In his Independence Day address that held out promises of change and reform and reflected his ideological beliefs, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday highlighted the “threat” of infiltration or illegal immigration and announced a mission to check “demographic change”, flagged self-reliance as the path to development and prosperity while urging the youth to come forward with innovative ideas to power the change. He signalled his intent to stand up like “a wall” to protect the interests of farmers and fishermen amid the stuttering trade talks with the US, and announced that a Diwali bonanza for the people was in the offing in the form of GST reforms and rate cuts.
Modi’s 104-minute address, his 12th from the ramparts of the Red Fort and the longest so far, also saw him lavishing fulsome praise of the RSS. With the Sangh set to celebrate its 100 years, the Prime Minister hailed its journey and talked about its nation-building efforts, service and dedication, remarks that drew criticism from the Opposition parties, especially the Congress which called it “most-troubling”.
Amid the shadow of the US-imposed tariffs which could impact the economy, Modi put a lot of stress on self-reliance in all spheres – from defence, space sector, critical minerals, energy, semiconductors to fertiliser, pharmaceutical production and from operating systems to cyber security, deep tech to artificial intelligence – saying “the bedrock of a Viksit Bharat is also a self-reliant Bharat” and “the greater a nation’s reliance on others, the more its freedom comes into question”. He asked influencers to spread the message of “vocal for local” and urged traders to display boards at their shops announcing that they sell Swadeshi products.
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