The Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi delivered a video address at ‘Global Citizen Live’,  a 24-hour event which is being held on 25th and 26th September and will involve live events in major cities including Mumbai, New York, Paris, Rio De Janeiro, Sydney, Los Angeles, Lagos and Seoul.

The Prime Minister talked about the challenge of the pandemic to illustrate that we are stronger and better when we are together. “We saw glimpses of this collective spirit when our COVID-19 warriors, doctors, nurses, medical staff gave their best in fighting the pandemic. We saw this spirit in our scientists and innovators, who created new vaccines in record time. Generations will remember the manner in which human resilience prevailed over everything else” , said the Prime Minister

In addition to COVID, The Prime Minister said, poverty remains the most persistent of the challenges. Shri Modi noted that poverty cannot be fought by making the poor more dependent on governments. Poverty can be fought when the poor start seeing governments as trusted partners. “Trusted partners who will give them the enabling infrastructure to forever break the vicious circle of poverty”, said the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister explained that when power is used to empower the poor, they get the strength to fight poverty. He enumerated measures like banking the unbanked, providing social security coverage to millions, giving free and quality healthcare to 500 million Indians, as examples of empowering the poor.

Talking about  30 million houses built for the homeless in the cities and villages, Shri Modi insisted that a house is not only about shelter. ‘A roof over the head gives people dignity.’ , he said. This and ‘mass movement’ to provide drinking water connection to every household, spending over a trillion dollars for next-generation infrastructure, free food grains being provided to 800 millions of the citizensand several other efforts will give strength to the fight against poverty, the Prime Minister said.

The Prime Minister also discussed the threat of climate change and said that “the simplest and most successful way to mitigate climate change is to lead lifestyles that are in harmony with nature. “ Calling Mahatma Gandhi one of the “greatest environmentalists of the world” the Prime Minister elaborated how Bapuled a zero carbon footprints lifestyle. In whatever he did, Gandhi ji put the welfare of our planet above everything else. Prime Minister highlighted the doctrine of trusteeship propounded by the Mahatma , ‘where we all are trustees of the planet with the duty of caring for it’.  Prime Minister informed that India is the only G-20 nation that is on track with its Paris commitments. India is also proud to have brought the world together under the banner of the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, said the Prime Minister.

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DS/AK