While addressing an event on making India self-reliant in defence sector through video conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that government aims to increase defence manufacturing in India

“For many years, India has been one of the biggest defence importers. When India got independence, it had great capability in defence manufacturing and an ecosystem of defence manufacturing established over 100 years. Unfortunately, this subject couldn’t get requisite attention,” the prime minister said at Atmanirbhar Bharat Defence Industry Outreach Webinar.

The prime minister further said that a decision has been taken to permit up to 74% FDI (foreign direct investment) in the defence manufacturing through automatic route.

“Efforts being made to boost defence production, develop new technology and give big role to private players in defence sector,” PM Modi said.

Import embargo on certain defence equipment aimed at giving boost to Indian defence industry, the prime minister said.

“We also saw labour reforms recently; reform exercise not going to stop now,” PM Modi said at the webinar. “Our resolve for ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ not inward-looking, but for making India capable and boosting global peace and economy.”

What Is AatmaNirbhar Bharat ?

Aatma = self, nirbhar = reliance, aatma nirbhar = self reliance. Self reliance is the backbone of any country and its development. No country in today’s world is totally self-reliant as it does not produce everything that the country needs for its citizens or its industries or economic activities. And because of this most countries have to import something or the other by way of material, energy or labour. India has most foodstuffs, raw materials and labour but does not have adequate energy or crude oil that run factories and means of transport. So we have to import from the oil producing nations. What the pm meant by self-reliance is that what we do not produce adequately, we must produce enough so that we do not have any shortfalls or we can even export to other countries and earn forex and become exporters too. And what we do not have, let us look at avenues to produce these or get it from some other sources instead of depending on just a few who may dictate terms to us. Running a country is like running one’s immediate family or a business.

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