Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his 9th address to nation missed to congratulate and appreciate the achievements of Indian Olympians who this time have enlighten the name of the country by winning six medals – all time best performance – in recently concluded London Summer Olympic 2012.
In his traditional speech, he pointed out several problems, achievements of governments, social and national security and threats, about launching new welfare plans, the slowing growth rate of India, malnutrition problems, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, lack of health awareness and Agni missile tests but he allegedly forget to recall the names of winning India players who won medals for the country.
India in the 30th edition of modern summer Olympics won two silver and four bronze medals in different sports and events.
Prime Minister who is also a renowned faculty of economics, former governor of Reserve Bank, and Finance Minister of India, focused on India's sluggish growth rate, which is diminishing day by day.
According to Singh, India has not been able to create the environment for rapid economic growth due to lack of political consensus on many issues.
Accusing to politicians for sticking to their party's rule and welfare, Prime Minister Singh said that despite 20 years of widely acclaimed economic reforms, the political establishment is still divided on certain growth issues.
'In recent times, the government has faced flak from the opposition on allowing foreign direct investment in retail trade, strongly favoured by the US,' he said.
"Time has now come to view the issue which affect our development processes as matters of national security," he added.
Manmohan Singh, however, warned that controlling inflation would had become tougher because of this year's poor monsoon.
But this would not lead to problems in foodgrains availability as "we have a big stock of foodgrains".
"This period of difficulties will not last long", he added.
In a reference to Assam, where ethnic violence claimed over 70 lives, he said authorities were doing everything possible to provide relief to everyone.
Manmohan Singh also outlined his government's successes.
He said almost all villages had been electrified, and the government's target was to provide electricity to every household in India in the next five years.
The government was also formulating a scheme to give away free medicines through government hospitals and health centres, he said.
Over the next five years, eight crore Indians will be taught skill development by a specialised agency to cope with the needs of an expanding economy, he added.
Half the rural households today have bank accounts, he pointed out. "It will be our endeavour to ensure tha all households benefit from bank accounts in the next two years."
The prime minister also called for speedy infrastructure development, and said the planned Indian mission to Mars "will be a huge step for us in the area of science and technology".
While lauding the improvement in situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the falling violence in India's northeast, he said that Maoists remained a major issue of concern.
"Communal harmony has to be maintained at all costs... The incidents which occurred in Pune in the beginning of this month point to the need for much more work to be done in the area of national security."
Four low-intensity blasts rocked Pune in quick succession Aug 1 but no one was killed.
Manmohan Singh concluded his speech on a positive note.
"No power in the world can stop our country from achieving new heights of progress and development."
--With IANS Inputs--
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