Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said India is rising as a force in the world and to keep pace with it we will have to attain proficiency in a number of fields including Science, technology, sports and others. He said in this process our media also forged an identity for itself. He was speaking at a function on the theme Surging India in Mumbai.

Prime Minister said four years back nobody thought that India would create a record of launching a hundred satellites in one go. And now, India is even working towards ‘Gaganyaan’. Mr Modi said, till 2014, only 55 per cent houses in the country had a gas connection and now the government is working towards finding permanent solutions & ending those practices that have held the progress back for decades.

The Prime Minister said when companies used to be unable to repay loans, nothing used to happen to them & their owners because since the start they had been given protection from probes by certain special people. He said now this has ended with the IBC Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016. At the outset, the Prime Minister paid condolences to the people who lost lives in Mumbai fire ESIC hospital.

Mr Modi is on a day long visit to Maharashtra today where he will launch various development projects. He will lay the foundation stone for two important metro corridors at a public meeting in Kalyan. Mr. Modi will also unveil the low-cost housing project to build about one lakh affordable houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana before proceeding to address a public meeting. After this event, he would proceed to Pune for laying foundation stone for Pune Metro Phase 3 project.