NEW DELHI, Jan 31: The President Droupadi Murmu has asserted that 2023 was a historic year for the country when it maintained the tag of being the fastest-growing major economy. “The year 2023 was a historic year for India, when it grew the fastest among major economies despite global crisis. India grew about 7.5 per cent for two consecutive quarters,” she said.
Addressing a joint sitting of Parliament on Wednesday, Ms Murmu hailed the Narendra Modi Government’s big ticket reforms in the last 10 years and said the centuries-old desire to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya has now become reality while apprehensions over the abrogation of article 370 had become a thing of the past.
In her first address to a joint sitting of the two Houses in the new Parliament building in which she touched on varied issues ranging from insurgency to inflation, Ms Murmu said a country can progress at a fast pace only when it defeats the challenges of the past and puts maximum energy into building the future.
“Today, my government is building modern infrastructure along the entire border. This work should have been done long ago on a priority basis. Be it terrorism or expansionism, our forces today are giving a befitting response,” she said amidst thumping of desks by members of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Ms Murmu also said India was now a prominent voice against terrorism in the world. The government, she said, believed the grand edifice of a developed India would stand on the four strong pillars of youth power, women power, farmers and the poor.
“In the last 10 years, the country has witnessed the completion of projects for which the people had waited for decades. There was the desire for building the Ram Mandir for centuries and today it has become a reality,” she said to the thumping of desks from the treasury benches. “In cultural history, there are some milestones that decide the future of centuries. In India’s history also there have been numerous such milestones. On January 22, the country witnessed one such milestone. After centuries-long wait, Ram Lalla now resides in a grand temple in Ayodhya,” she said. She pointed out that following the consecration ceremony in Ayodhya, 13 lakh devotees have done ‘darshan’ in just five days.
She said there were apprehensions over the removal of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir “but they have become history now.” There is an environment of peace and security in Jammu and Kashmir as there is vibrancy in markets instead of the “silence of shutdowns” that were witnessed in the past, the president said.
Ms Murmu arrived in a buggy at Parliament House to deliver her address to the joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. The president entered the House with the ‘sengol’ being carried in front of her. This is the last session before Lok Sabha elections.
“The world has faced two wars and Covid-19 in the past few years. Despite the global crises, my government kept inflation under control across the country and did not put the burden on the citizens,” the President said. “We have been hearing slogans of eradicating poverty for long; now first time we are seeing poverty being eradicated on a large-scale,” she said.
She said the Indian economy used to be among the “fragile five” but was now moving in the right direction and at the right pace due to several reforms undertaken by the government in the last 10 years. Over the past decade the Government had made good governance, transparency the cornerstone of every system. “My Government is continuously working on making it easy to do business in India and creating a suitable environment for it,” she said.
(Manas Dasgupta)