Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday stressed that the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) facility played a significant role in India’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, even as several prosperous countries faced problems.
“If there was no UPI, can someone tell me how we would have fought the battle of Covid? Even the rich countries could not provide money to their people despite having sufficient funds. We gave it easily to the needy,” PM Modi said in an interview with IANS.
“Today, we can send money to 11 crore farmers within 30 seconds. Now, UPI is user-friendly because of talented youth who create such world-class products that any common person can use,” he added.
PM Modi further stated that driven by digital public infrastructure (DPI) models like UPI, India is now “leading the global fintech ecosystem”.
He stated that because of UPI, “several countries are ready to embrace UPI because this is the era of fintech and India is now leading the fintech ecosystem”.
The prime minister recalled that when he started the ‘Digital India’ movement, opposition parties alleged that it was being done to serve the needs of the service providers.
“They could not understand how big this area is and the 21st century is a technology-driven century. Moreover, technology today is driven by artificial intelligence (AI),” he said.
G20 Presidency Established India’s Image In World: PM Modi
PM Modi also talked about India’s G-20 presidency last year and said it contributed massively to making India ‘world-ready’ and the world ‘India-ready’. India’s G20 presidency marked a significant milestone in its global leadership role, he said.
“We held G20 meetings all over the country because the world should know that India is not just only about Delhi. It is also not enough for my country’s tourism industry if people just visit the Taj Mahal. My country has massive potential which needs to be known and understood. We used the G20 as an opportunity to establish India’s image in the world,” PM Modi told IANS.
India’s message of ‘one earth, one family, one future’, drawn on an age-old belief of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, was delivered strongly during its one-year G20 presidency which concluded in November last year.
As many as 20 member states, nine invitee nations, and 14 international organisations participated in the 220 G20 meetings that took place in over 60 cities of India held in every state and Union Territory of the country.
While previous G20 meetings have generally been limited to the capital of the country or spread to a couple of other cities, India hosted G20 events keeping in line with Prime Minister Modi’s vision of having a pan-Indian event right to the grassroots level.
The government led by PM Modi also looked at the G20 as an opportunity to highlight and showcase India’s rich cultural heritage and diversity besides the country’s tourism potential by hosting over 300 cultural events with the participation of over 18,000 cultural artists and experts.
“We were highly successful in creating curiosity about India among the world community. More than one lakh policy-makers from the entire world attended over 200 G20 meetings and explored first-hand different places of India, most of which they had not even heard of before. They also correlated things with their own country and kept on talking about India after returning home. I am seeing that the tourist flow has increased enormously after India held the G20 Summit,” PM Modi told IANS.
Explore in-depth coverage of Lok Sabha Election 2024 Voter Turnout, Upcoming Phase, Results Date, Exit Poll And Much More At News18 Website
Comments
0 comment