Baghpat (Uttar Pradesh), May 27: Launching a stinging attack on the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused it of "spreading lies for political gains" and said those worshipping a single family cannot respect democracy.
Asking the people of the country to weigh their options, he, in a reference to the Congress, said that on the other side are those for whom their family is their country, while for him, the country is his family.
Terming the opposition party anti-poor and anti-Dalit, Modi said: "Whenever we announce any programme for upliftment of the backward classes, the Congress either stalls them, or it makes fun of such programs."
"They find development a joke... sanitation, building toilets for women, opening bank accounts for women a joke... Only those with anti-poor mentality can find jokes in all these issues," Modi said after inaugurating the 135-km Eastern Peripheral Expressway here.
The public rally was organized a day before the by-election in the neighboring Kairana Lok Sabha constituency.
Accusing the Congress of lying for its political gains even in the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister said the party doesn't realize its creating instability in the country.
"Now they are spreading a new lie among the farmers that if they give their land on contract farming, the government will charge them 18 per cent GST. The party which did not learn from their defeat in elections is spreading lies and misleading the farmers."
He urged the farmers not to believe in "their lies and instead complain against those who are spreading them". "They will face the full force of the law," he added.
Modi said those who worship one family cannot respect democracy. "I never expected that while opposing Modi, they will start opposing the nation."
He also accused the Congress of raising doubts when India conducted a surgical strike into Pakistan territory.
"When they were in power, various agencies released growth figures. Now when the same agencies release figures showing the growth we have achieved, they doubt those agencies," he said.
Modi said his government had done more work in the last four years than what the previous UPA governments did in ten years.
"Four years ago, we used to build 12 km of road per day, but now we are building 27 km. During four years of UPA government, they could connect only 59 panchayats with optical fibre but in the last four years, we connected over one lakh villages.
"We also promoted manufacturing in India through 'Make in India' programme and while before our government, only two factories manufactured mobile phones in India, now 120 factories are doing it. Many of them are in NCR (National Capital Region)."
Modi said while the opposition was indulging in populist politics, his party was doing welfare politics.
"Those with selfish motives shed crocodile tears for Dalit’s. They indulge in populist politics. But those who truly think of the interests of people, they do welfare politics."
The Prime Minister said his government had not only worked towards creating opportunities for Dalit’s in the last four years but also to provide security and justice to them.
"We are setting up special courts for expeditious hearing of cases of atrocities against Dalit’s. We also decided to set up a commission to divide backward classes into sub-categories so those who are extremely backward get more benefits from reservations in government jobs and educational institutions.
"The truth is that whenever we work for poor, Dalit’s and backward classes, Congress and its allies either create obstacles or make fun of the initiatives," he said.
Earlier, Modi inaugurated the Eastern Peripheral Expressway which will connect Palwal with Kundli in Haryana and reduce travel time between the two from over four hours to 72 minutes.
He also inaugurated the first nine-kilometer stretch of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway.
Modi said the two roads will significantly reduce pollution and traffic jams in Delhi as 30 per cent of the vehicles entering Delhi will be diverted.
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Chandigarh (PTI): A democracy does not invest in higher education so that its graduates may simply prosper, it does so to ensure that they govern themselves well, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said on Saturday.
"Every institution of public life -- the courts, the civil services, the schools, the hospitals, the local governance bodies -- all depend for their quality on the calibre of the people who choose to serve within them," the CJI said while addressing the 12th convocation ceremony of the Central University of Haryana in Mahendragarh.
Justice Kant said in barely 17 years, the university has earned national accreditation and recognition for its swift growth.
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He told the gathering of students that the degrees conferred on them certify the knowledge they have acquired and they should be proud of it but at the same time, he emphasised that "what your degree does not certify, and no examination can measure -- how your character and judgment hold up once the structure of formal education is no longer around you. In my experience, this ultimately determines the trajectory of life".
The CJI said there are graduates of the most-celebrated institutions who have faltered under pressure, not because they lacked knowledge but because they were never tested by anything other than a school or college examination.
"And then there are professionals from institutions nobody has heard of, who rise with composure and seriousness, earning the confidence of every room they enter," he said.
So what is the distinguishing factor then, he asked the students.
"In my view, it has nothing to do with the talent one may display in the classroom and almost everything to do with upbringing.
"Those who grew up observing their families manage scarcity with dignity, who understood early on that the world does not rearrange itself for your convenience and who entered professional life already knowing that hard work is not just a phase but a permanent state, they carried something that no curriculum can teach. They carried a seriousness that was not performative but genuine," Justice Kant said.
Many of the students present on the occasion carry exactly this formation, he said.
"You grew up in homes where a university degree was not a given but a goal that the entire family organised itself around. The investment by your families was not made so that you could merely earn a comfortable living.
"It was made because they believed, even if they could not always articulate it, that an educated daughter or son would use what they learned to build something beyond themselves," the CJI said.
This belief is the bridge between "what your upbringing gave you and what the world is now entitled to expect from you", he told the students.
The CJI said it is often discussed what education provides to an individual.
It opens doors, boosts earning potential and enhances mobility, he said, adding that however, there is a fundamental question that a congregation at a central university should address.
"What does your education owe to the society that funded it? The resources that build these classrooms, the resources that paid your faculty and the resources that maintained the laboratories where you trained came from the public exchequer. Which means they were derived from citizens' earnings and taxes, many of whom will never set foot in a university themselves," he said.
"This fact creates an obligation. Not a sentimental one, but a structural one. A democracy does not invest in higher education so that its graduates may simply prosper. It invests so that they may govern themselves well...," Justice Kant said.
In the Ramayana, when Bharat was handed the throne of Ayodhya by his father's own decree, he chose to place Ram's "paduka" on the seat of power and govern from Nandigram as a trustee, not as a sovereign, he pointed out.
"This distinction between holding authority for yourself and holding it on behalf of others is what your obligation towards the public means," the CJI said.
He told the students that "wherever your careers take you, carry with you the awareness that our collective life depends on whether educated people choose to engage with the systems around them or simply benefit from them".
Giving the example of a "raider" in a Kabaddi game, the CJI told the students, "Watch the finest raiders carefully.... Their greatness is not in the distance they cover, but in the precision with which they judge the line between ambition and overreach.".
He told the students that as they advance in their chosen careers, they must carry the discipline their families have imparted, the endurance that this landscape has taught them and the straightforwardness that Haryana is known for.
