Now, India is taking leadership positions in international forums
Feeling immensely happy while addressing the nation on a historic occasion, President Draupadi Murmu congratulated all men-women and informed that 75 years ago, India’s founding the Constitution of India, came into being. The Constituent Assembly, after nearly three years of debates, adopted the Constitution on 26th of November in 1949, which came into effect from the 26th January 1950.
Addressing, she shared: “Republic Day is indeed a matter of collective joy and pride for all citizens. Seventy-five years, someone might say, is only the blink of an eye in the life of a nation. No, I will say, not these past 75 years. This has been the time when the long-dormant soul of India has awakened again, taking strides to regain its rightful place in the comity of nations. Among the oldest civilizations, India was once known as a source of knowledge and wisdom. There, however, came a dark phase, and inhuman exploitation under colonial rule led to utter poverty.
Today, we should first recall the brave souls who made great sacrifices to free the motherland from the shackles of foreign rule.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, their struggles consolidated in an organized nationwide independence movement. It was the nation’s good fortune to have the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and Babasaheb Ambedkar, who helped it rediscover its democratic ethos. Justice, liberty, equality and fraternity are not theoretical concepts that we came to learn in modern times; they have always been part of our civilizational heritage.
The composition of our Constituent Assembly was also a testimony to our republican values. It had representatives from all parts and all communities of the country. Most notably, it had 15 women among its members, including stalwarts such as Sarojini Naidu, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Sucheta Kripalani, Hansaben Mehta and Malati Choudhury. When women’s equality was only a distant ideal in many parts of the world, in India women were actively contributing in shaping the destiny of the nation.
The Constitution has become a living document because civic virtues have been part of our moral compass for millennia. The Constitution provides the ultimate foundation of our collective identity as Indians; it binds us together as a family. For 75 years now, it has guided the path of our progress. Today, let us humbly express our gratitude to Dr. Ambedkar, who chaired the Drafting Committee, other distinguished members of the Constituent Assembly, various officers associated with and others who worked hard and bequeathed us this most wonderful document.
at the time of Independence and even later, large parts of the country had faced extreme poverty and also hunger. We set down to create the right conditions in which everyone would have the opportunity to flourish.
Our farmers toiled hard and made our country self-sufficient in food production. Our laborers worked relentlessly to transform our infrastructure and manufacturing sector. Thanks to their sterling efforts, India’s economy today influences the global economic trends. Today, India is taking leadership positions in international forums.
In recent years, the economic growth rate has remained persistently high, creating job opportunities for Indian youth, putting more money in the hands of farmers and laborers, and also lifting more people out of poverty. The bold and far-sighted economic reforms will sustain this trend in the years to come. Inclusion is the cornerstone of our growth saga, distributing the fruits of developments as widely as possible.
Equally importantly, the government has redefined the notion of welfare, making basic necessities such as housing and access to drinking water a matter of entitlement. For example, there have been pre-matric and post-matric scholarships, national fellowships, overseas scholarships, hostels and coaching facilities for the youth from the SC communities.
The Pradhan Mantri Anusuchit Jaati Abhyuday Yojana is making progress in reducing poverty among the SC communities by adding employment and income generation opportunities.
Meanwhile, the focus on physical infrastructure development, including roads and railways, ports and logistics hubs, over the past decade has created a platform that will support growth for decades to come.
The way the government has used technology in the field of finance has been exemplary. A variety of digital payment options as well as the system of direct benefit transfer have promoted inclusion, bringing a significant number of people within the formal system. It has also brought unprecedented transparency in the system. In the process, within a few years we have created a robust Digital Public Infrastructure that is among the best in the world.
The banking system has been in a healthy condition after a series of bold measures such as the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, effecting a substantial reduction in the Non-Performing Assets of Scheduled Commercial Banks.
We won freedom in 1947, but many relics of a colonial mindset persisted among us for long. Of late, we have been witnessing concerted efforts to change that mindset. Among the most noteworthy of such efforts was the decision to replace the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam. Based also on Indian traditions of jurisprudence, the new criminal laws place the delivery of justice instead of punishment at the center of the criminal justice system. Moreover, the new laws grant top priority to countering crimes against women and children.
