Tumakuru (Karnataka):
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said India should focus on indigenous defence production to become self-reliant in the area of security.
“If India has to be self-reliant in the area of security according to our armed forces needs, we have to make our own weapons,” he said.
Laying the foundation stone for a Rs 5,000 crore greenfield helicopter project of HAL at Biderhalla Kaval in the district, Modi said government was encouraging defence manufacturing driven by the country’s scientists and engineers.
In his address to a large gathering at the event, Modi said Indian Armed Forces were ready to make any sacrifice for the country and they were second to none.
“But the time has come now to ensure that the weapons and equipment they carried and used were also the best in the world,” he said.
Imported weapons were expensive and India spends huge sums of money for the purpose, Modi said.
”We import weapons from other countries to equip our armed forces. India not only spends crores of rupees but also gets relatively not so latest technology,” he said.
Modi said before striking a deal for imports, the Indian government, while entering into an agreement, seeks from the seller nations manufacturing part of the weapons in India.
On the HAL helicopter project, the Prime Minister said:
“I have confidence that they (HAL) will produce 600 helicopters in the next 15 years.”
He said the project is expected to bring in huge investments to Tumakuru district and generate 4000 jobs directly or indirectly.
“What is being set up here is no ordinary factory and very soon this district is going to come on the world map,” Modi told the gathering.
According to HAL Chairman and Managing Director Suvarna Raju, the facility gives boost to the country’s aviation capability in the helicopter segment as it will produce three to 10 tonnes class helicopters.
Sometimes I wonder why we failed him. He was indeed our great chance to create a place in history,” he says.
Khurshid says he thought of writing the book because “our tenure left a lot unsaid due to the noise made by the Opposition which they must indeed be regretting now.”
“The words that were spoken to undermine us will haunt the government every time they attempt something serious,” he says.
The book, published by Hay House, took Khurshid about one year to write. “Most thoughts were still fresh in the mind so I did not feel the absence of notes.”
He rues that social harmony is under stress and institutional integrity under question since the NDA came to power.
“These are worrying signs. The government seems to be shying off stating its clear philosophical positions even as it pretends that it has a mandate for fundamental changes in society. But Delhi and Bihar have shown how wrong they are,” he says.
According to him, the NDA came to power “without real substance to offer and that is how they are continuing as well. Many projects of our time are being show cased as achievements of the NDA without a mention of our government. The government is obviously quite unclear of how to deal with its tall promises”.
He says “parochialism and internationalism can hardly exist together although the prime minister is trying hard”.
“Liberalism is taking a knock in our society and real test will come in the months ahead. The Idea of India was not an artificial construct of the Nehruvian era will be put to test and in the response of the people will be the future of our society as we have known and cherished it.
“The strategic choice that has to be made by the opponents of majoritarianism will be between uncompromising principles and tolerable accommodation,” he says.
