'No expert recommends farm loan waiver. Unlike the farm loan waiver, PM Kisan Samman is a long term measure to supplement farmer’s income, said PM Narendra Modi. (Photo: India Today)

New Delhi: Life of every jawan is valuable to us, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day after Wing Commander Abhimanyu Varthaman was welcomed back, speaking at a conclave organised by a media house.

Fear of valour of the Indian armed forces in our neighbouring country is good, he said.

I am surprised that when all Indians are standing with Indian armed forces, some political parties are raising doubts on the capabilities of our forces, said PM Modi.

“Why is it that those who ruled the nation for so many years have so many defence scams in their era? If a deal could not happen, defence modernisation could not happen. Who is every middle-man close to? The entire nation knows. And Lutyens Delhi, surely knows,” said PM Modi.

 

 

Those who ruled the nation for many years started scams from jeeps and went on with Bofors guns, VVIP choppers among others, said Modi. In our tenure, the corridors of power are also free from middlemen because they know, this Government will not tolerate any corruption, said Modi.

Not one bullet proof jacket was bought from 2009-2014. We bought two lakh thirty thousand bullet proof jackets, said Modi.

He also mentioned one rank one pension (OROP) a 40-year pending demand of military veterans fulfilled by his government, earlier in its tenure.

Our 55 months and the 55 years of the others have given two contrasting approaches to governance. They had a ‘token approach’; we have a ‘total approach.' India has been battling poverty but they gave a token slogan ‘garibi hatao’. What it achieve that was never specified, said Modi.

It was known that India needed to work on financial inclusion. For that, they gave a token - bank nationalisation. They did this in the name of the poor but none of them bothered to check if the doors of banks are open for the poor or not, said Modi.

If work has to be done, it has to be in totality, not with tokenism. That is why all our initiatives aim for 100%. Jan Dhan - financial inclusion and banking for all. Awas Yojana - Housing for All, Ayush Yojana - Healthcare for all, said Modi.

No expert recommends farm loan waiver. Unlike the farm loan waiver, PM Kisan Samman is a long term measure to supplement farmer’s income. Our earlier measures like soil health card and crop insurance have succeeded in helping farmers.