Reforms of such magnitude require an audacity of vision. The ‘One Nation One Election’ plan can promote consistency in governance, prevent policy paralysis, mitigate resource diversion, and reduce the financial burden, apart from offering many other benefits.
There has also been a fresh engagement with our civilizational heritage. An exciting array of initiatives is underway in the domain of culture to preserve and revitalize our traditions and customs.
India is a hub of great linguistic diversity. In order to conserve as well as celebrate this richness, the Government has recognized Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Pali and Prakrit as classical languages. This category already includes Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia. The Government is proactively promoting research in 11 classical languages now.
The museum will bring together in one place a wide range of arts, crafts and cultural elements from different eras.
It is, after all, our young generation that is going to shape the India of tomorrow. Education, in turn, shapes these young minds. Therefore, the Government has increased its investment in education and made every effort to improve every parameter related to this sector. The results so far are more than encouraging.
The last decade has transformed education, in terms of quality of learning and physical infrastructure and digital inclusion. It is not surprising that there has been a notable improvement in students’ performance. I am glad to learn that women teachers have played a crucial role in this transformation, since more than 60 percent of those who became teachers in the last decade are women.
The expansion and mainstreaming of vocational and skill education is a welcome development. .
With a stronger foundation of the school-level education, India has been scaling new heights in various branches of knowledge, particularly in science, along with technology. For example, India stands sixth in terms of intellectual property filings in the world. We have consistently improved our ranking in the Global Innovation Index, moving from 48th position in 2020 to 39th in 2024.
With rising self-assurance, we are increasing our participation in cutting-edge research with a series of initiatives. The National Quantum Mission aims to create a vibrant and innovative ecosystem in this new frontier of technology. Another noteworthy beginning is with the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical System, which plans to focus on several advanced technologies including artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and cyber security.
The Genome India Project has been not only an exciting venture in exploring nature; it is also a veritable defining moment in the history of science in India. This path-breaking project will open new vistas in biotechnology research and also give a fillip to the public healthcare system.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has been taking giant leaps in space in recent years. This month, the ISRO once again made the nation proud with its successful Space Docking Experiment. India has now become the fourth country in the world to have this capability
Our brothers and sisters living abroad have taken the best of our culture and civilization to different parts of the globe and have made us proud with their achievements in diverse fields. They have always considered themselves to be a part of the India Story. As I said at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas earlier this month, I am confident of their proactive and enthusiastic participation in the making of a Viksit Bharat, a developed India, by the year 2047.
Thanks to substantial and concrete progress in a wide range of areas, we are marching towards the future, holding our heads high. The key to our future is our youth and especially the young women. Their dreams are molding the India of tomorrow, when we will be celebrating the centenary of our Independence. And when today’s children will salute the tricolor on 26th January of 2050, they will tell their next generation that this great quest would not have been possible without our incomparable Constitution guiding them along the way.
Our future generations will also keep in mind the mission of Independent India in the world. The very essence of our civilization is that we give a paramount place to morality in all our affairs, public or private.”
Today, let us reaffirm our commitment to strive to realize Gandhiji’s dreams. His watchwords, truth and nonviolence, will continue to remain relevant for the whole world. He also taught us that rights and duties are but the two sides of the coin – indeed, the true source of rights is duty. Today we recall his lessons in compassion too – compassion not only for our human neighbors but also for our other neighbors, namely, flora and fauna, rivers and mountains.
Each of us must contribute to the efforts to counter the global threat of climate change. There have been two exemplary initiatives in this regard. At the global level, India is leading a mass movement, called Mission Lifestyle for Environment, to inspire individuals and communities to be more pro-active in protecting and preserving the environment.
Last year, on World Environment Day, we launched a unique campaign, ‘Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam’, paying tribute to the nurturing power of our mothers as well as of Mother Nature. The world can learn from such innovative moves that people can adopt as their own movements.
Educationist/Administrator/Editor/Author/Speaker
Commencing teaching in his early twenties, Prof Aggarwal has diverse experience of great tenure in the top institutions not only as an educationist, administrator, editor, author but also promoting youth and its achievements through the nicest possible content framing. A revolutionary to the core, he is also keen to address the society around him for its betterment and growth on positive notes while imbibing the true team spirit the work force along with.
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