Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad   

Modi sees India as a world leader in 21st Century

HYDERABAD, JAN. 10. The Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, on Saturday asserted that the 21st Century would see India catapulting itself into being a world leader specially with the focus on development of Information Technology (IT) and Biotechnology (BT).

He was addressing an impressive gathering of Gujaratis at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, where the Hyderabad-Secunderabad Gujarati Samaj had organised a felicitation in his honour.

In a 35-minute speech, which saw him speak in Gujarati for almost 25 minutes, before acceding to a request and switching over to Hindi, he spoke of how Gujarat had virtually bounced back, after the devastating earthquake. "It will take any society at least seven years to even sit up from the devastation, but Gujarat has sat, stood up and even started walking forward, all in just three years," he said, to applause.

He spoke extensively of the development strides Gujarat had achieved and recalled that they had laid 600 km of pipelines in just 900 days for a water project. "Gujarat is the only State where Narmada water flows into the Sabarmati River," he said. He spoke of `Jyotigram Yojana', giving 24-hour, three-phase power supply to villages, and said that by end of March, 2,000 villages would be covered under the scheme.

In what was a `dig' against Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Modi said while it was generally considered that Gujarat was `backward' in IT, it was not so. "We are only lagging behind in marketing IT in our State. The 40,000 km-long State Wide Area Network in Gujarat is number one in Asia," he said.

Earlier, the Maharajgunj MLA, Premsingh Rathod, presented a turban and offered a gleaming sword as a symbol of the BJP's strength. Mr. Modi obliged him by holding the sword aloft.

Those who participated in the felicitations included Gopaldas Shah, the Samaj president, Niranjan Chawla, the BJP Begum Bazar division president and others.

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