Horasis – India Meeting 2018

Text of Inaugural Dinner Address delivered at the Horasis India Meeting 2018 on June 24, 2018 in Malaga, Spain

Mayor of this beautiful city of Malaga, the city of Picasso, Mr. Francisco de la Torre Prados, Chairman of Horasis: The Global Visions Community Mr. Frank-Jurgen Richter, distinguished participants and friends! It is a pleasure to be back at the Horasis India Meeting this year.

As I stand before you this evening, a 100,000th family, from the lower income group in Madhya Pradesh is receiving its own house from the hands of my Prime Minister. In next three years over 50 million poor families are going to get houses of their own. That will end India’s homelessness completely;

As I stand before you you, a middle-aged, not-so-well-educated farmer in a remote corner of an Indian state called Mizoram is proudly announcing the record production of mushrooms in his farm using scientific agri practises;

As I talk to you, a 19-year young college graduate from a small village in Punjab, fired by the zeal to innovate, is running a tractor in his small farm land sitting under a tree nearby, remotely. He says that he and his other farmers in the village need no longer toil in scorching sun to till their lands; they just can do that by quietly sitting under a nearby tree, using the remote wheel that he developed, for just under $ 1500 cost;

As I talk to you, elsewhere in India, the daughter of a rickshaw puller from Maharashtra and a madrasa teacher from Tamilnadu have cleared Civil Services exams with impressive rankings and are getting ready to lead the administration;

As I talk to you, a group of six young women naval officers have just returned to our shores after circumnavigating the globe in a sailing boat called INSV Tarini, a heroic act by any standards for sea-farers;

As I talk to you, three other young women officers are preparing to fly the most powerful war machine, the MiG 21 fighter aircraft, solo. And the daughter of a tea seller from Bhopal is preparing to join the airforce as a fighter pilot;

Friends! As I talk to you, people in more than 190 countries, “’From Dehradun to Dublin, Shanghai to Chicago, and Jakarta to Johannesburg”, to quote my Prime Minister, were stretching their limbs and controlling their breath as part of the International Yoga Day;

And Friends! As I talk to you, while the UNHRC was spreading a highly biased and factually incorrect juvenile-sounding report on the human rights conditions in Jammu & Kashmir, a group of women beneficiaries of an important initiative of our government called Stand Up India, from Anantnag, the hotbed of terrorism in J&K, were thanking and blessing Prime Minister Modi stating that they had prayed to the Almighty Allah everyday during the holy month of Ramazan for the return of Modi as Prime Minister for 5 more years.

Friends! A New India is rising…

It is rising out of the silenced smoke-puffing chimneys and environment-friendly LPG cooking stoves of our rural poor households; we have done away with the hazardous coal and wood-based cooking for our womenfolk, by supplying LPG cylinders to more than 41 million households;

It is rising out of the newly electrified remote villages of India; we have electrified all the 590,000 villages and 99% urban and 82% rural households in the country.

It is rising on the able shoulders and out of the skilled hands of millions of young men and women, especially the SCs and STs; we have extended soft loans to over 70 million of them through MUDRA Yojana; today the youth in India are no longer just job-seekers; they are job providers too.

A new, confident, and well-trained India is rising; out of 20 AIIMS, 22 IITs and 20 IIMs that produce thousands of highly skilled doctors and engineers.

A strong and healthy India is emerging with millions joining Prime Minister’s ‘Hum fit hai to India fit hai’ – ‘If we are fit, India is fit’ campaign;

Friends! We are a building that New India!!!

