NEW DELHI: In an attempt to boost entrepreneurship at the grassroots level, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said Action Plan for ‘Start-up India, Stand-up India’ will be unveiled on January 16 and urged States to help spread this campaign across the country.
“My dear young friends, in my August 15 address from the Red Fort, I had made preliminary mention about ‘Start-up India, Stand-up India’. After that, this spread to all the departments of the government. Can India be a ‘Start-up Capital’? Can the youth in the states have the opportunities in the form of start-ups, with innovations, whether it be manufacturing, service sector or agriculture?” he said in his monthly ‘Mann ki Baat’ radio address, the last one of the year.
He said the ‘Start-up India, Stand-up India’ campaign has brought new opportunities for the youth. “The Start-up India, Stand-up India programme will be connected to the country’s IITs, IIMs, central universities and NITs. Wherever there are youth, they will be linked through ‘live connectivity,” he said.
Modi also talked about initiatives being taken up for the disabled in terms of accessibility etc. He coined a new term for them – ‘Divyang’ (people with extraordinary capabilities) instead of ‘viklang’ (handicapped) – saying most of the times, it has been seen that such people have capabilities which even normal people do not have. He mentioned that the ‘National Youth Festival’ with the theme ‘Indian youth on development skill and harmony’ will be held in Raipur from January 12 to 16, coinciding with the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.
Appealing to people to connect through the ‘Narendra Modi Mobile App’, the PM also said people tell him about a lot of positive things happening. He also talked about an aged artisan Dilip Singh Malaviya of Bhojpura village in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh, who constructed 100 toilets without charging a single penny.