How PM Narendra Modi has come up as an ardent believer of Vigyaan

Recently a video surfaced on social media wherein PM Modi is seen in his young days. The year was 1984, and he apparently was delivering a talk at the RSS training camp in Pune, where Narendra Modi can be heard extolling the Indian scientists of the 20th century. Modi commended the Nobel laureates C.V. Raman, Rabindranath Tagore, and Hargovind Khurana. He also accentuated the pioneering role of Jagadguru Shankaracharya in the genesis of the 16 formulae that the world now calls Vedic mathematics. And that this 16 formulae based scripture is vying with all the computing models of calculation. With regards to atomic science and engineering technology, he recalls the towering contributions of the likes of Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, Prof. Srinivas Ramanujam, M. Visvesvaraya, etc. Considering this video as the basis for a discussion, one thing can be stated for sure: what PM Modi speaks and manifests is the same as what he learns and muses upon. His political trajectory, first as Chief Minister of Gujarat and then as Prime Minister of India, ratifies the same. Veteran journalist and now Chief Information Commissioner, Uday Mahurkar, notes in his 2014 article on the then Gujarat Chief Minister Modi’s use of technology for governance, “The implementation of e-governance schemes has cut red tape at the ground level. Each tehsil headquarters has a Jan Vikas Kendra, where more than 100 certificates are available in a matter of minutes for a nominal payment. Many of these certificates are now available to villagers at the village E-Gram Vishwagram Center, part of the government’s unique network connecting all 13,700 panchayat villages in the state. The E-Jamin project of the Revenue Department has digitised the land record data of almost half of Gujarat’s landowners, significantly cutting down cases of fraud in land ownership. Perhaps the most innovative scheme is the Swagat Online Grievance Redressal System run by the Chief Minister’s office: Modi goes online to solve the problems in villages by talking to the complainants directly for almost four hours every fourth Saturday. PM Narendra Modi distinguished himself by making extensive use of technology, even in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Mr. Modi was able to build a significant triumph for the NDA by utilising the incredible power of social media and crowdsourcing. On Saturday, 26 July, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched MyGov, a web service aimed at inclusive governance by allowing Indian residents to submit their perspectives on issues requiring government action and to give their time, energy, and efforts by participating in these. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a more broad-based strategy to fund research in the country in 2015, and he advised scientists to focus on research rather than different procedures to obtain government grants. Mr. Modi stressed on the importance of science and technology, linking China’s meteoric rise as the world’s second-largest economy to its rise as a scientific force. In the near future, he also hoped to make science and technology a theme of the Republic Day Parade. Speaking to the delegates from across the country, PM Modi said, “Science and technology are an invaluable ally in governance and the development of our country. I feel humbled by the work that scientists do.” “I want our scientists to concentrate on research, not on government procedures for getting grants. Unfortunately, investments in research are dependent on central agencies, and this has to be more broad-based. We need to put science and technology at the top of our agenda,” the Prime Minister added. In September 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke with convention by meeting with the country’s top 30 scientists and discussing the difficulties and opportunities in their fields of expertise. He urged other ministries to collaborate with the space agency on space technology applications. The science department was also involved in this activity. “We perceive a readiness to listen to difficult interministerial concerns for the first time,” argued K. Vijayraghavan, secretary of the Departments of Biotechnology and Earth Sciences. On 7 September, 2019, India awoke to grief after the Indian Space Research Organization’s moon mission Chandrayaan-2 failed to leave its imprint on the lunar surface. The soft landing of the spacecraft’s lander, Vikram, did not go as planned since it lost contact with ground stations. A video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugging an emotional ISRO chairman K Sivan went viral on social media, with netizens labelling it the “hug of a billion Indians” and heaping admiration on both. PM Modi remarked during the first “Centre-State Science Conclave” at Gujarat Science City in Ahmedabad via video conference in September 2022 that we did not celebrate the work of our scientists as much as we could have, and as a result, a big segment of our society remained indifferent to science. He urged everyone to celebrate the achievements of Indian scientists and to work together to make India a global centre of research and innovation. The list goes on, for there are umpteen number of such instances where Narendra Modi stood with science, exhibiting his scientific temper as opposed to a preconceived notion that the party he hails from is a conservative, traditionalist, and orthodox party. That PM Modi has always been a steadfast believer in making Bharat self-reliant, that science and technology can be used for public welfare and policy implementation, that our scientists are worth their salt, and that the 21st century will be India’s, has been innately and incessantly his attribute. From his RSS days and hitherto, he has always been an ardent believer of Vigyaan. The author is an independent journalist and columnist. He tweets with @pokharnaprince. Views expressed are personal.  Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .