'Yuva Shakti will make India developed': PM Modi in Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue 2025

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to the Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue 2025 at Bharat Mandapam on National Youth Day, commemorating the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, expressed his faith that India's Yuva Shakti would make the country a developed nation. He also interacted with the participants.

The event began with a grand inaugural session attended by Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister of State for Youth Affairs & Sports Raksha Khadse, and other renowned figures.

Addressing the Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue 2025, PM Modi expressed his belief that India's youth power would make the country a developed nation. He acknowledged that while data analysts might have considered it impossible, he recognized it as a huge target but not an impossible one.

"I have faith that India's Yuva Shakti will make India a developed nation... People who calculate data may think that it is impossible I know that it is a huge target but not impossible..." PM Modi said.

PM Modi in his opening remark said, "... Today the whole country is remembering Swami Vivekananda ji, and saluting him. Swami Vivekananda had great faith in the youth of the country. Swami ji used to say that I have faith in the young generation, in the new generation. Swami ji used to say, my workers will come from the young generation ... Just like Vivekananda ji had faith in you, I have faith in Vivekananda ji. I have faith in everything he said. Whatever he has thought and said for the youth of India, I have blind faith in it..."

"Setting and achieving big goals is not just the work of any one government machinery, it is a must that every citizen of the country joins it... Lakhs of people have joined it. The ownership of the 'Viksit Bharat' is not just mine but yours too..." PM Modi said.

"Big targets have to be set for a country to march forward... This is what today's India is doing," Modi said, adding that the country is accomplishing numerous goals in different sectors ahead of time.

India has set the target of 20 per cent ethanol blending in petrol by 2030 and will meet the goal before that, he said.

The prime minister added that the government alone cannot drive the country forward and told youngsters drawn from across the country that the ownership in 'Viksit Bharat' is not Modi's alone but also of them.

Their ideas will be part of the country's policies and give it direction, he said.

Achieving ambitious goals requires the active participation and collective effort of every citizen of the nation, he added.

The prime minister cited the rise of the USA following its economic crisis in the 1930s and Singapore's rise from a backward region lacking basic facilities to a major economic power to stress the need for setting big goals and sincerely working towards them.

He noted how India became an open defecation-free country, manufactured Covid vaccines and inoculated its population against the virus.

Asserting that the 25 years till 2047 are India's golden period (Amrit Kaal), Modi said he has full confidence that the young population will realise the dream of 'Viksit Bharat'.

This is the time for a quantum jump, he said.

The Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue aims to break the 25-year-old tradition of holding the National Youth Festival conventionally. It aligns with the Prime Minister's Independence Day call to engage 1 lakh youth in politics without political affiliations and provide them with a national platform to turn their ideas for a Viksit Bharat into reality.

(with agency inputs)