Education best way to fight poverty: Modi

The Congress government had nationalised banks and claimed that it was done for the poor people. “More than 18 crore bank accounts have been opened under the scheme”.

The chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh, a vast agricultural northern state with a population bigger than Brazil, said taking on utilities’ Rs 420,000 crore of debt would reduce the state’s interest burden by five percentage points but more than double its borrowings.

Modi was on a day-long visit to Varanasi where he inaugurated several developmental schemes.

“We have been hearing about “garibi hatao” for the last 40-50 years”. In every election, we have heard about the welfare of the poor.

The Pew survey reminds us that Indians have shrugged off their cynicism, negativity, self-doubt and distrust of politicians after a long time. “There is need to come out of this tradition”, Modi added.

He also distributed 501 paddle rickshaws, 101 e-rickshaws and 1000 solar lanterns to rickshaw, pushcart and street vendors.

PM Modi declared that this event marked the beginning of an initiative that would bring about a change in the fortunes of the people of Varanasi.

This despite the fact that Modi used micro-blogging site Twitter to express his unhappiness over the security arrangements in Chandigarh, when schools were forced to close down and even the main cremation ground made out of bounds for the general public. Those who run small dairies or vegetable sellers or street vendors or tea stalls belong to this sector.

Apparently being upset over the cancellation of regularisation of their service following a recent judgement of the Allahabad High Court, the ad hoc teachers had threatened to stage a protest here, if they were denied an appointment with Modi. “These startups are representative of the changing India where apart from just creating solutions for the upper middle-class urban consumer of India, the innovators are leveraging technology and their experiences to create massive impact by solving some tougher problems”, said Kunal Upadhyay, CEO of CIIE. Mr. Modi was accused of initiating and condoning the violence, as have police and government officials in his party, who allegedly directed the rioters and gave lists of Muslim-owned properties to them.

He said the prime minister had yet not spoken out his government’s roadmap to engage with Pakistan and had yet not told people or parliament about his dialogue with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The much awaited tour comes about nine months after his visit on December 25 past year . After the cancellation of Modi’s earlier two visits to Kashi – on June 28 and July 16 – due to torrential downpour, speculations were rife that Modi’s third visit could be jinxed.