Maa Tujhe Salaam
Maa Tujhe Salaam
Today, on the pious festival of the Amrit Mahotsav of freedom, we all should take some time and salute the sacrifices made by millions of freedom fighters.
I took out a list of freedom fighters who are still alive from the Ministry of Home affairs website and was surprised to see that even today more than 5625 members are alive. Just back calculate, these freedom fighters should have been in their early 20’s. As History states, many names were not even recorded and but one thing everyone agrees is that freedom fight was dominated by millions of Indians who fought their way to free India from clutches of the British rule. Every Indian, Peasants, Tribal Population, and common man like you and me were part of the Indian Freedom Movement.
My Prayers to all those Freedom Fighters !!!
On this day, we should also salute the contribution of our leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekar Azad, Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan; Rani Jhansi Lakshmibai, Kittur Rani Chennamma; the country’s first Prime Minister Pandit Nehru ji, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who integrated the country into a united nation, and Baba Saheb Ambedkar, who determined and paved the way for the future direction of India. We should be grateful to all these great personalities.
Friends, we have achieved a lot in social,economic, political sphere in the last 75 years. In 1947, the poverty rate was at 70%, but today it has come down to just 21.1% and it is projected that in the next 25 years the poverty levels would be reduced to single digits. India is also home to 166 billionaires and out of these 18 billionaires have made into the top 500 billionaries list. Bangalore is the hub of technological innovation with home for many tech startups in the country. The endless energy of youth is making India great in the technology space.
Last two years we faced the deadly covid 19 pandemic. Many International Media wrote India off that there would be millions of deaths and a poor country like India would crumble under Covid Pandemic leading to health, social and economic crises. But today, the Covid response of India has been lauded by the famous Scientific Journal “The Lancet” has one of the best responses in the world.
India has a nation, has stood firmly to manage this unprecedented crisis with both government and non-governmental support by augmenting hospital care, enhancing testing abilities and tracking services to minimize the loss of human life. The prediction of breakdown of health infrastructure by many developed nations experts did not happen despite more than half of the Indian population got infected. It is also one of the very few countries in the world, where both the rich and poor were given the same treatment with government bearing bulk of the cost.
Even in Vaccinations, the developed nations ensured that m-RNA vaccines were not available initially and in the global frenzy, the US and UK governments, blocked the transfer of millions of vaccines to the developing nations like India. The selfishness of the developed nations was clearly visible especially when critical drugs like Remdesivir were not made available in India. But India through its own self determination and human capabilities developed its Swadeshi Vaccines and even today stands out to be the only country where more than 200 crores vaccines have been administered. We all need to be proud that we have defeated Corona as one Nation and India would also be on the path of great economic revival which we would be seeing in the coming decades
In my own department of revenue and income tax department, the transformations witnessed are immense. No longer does a taxpayer need to visit our offices to file his return, instead almost 100% of the returns today are received through the efiling portal. Efiling portal on the last day received 73 lakhs returns and unbelievably, even OECD countries and US IRS cannot match this infrastructure. India is also the first country where more than 50% of the Indian taxpayers’ returns are processed with in 24 hrs and barring a few exceptions, the refunds are being processed in an automatic way without any human interventions reducing the transaction costs associated with this.
India has witnessed tremendous transformation in the Banking space with UPI, Mobile Banking and Internet Banking providing Financial Freedoms to Indians. In July alone 2679 million transactions have been witnessed, showing the robustness of the financial infrastructure in the country. India has also placed a robust GST infrastructure where in the matching of input and output credits are happening seamlessly with refunds being processed in an automatic way.
Delivery is what is the hallmark of the current government and there is tremendous transformation from just policy making to actual delivery on the ground. The leakages have been clubbed in many programs by linking them with Aadhar reducing the Ghost Beneficiaries. Our kids are getting access to the best educational curriculums in the world and the latest National Education Policy would help make our kids a global citizen and make them ready for the future competitions.
A lot has been said about Youth Unemployment. Till last month I worked closely with many top IT companies. The biggest problem these companies face is attrition with young software engineers leaving them for better jobs. What the HR guys told me was, if you have the right skills, then there are just too many jobs for you. But unfortunately, there is a large part of our education system including engineering which focuses on rote learning and not problem solving. As a result, the industry ready candidates are not available in the system.
Remember, India is also a land were based on your talent and skill set, there are so any venture capitalists/investors who are ready to invest. Digital India has transformed the way businesses are handled in India and in the coming days, technology, people, and processes is expected to be integrated to provide high productivity. India has already benefitted from the Information Technology services and in the coming decades, India would be a global leader in services. Even in Manufacturing, we are making great strides.
In the 21st century, India is more integrated in thinking and providing equal opportunities to all. We need to be proud of what our country has achieved and try to make this great country great in whatsoever simple ways we can do….
We should remember a greate quote by Dr.B.R.Ambedkar, the architect of Modern Day India
“Freedom of mind is the real freedom. A person whose mind is not free though he may not be in chains, is a slave, not a free man. One whose mind is not free, though he may not be in prison, is a prisoner and not a free man. One whose mind is not free though alive, is no better than dead. Freedom of mind is the proof of one’s existence”
Friends, this Independence Day, have a Free Positive Mind and that is real freedom.
Make yourself successful and stand out in the crowd. Thanks a lot, Jai Hind and a Happy Independence day.