We have built over 120,000 KM of highways in last 4 years, almost doubling the existing network;

We are building 101 smart cities;

We have already built metro train services in 10 cities; and another 5 cities will be added very soon. Urban connectivity has been totally transformed; electric public transport is the next priority for the government to build a pollution-free India. Work has already started through electric local transport vehicles like auto rickshaws;

With 1433 Tera watt/hours of power generation, today India is an energy-surplus country. No more power shortages in India;

We are soon going to have the Bullet Train;

We are going to launch Chandrayan 2 later this year and a unique solar mission called Aditya – L1 next year. With almost 12 launches in as many number of months in this year, our ISRO is adding new feathers to its glory on a monthly basis;

We are in the process of building 1 million KM of fibre optic network to digitally connect 250,000 villages in the country by the end of 2019;

We have a mobile phone base of 1.2 billion today; a smartphone base of over 450 million and the internet-connected population in the country in above half-a-billion;

We have revolutionised the IT sector through Digital India campaign; the JAM trinity – Jan Dhan, Aadhar and Mobile has transformed the lives of ordinary Indians; DBT schemes have helped reduce corruption and delays to beneficiaries and improved systemic efficiency;

We are building a Swatch Bharat – clean and hygienic India; households with toilets have gone up in last 4-years from 38% to 85%. Over 70 million toilets have been built in private and public places in the country. Our women, the real beneficiaries of this campaign are today more secure, healthy and educated. Swatch Bharat has become a people’s mission;

We are dredging our rivers so as to make dozens of waterways operational very soon; we are going to have a clean Ganga by March next year;

Friends! All this and more we have achieved in a record time due to the visionary and disruptive leadership of our Prime Minister Sh Narendra Modi.

Four years ago we inherited a crumbling, corrupt and crony capitalist economy. We had the challenge to turn it around.

The Prime Minister undertook the task of setting its basics right. It called for some harsh action, the kind that the Austrian-American economist Joseph schumpeter called ‘creative destruction’. Schumpeter described it as the “process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionises the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one”.

Demonetisation, GST, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code IBC etc are such measures that set India’s economic basics right while bringing economic discipline and rule of law in the governance. In Arth Shastra, Chanakya says “… whoever imposes punishment as deserved becomes respectable. For, punishment, when awarded with due consideration, makes the people devoted to righteousness and to works productive of wealth and enjoyment”.

As a result, after a brief slowdown, the Indian economy is rising fast. We are the fastest growing major economy in the world today with 7.5% GDP growth rate as projected by the IMF. With 6.6% growth rate China is well behind us.

We have record Forex reserves of $ 415 billion. In Ease of Doing Business, India climbed up 30 rankings to reach 100th position. Gross FDI inflow has gone up to $ 61 billion this year. There is a 20% growth in exports and 15% growth in imports

Corruption, once endemic to Indian system has largely disappeared from public domain. The corrupt today have to run, to use the metaphor, from pillar to post, ‘from Hong Kong to London’. They may remain fugitives for some time, but they must have to return, to join their comrades in the Ranchi jail.

Dear Friends!

New fiscal policies of our government have made both India and the Indians richer.

There used to be a time when India is called a poor country; that was when both the government and people of India were poor. Slowly people started becoming rich, but the government remained poor. Today after 4 years of prudent fiscal management, Indians have become richer, so is the Indian government.

GST has helped mop up revenues for the government to the tune of close to Rs 1 trillion – $ 150 billion. With total tax payer base increasing to more than 10 million, the government is confident of bring fiscal deficit to around 3.3% this year.

Politically, after 4 years, the Prime Minister defies conventional political wisdom about incumbency by recording 70%+ popularity ratings. No other Indian leader comes anywhere close to him. Since 2014, we have won elections in 15 states and lost in 6. We are in power in 20 Indian states today while the Opposition controls 10; Congress has its governments in 3 out of them. 60% of India ruled by BJP governments besides the central government.

The Prime Minister has given a call to showcase New India by 2022, when India completes 75 years of its Independence – a New India free of homelessness, joblessness, poverty and disease; A New India that is united, rich, confident and happy.

We shall achieve it, under Modi’s leadership. I invite each one of you to come and join in this greatest ever mega transformation that is happening across India. It offers a great opportunity of a life time. Together we shall grab it.

Thank you…