
Modi said the country has moved away from the lackadaisical attitude of the past and was greeted with loud chants by the Indian diaspora.
“Today’s India doesn’t believe in “hota hai , chalta hai” (okay with whatever it is) mindset,” he said.
The Indian prime minister said countries such as Germany took benefit from the industrial revolution but India lagged behind as it was not independent then.
“But now India will not be left behind in fourth industrial revolution, it’s now leading the world,” Modi said.
“There was a time when people said India will take 10-15 years to vaccinate its population. Today, 90 percent of adults have taken both doses and 95 percent of adults have taken at least one dose,” Modi said to drive home the point that India’s vaccination drive against the Covid-19 pandemic also reflected its changed mindset.
He also said India’s campaign against open defecation has also been successful. “Today, every village in our country is open defecation free, has electricity and 99 percent of the villages also have clean cooking fuel. India is providing free ration to 80 crore poor people since last two years,” he added.
Modi is on a two-day visit to Germany and on his way back, he would make a brief stop in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as he would be paying personal condolences on the death of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the former president of the Gulf nation.
