Union Minister for Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu here on Sunday called upon the Indian youth going abroad to “Learn, Earn and Return” to serve the mother land as there are enough opportunities now.
Launching a book “Pravasa Bharati” here, Venkaiah Naidu said if Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi’s mission was liberation of India from foreign yoke, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mission is ‘Resurgent India’. The Prime Minister has travelled over 32 countries and met over 100 world leaders. “The Prime Minister speaks to them, he goes prepared knowing their problems, he listens to them, he listens to their pain and once he returns to India, he resolves to resolve these problems”, Venkaiah added. He also said the present government’s Foreign policy is the best enhancing India’s profile as Neighborhood First is the heart of its foreign policy.
The Union minister recalled that in the year 2003, under the leadership of then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajapyee, a decision was taken to celebrate January 9 as Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. The reason behind this was that on this day in 1915 Mahatma Gandhi had returned to India from South Africa. He pointed out that Indian diaspora spread to all corners of the globe. Pravasa Bharathiyas estimated to be about 30 million occupy key positions in many countries. Once considered a brain drain in short sight, are now the brain resource and can be called brain bank of India, he added.
Venkaiah Naidu pointed out there are many inspirational Indian CEOs heading global corporations like Sundar Pichai CEO of Google; Satya Nadella became the third CEO of Microsoft.(Andhra); Indra Nooyi is the chairperson and chief executive officer of Pepsico, Shantanu Narayen CEO of Adobe, Ajay Banga CEO of MasterCard, Francisco D’Souza CEO of Cognizant. Anshuman Jain Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank and Rajeev Suri, CEO of Nokia are some of them.
“India was known across the world as ‘Viswaguru’ for centuries for its diverse, rich and profound knowledge. India was a centre of excellence not only for religious, spiritual studies and philosophy but also for medicine, astronomy, mathematics as well. We in India are excited about Pravasa Bharathiya’s success stories in far off countries and the rich contributions for enrichment and betterment of adopted countries.
The Union minister also spoke about various programs of the Centre like three flagship government programs — Make in India, Skill India and Digital India. Besides, there are three programs — Swasth Vidyalaya which is healthy school, Swachh Bharat which is Clean India, and Namami Gange which is Clean Ganga Campaign.
The book “Pravasa Bharati” is a compendium of articles written by Dr Raghavendra Prasad, who lived about five decades in the USA, worked in leadership roles in various capacities in addition to being a Geriatrician of excellence. He also authored eight books on spirituality and its social community relevance. The book contains 69 articles that ranged from Defining Bharatiyata, Rural Health Access, Tourism, Corruption Prevention, Accident Prevention, Pollution free commuting, Bipartisanship in politics etc. (NSS)