Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday sharply focused on developing facilities to harness vast human resource skills lying dormant in the country and suggested a three-point “mantra” of “skill, scale and speed” to make Indian business competitive with China.
Sketching a future economic roadmap for the country during a book release function at his 7, RCR residence, the Prime Minister said India could tap a vast potential of well-trained teachers or nurses who could capture global heights.“But do we have facilities to prepare best teachers, why not the best teachersIJ” he asked a counter-question saying Gujarat had established first institute to train teachers. He said India can get the best teachers in the world and sent them across the world.
The Prime Minister said if the best of Indian teachers go abroad, they could bring here knowledge for an entire generation. Modi laid great emphasis on “skill development” saying all sections of society whether poor or rich want “good education” which could be imparted only the best teachers.He said 65 per cent of India’s population was below 35 years of age. This huge percentage of youths need to be understood and kept in mind while drawing economic planning, he suggested.
On a day when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met for three hours to talk about bilateral issues, the Prime Minister sought country to develop “skill, scale and speed” to compete with neighbouring China.The Prime Minister released the book, “Getting India Back on track — an action agenda for reform”. The book is edited by Bibek Debroy, Ashley Tellis and Reece Trevor, and published by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. After taking oath as the Prime Minister of India, this is the first time that Modi had addressed from his official residence.
He said, in infrastructure, the focus needs to shift from highways to “i-ways”, and optical fibre networks. He said cities in the past were built on river-banks. They are now built along highways. But in future, they will be built, based on availability of optical-fibre networks and next-generation infrastructure.The Prime Minister said urbanisation should not be treated as a problem, but as an opportunity. “If we have to generate employment and change for the better, we plan to build 100 smart cities.” he said.
Modi cited the three colours of the National Flag, to suggest revolutionary agendas of futuristic growth. Beginning with green, he said, “We need to bring about a second green revolution — focusing on increased agro-productivity, value addition, agro technology, and decentralisation of warehousing.”
Referring to white, he said a white revolution must now focus on increasing milk productivity, and developing a support system for ensuring cattle health.He also stressed on the need of alternate source of energy, saying, “We need a saffron revolution that focuses on renewable energy sources such as solar energy to meet India’s growing energy demand”.The Prime Minister regretted that country was in habit of “thinking small” saying “at best we wish for an Express train”. “Why Express train, why not a bullet trainIJ” he again posed a counter-question.
Suggesting that India should “capture global market”, Modi said there was a need to tickle innovative thinking and suggested micro-irrigation that would save water. Referring to the slogan in Gujarat “per drop more crop”, the Prime Minister said micro-irrigation could be used for sugarcane harvesting.
Taking a jibe at the famous Indian red-tape and file-culture, Modi while stressing on speeding up work said official files have “no-speed” and at times they also go on “reverse gear.” Prime Minister’s comment prompted a peel of laughter among the audience.He also sought people to understand environmental issues from Indian point of view saying thus far “we have seen environment from western point of view.”