New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Underlining India’s growing stature on the international stage, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visits to Russia and Ukraine. Describing India as the biggest voice of the Global South, he said PM Modi is the only global leader who was listened to by both the countries.
The Defence Minister said, “India has today become the biggest voice of the Global South. Every country considers and listens to India’s opinion on important issues. The Prime Minister was recently awarded Russia’s highest civilian honour by President Vladimir Putin. With this, Russia has joined the 16 countries that have given their highest civilian honour to our Prime Minister. These countries also include Muslim countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Maldives and Bahrain.”
Rajnath Singh stressed that the country has seen “significant changes” in the last 10 years. These range from economic reforms to major social transformation, cultural resurgence to significant political changes. He credited the people for playing the most important role in this change along with the government.
He said, “The last 10 years will go down in history as a decade of change. Our Prime Minister and government will always be recognised as the greatest ‘change makers’. India is on the verge of a major transformation. This will take India into an era of unprecedented development, prosperity, social harmony and growth.”
The Defence Minister discussed the growth of India’s economy since 2014. He said that the country’s economy was earlier counted among the ‘weak five’. Today it is being considered one of the ‘brilliant five’ across the world. During the last financial year, India’s economic growth rate was 8.2 percent. This was higher than the growth rate of seven percent in the previous year. For two consecutive years, India has been the fastest growing economy among all the major economies of the world. In the last 10 years, India has become the fifth largest economy from the 11th. Projections of investment firm Morgan Stanley suggest that India will become the third largest economy by 2027.
Rajnath Singh said that despite the rapid pace of growth, inflation in the country is under control. He cited data released recently in July, which shows that the retail inflation rate was recorded at 3.54 per cent, the lowest in the last five years. He said, “Before 2014, the number of startups used to be less than 1,000. Now it has increased to more than one lakh. Today India is the third largest startup ecosystem in the world and every 10th unicorn is in India. India’s startup ecosystem is expected to get new funding of about one billion dollars this year, which is 25 percent more than last year.”
–IANS
GCB/AKJ
