STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that India now does not remain silent after terror attacks but hits back using surgical and air strikes.
Addressing the NDTV World Summit here, he said there are several roadblocks and speed breakers but India remains “unstoppable”.
“India no more remains silent after terror attacks but gives befitting reply through air strikes, surgical strikes and Operation Sindoor,” he said.
“When wars became headlines globally, India proved naysayers wrong by continuing to march ahead as fastest growing economy,” added Modi.
Noting that India is not in a “mood to stop”, he said as the world today faces various roadblocks and speed breakers, it is only natural to talk about an unstoppable India.
“We will neither pause nor slow down. 140 crore Indians will move forward together with full momentum.
“Today, India has moved from being among the fragile five to becoming one of the world’s top five economies…from chips to ships, India is self-reliant and filled with confidence in every sphere,” he said.
Continuing his attack on the Congress, PM Modi said: “In the petrol and gas sector, before 2014, so that they don’t have to give subsidies, Congress was planning to close petrol pumps from 8 pm to 8 am. Now the stations are open 24×7. In 2013, the Congress was brainstorming if they should give six cylinders or nine cylinders per year. We gave free gas connections to 10 crore people. In that era of governmentalisation, they would put locks on PSUs if they were not performing well. But, we changed that thought, and all our PSUs are making new records of profits.
Hitting out at the previous Congress-led Centre, PM Modi said: “Unlike the Congress, we worked towards democratising policies; this is the driving force behind ‘Unstoppable Bharat’. The Congress distanced people from banks. Poor people were scared to go to the banks. When we took over, half of the population didn’t even have bank accounts.”
He added: “Banks were nationalised during Indira Gandhi’s tenure with an argument that banking has to reach the poor. But in reality, banks moved away from the poor. In 2014, when we came to power, half of India’s population did not have a bank account. We democratised the banking system, and opened more than 50 crore Jan Dhan accounts in mission mode. We took the country out of this governmentalisation. We brought reforms into the banking sector. Digital transactions have made India one of the most inclusive countries in terms of finance. Congress governments created mountain of NPAs (non-performing assets).”