PrintFriendlyMy dear countrymen, Namaskar. Today, the entire country is celebrating Rakshabandhan. Heartiest greetings to all fellow citizens on this auspicious occasion. The festival of Rakshabandhan symbolizes the bond of love & trust between a brother & a sister. For centuries, this festival has proved to be a shining example of social harmony.
In the nation’s history, there are innumerable accounts of this sacred thread, binding together people of distant lands, different religions, around a spindle of trust. In a few days from now, we shall celebrate the festive occasion of Janmashtami.
The whole atmosphere will reverberate to the sonorous chants & calls of ‘Hathi, Ghoda, Palki’, ‘Jai KanhaiyaLalki’ and ‘Govinda-Govinda’. It is indeed an extremely joyous experience to imbue the essence of Bhagwan Krishna & revel blissfully.
In other parts of the country, especially Maharashtra, our young friends must be busy with preparations of the ‘Dahi-Handi’…. the festive ritual of the human pyramid breaking the curd filled earthen pot. Heartiest greetings to all countrymen on the festive occasions of Rakshabandhanand Janmashtami.
My dear countrymen ! I was looking into the suggestions received for “Mann Ki Baat”.
The subject about which most of the people from across the country have written is “Our revered AtalBehari Vajpayee”. Kirti from Ghaziabad, Swati Vats from Sonepat, brother Praveen from Kerala, Dr.Swapan Banerjee from West Bengal, Akhilesh Pandey from Katihar, Bihar and numerous others have written on Narendra Modi Mobile App and MyGov asking me to speak on various aspects of Atalji’s life. As soon as the people in our country and abroad heard of the demise of Atalji on 16th August, everyone drowned in sadness.
He was a leader who gave up his position as Prime Minister fourteen years ago. In a way, he was cut-off from active politics for the last 10 years. He was neither seen in the news nor in public life. Ten years is a huge gap but on 16th August our country and the whole world witnessed that there was not a gap of even a single moment in the commonman’s heart.
The wave of love and faith that spread across the nation is an indicator of his great personality. During these last days, many great aspects of Atalji came up to the fore. People remembered him as the best member of Parliament, sensitive writer, best orator and most popular Prime Minister and will continue to remember him.
The country will ever remain grateful to Atalji for bringing good governance in the main stream. But, I just want to touch upon one more facet of Atalji’s legendary personality and that is the political culture which Atalji gave to India, his efforts in the direction of bringing about the changes in our political culture, his efforts to mould it into an organized framework and which proved very beneficial for India and a bigger benefit will accrue in days to come.
This is certain. India will remain ever grateful to Atalji for bringing the 91st Amendment Act, 2003. This change brought about two important changes in India’s politics.
No civil society can tolerate any kind of injustice towards the woman-power of the country. The nation will not tolerate those committing rapes. With this point in view Parliament has made a provision of strictest punishment by passing the Criminal Act Amendment Bill.
Those guilty of rape will get a minimum sentence of ten years and those found guilty of raping girls below the age of 12 years will be awarded the death sentence.
Recently, you might have read in newspapers, that a court in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, after a brief hearing of two months, pronounced the death sentence on two criminals found guilty of raping a minor girl.
Earlier, a court in Katni in Madhya Pradesh awarded the death sentence to the guilty after a hearing of just five days. Courts in Rajasthan have also taken similar quick decisions. This Act will play an effective role in curbing crimes against women and girls. Economic growth will be incomplete without a social transformation.
The Triple Talaq Bill has been passed by the Lok Sabha although it could not be passed in the Rajya Sabha, I assure the Muslim women that the whole country stands by them to provide them social justice.
When we move ahead in the national interest, a change in the lives of the poor, the backward, the exploited and the deprived ones can also be brought about. In the Monsoon session, this time, everyone jointly presented an ideal approach. Today, I publicly express my heartfelt gratitude to all MP’s.
All of us have seen houses and buildings being constructed of bricks and stones but can you imagine that about twelve hundred years ago, a giant mountain which was a single stone mountain was give the shape of an elegant, huge and a unique –temple –this may be difficult to imagine, but this happened and that temple is KailashNathMandir in Ellora, Mahrashtra.
Would you believe if someone tells you that about a thousand years ago, an over sixty metrestall pillar of granite was built and anothergranite rock weighing about 80 tonnes was placed over its top. But, Brihdeshwar temple of Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu is the place where this unbelievable combination of Engineering and Architecture can be seen.
Anybody will feel overawed on seeing Rani Ki Vaav of the 11th Century in Patan in Gujarat.