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Informist, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026

NEW DELHI – India must increase its capacity and capability to achieve self-reliance and play a key role in global supply chains, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Saturday. Addressing the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort in the national capital on the occasion of India's 80th Independence Day, the prime minister said the government has taken several steps to ease compliances over the past decade. "India can no longer afford to just be a market," he said, adding that reforms are no longer a compulsion for the country but a conviction in order to achieve the goal of "Viksit Bharat" by 2047.

In his 13th consecutive Independence Day address to the nation, Modi said the government is committed to proceed on the path of next-generation reforms. The reform measures taken over the past 12 years helped the country tide over the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing wars in Ukraine and West Asia, Modi said. The war in West Asia has imposed a strain on the energy needs of industry, transportation, and households, the prime minister said, adding that the situation makes it clear that energy security is the need of the hour.

Modi said some powers have been weaponising natural resources and restricting access to countries like India. In this backdrop it is critical for India to undertake exploration of natural resources on its land as well as in the oceans with schemes like "Samudra Manthan", he said.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval were among the domestic and foreign dignitaries present on the occasion.

Modi said India's semiconductor programme is progressing well and manufacturing plants have started exporting semiconductor chips. More such semiconductor manufacturing plants will be established in the next 5-8 years, he said.

Modi said India has signed free trade agreements with various countries and more are being negotiated. He urged domestic micro, small, and medium enterprises to penetrate global markets by leveraging cost, quality, and scale. He also urged food-processing units to use the free trade agreements to expand their business.

Modi further said that to truly become a global economic powerhouse, Indian institutions, banks, and companies need to feature in the global top tier. He said at least one Indian bank should feature among the top five global banks and at least 50 Indian companies should find place in the Fortune 500 list in the next decade. To enable this, he said, India must become an innovation hub and support research and development in various sectors and sub-sectors.

Addressing the concerns of the country's youth, Modi said they are both an enabler and beneficiaries of his government's vision for a "Viksit Bharat" by 2047. He said the government is working on a framework to enable free coaching classes for students using digital public infrastructure to counter the dominance of expensive private coaching institutes for competitive examinations. He also said that to harness the growth opportunities presented by new technology, India will give artificial intelligence skill training to 10 million youth over the next one year.

During his speech, Modi also expressed the desire to host the Olympic Games in 2036. However, he said India needs to prepare sportspeople who will be able to compete in all sports categories at the Olympics. Currently, he said, India does not even figure in two-thirds of all the categories.

In his speech that included criticism of previous governments for the "slow pace" of development, Modi also raised concern about Naxal mindsets persisting in the country. He said that while the government has successfully eradicated left-wing extremism, which had disrupted the lives of millions of ordinary citizens and taken a toll of the country's police forces for more than four decades, the danger from left-wing extremist ideology and thought is not over yet.

Modi also said that the government will raise a modern voluntary civil defence force to help with national calamities. Referring to the flood-affected districts of the country, particularly in the Northeast, he said the nation stands with the families that have suffered.

From the ramparts of the Red Fort, Modi again urged the Opposition to come forward and support the bill to reserve one-third of the seats in Parliament and state legislatures for women. He had earlier attacked the Congress and other opposition parties for not supporting The Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty-First Amendment) Bill, 2023, aimed at fast-tracking reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies by increase the size of the Lok Sabha and conducting a fresh delimitation based on the Census 2011.  End

Reported by Sagar Sen

Edited by Rajeev Pai

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