PM urges country to empower women through govt schemes

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday used his “Man Ki Baat” radio programme to highlight the plight of girls in India and appealed to people to use his government's recently-launched social security schemes for their benefit ahead of Raksha Bandhan in August.

“The festival of Raksha Bandhan is to be celebrated in August. Should we launch a massive public movement ahead of Raksha Bandhan and provide women of our country with benefits of the three social security schemes rolled out last month? Can we gift our sisters these social security policies ahead of Raksha Bandhan? Let us see,” said Modi.

He also mentioned in his radio talk about the “Selfie With Daughter” initiative, started by a village head in Haryana, following which the hashtag #SelfieWithDaughter began trending at the top position on micro-blogging site Twitter.

Lauding village sarpanch Sunil Jagla’s initiative, he appealed to people to follow suit and take forward empowering women through the “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” scheme.

Speaking on the success of his government’s International Yoga Day plans, Modi trained his guns at the erstwhile UPA governments, saying people felt nothing was happening before the National Democratic Alliance came to power at the centre. “We have seen how a working government, a running government can achieve results once targets are set. We should not forget that a year ago, there was despondency all around. Only one voice was heard: 'Nothing is happening',” he said. The Yoga Day's events proved even a small government unit — the Department of AYUSH — can do remarkable work when the target is fixed, he said.

“It means that government and its functionaries function when everyone, including the people and government employees, want to work for the country selflessly,” he said.

The Congress, however, reacted sharply to Modi’s remarks, saying he had not done enough research.

“I used to believe the prime minister speaks after doing a lot of research. But I found his research to be zero. Under the UPA government, the Ministry of AYUSH did the maximum work and also got its new building constructed,” senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters.

Modi, in his radio programme, also asked countrymen to be proud of their history and culture, and propagate it as the world is eager to know more about India.

“Sometimes we are so acquainted with our surroundings that we feel there is nothing new in it. Take for example our family values. We do not know how big our family values are for people living in different parts of world. Why not acquaint the world with our family culture and values? The world will be amazed. There are many great things we have inherited, like family values, which are great,” he said.

Seeking to promote yoga further, Modi requested the country’s youth, especially IT professionals, to join the move. “Create some online yoga activity. A database of yoga teachers should be created,” he said.

The prime minister also talked about the smart city scheme. "We need to develop Smart Cities and AMRUT cities to match the world. We also need to have houses with toilets for all by 2022, when the country celebrates its 75th year of Independence,” he said.