India / COVID-19 has taught the world self-reliance is important: PM at IIT-D

New Delhi: The coronavirus pandemic has taught a lesson to the world that globalisation is important but being self-reliant is also necessary, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.

PM Modi said this during his speech at the 51st Annual Convocation of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, in which he took part through video conferencing.

“COVID-19 has taught the world one more thing. Globalisation is important but along with it self-reliance is also important. The Atmanirbhar Bharat mission is important for providing youth, technocrats, tech enterprise leaders with new opportunities. They should be able to freely implement, scale and market their ideas, innovations. A conducive atmosphere has been made for this,” the PM said.

He further said the country is committed to giving Ease of Doing Business to its youth so that they can facilitate Ease of Living to the people of the country.

“The reforms done in several sectors in recent days are also done with the same intent. For the first time, unlimited opportunities are open for innovation and startups in the agriculture sector. For the first time, the roads are open for private investment in space sector. Just two days ago, a big reform was made for ease of doing business in BPO sector,” he said.

He also highlighted that such provisions which disallowed work from home and work from anywhere in the tech industry have been removed to make the information technology (IT) sector competitive globally and provide young talent with more opportunities.

He said that the government is taking decisions based on the needs of the industry and future into account.

“The rules of the last century cannot decide the future of coming century,” PM Modi said and added that India is among those countries where corporate tax is among the lowest.

He further said that after the Startup India mission was launched, over 50,000 new startups were started in the country.

“It is due to the government’s efforts that the number of patents has increased four times. Trademark registration has also seen five-fold increase. Along with fintech, agro, defence, and startups associated with the medical sector are also growing. I have faith that in the coming one or two years the numbers will further increase,” he said, adding that the passing batch today might give new energy to those startups in the coming days.

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, along with other officials and students also took part in the event held today.