Delivering a lecture on Spirituality and Leadership, Modi said that spirituality alone can produce a capable leader, who can help the nation towards the path of progress.

“Leadership minus spirituality produces leaders like Genghis Khan and Hitler, whereas leadership quality plus spirituality produces leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Gautam Buddha,” he said.

He said for India to emerge a strong prosperous nation, selfless leaders with strong inclination to spirituality was needed. “Today we are plagued with many evils like terrorism and global-warming which will wipe out humanity across the globe. To defeat these forces we need to have strong leaders with spiritual inclination who work for others and not just for themselves,” he added.

Mr Modi also stressed the need to encourage yoga which can help in building a strong healthy nation.
“Yoga synchronises the mind, body and soul. Being a practitioner of yoga for many years has helped me to stay calm and come out of crises many a time even during the run-up to the assembly elections in Gujarat when all odds were against me,” he said.

Earlier, Modi conferred the Sadhana Rathna award  to Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandana Samsthana, founder, Lakshmi.