In 108th episode of Mann Ki Baat, PM Modi reflects on year gone by

In 108th episode of Mann Ki Baat on December 31, Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared his best wishes with the Indian masses for 2024.

Reflecting on the year gone by, Mr. Modi said, “In this very year, ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Act’, which has been awaited for years was passed. The record business on Diwali proved that every Indian is giving importance to the mantra of ‘Vocal For Local’.”

Mr. Modi recollected that 2023 marked the success of Chadrayaan-3, the catchy song Natu-Natu and The Elephant Whisperers won the Oscars, “Through them the world saw the creativity of India and understood our bonding with the environment,” Mr. Modi said.

“Our players won 107 medals in Asian Games and 111 medals in Asian Para Games. Indian players won everyone’s heart with their performance in the Cricket World Cup,” he further added.

“The victory of our women’s cricket team in the Under-19 T-20 World Cup is very inspiring. Now Paris Olympics will be held in 2024, for which the whole country is encouraging her players,” Mr. Modi said.

“In 2015 we were ranked 81st in the Global Innovation Index – today our rank is 40th. This year, the number of patents filed in India was high, of which about 60% were from domestic funds. This time the highest number of Indian universities have been included in the QS Asia University Rankings,” he added.

Mr. Modi spoke about an experiment in which he publicly used the AI tool Bhashini when he addressed the stage in Hindi in Kashi, and Bhashini tool helped translate the address live in Tamil simultaneously.

“The day is not far when an address will be delivered in one language and the public will listen to the same speech in their own language in real time. The same will happen with films also when the public will listen to Real Time Translation with the help of AI in the cinema hall. You can imagine how big a change would take place when this technology starts being widely used in our schools, our hospitals, our courts. I would urge today’s young generation to further explore AI tools related to Real Time Translation and make them 100% fool proof,” Mr. Modi said.

Mr. Modi also lauded unique initiative of a tribal school in Jharkhand to provide education to its children in their mother tongue. “Children are being imparted education in Kudukh language in Manglo village of Garhwa district. The name of this school is, ‘Karthik Oraon Aadivasi Kudukh School’. 300 tribal children study in this school,” Mr. Modi said.

“Kudukh language is the mother tongue of the Oraon tribal community. Kudukh language also has its own script, which is known as Tolang Siki,” he added.

Arvind Oraon, who started this school, says that the tribal children had difficulty in English language, so he started teaching the village children in their mother tongue. When his efforts started yielding better results, the villagers also joined him. On account of studies in their own language, the pace of children’s learning also increased.