Srinagar, March 16: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday started his address at the India Today Conclave 2024 by responding to India Today Group Editor-in-Chief Aroon Purie’s remarks who said that ‘PM was busy preparing for 2029 Lok Sabha elections.”
“Aroon ji put your entire team to find out what Modi is. Let them figure it out. You got stuck on 2029, I am preparing for 2047,” the Prime Minister said amid cheers from the audience.
“Whenever I go to a conclave like this, you expect me to give headlines, but I am a person who works on deadlines, and not headlines,” Modi said.
While hailing the startup culture in the country, Modi said there were hardly 100-startups a decade ago, “now there are 1.25 lakh startups registered,” he said.
“The startup movement in India is not just about numbers, but the fact that they are located in more than 600 districts, which accounts for 90 per cent of the country’s area,” he said.
Talking about the northeast, Modi said that since 2014 his ministers have visited northeastern states 680 times.
“I, as the Prime Minister, have visited the northeastern states more than combined tours done by all other Prime Ministers of the country,” he added.
Modi said that in a recent event in Delhi, he met street vendors “who came from across the country.”
“I wanted to do something for them, so we launched PM Swanidhi scheme, through which street vendors are getting loans easily for the first time.”
He said these vendors were insulted, called illiterate “but today they have become the face of India’s digital revolution.”
Modi said that he distributed agricultural drones to girls in villages, so that the social stigma that surrounds women driving tractors is countered.
“Even today, when daughters drive tractors in villages, it surprises people. I wanted to break this psyche. I wanted to show that daughters can operate drones too,” Modi said.
“The coming five years will be a guarantee of stable, able and strong India,” Modi said.
He said that the upcoming five years would give Indian infrastructure a new height while the Indian Railways will witness a revolution.
In addition to this, Modi said that in the coming five years India’s defence export will make new records even as “the country’s space sector would be given a new flight.”
“I have already started working on all these projects. I will come to India Today Conclave once again to share the information about these developments,” Modi concluded.