Taking a jibe at previous governments for continuing with two Constitutions in one country — a reference to the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir — Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday called them “tubelight” and mentioned that the situation was corrected after 70 years. Addressing the Indian community in Berlin, Modi said, “Desh ek thhe, samvidhan do thhe.. Kyun itni der lagi. Purane zamane mein kehte thhe tubelight (It is one country, but there were two Constitutions…. Why did it take so long? Earlier, this was called tubelight).” “Saat dashak ho gaye ek desh, ek samvidhan lagu karte karte. Ab laagu hua hai doston (it has taken seven decades to have a single Constitution for the entire country…it has been implemented now),” he said. Modi was referring to abrogation of special status granted under Article 370 to J&K. During his hour-long speech, Modi recounted achievements by his government: from growth in the number of start-ups to high volumes of direct benefit transfer, record GST collections, sending vaccines and medicines to abroad, facilitation for Indian entrepreneurs, abolition of archaic laws and the pitch for local products. “This is naya (new) Bharat; this is the strength of naya Bharat,” he said, calling it “aspirational India”. He also called upon the Indian community to invest in Indian infrastructure in their hometowns and villages of India, celebrate Yoga Day, and popularise India-made products in foreign land. In a separate event on Monday, Modi highlighted reforms undertaken by his government as he interacted with Indian and German business leaders, urging them to invest in India's youth. Modi, who reached Berlin on Monday morning on the first leg of his three-nation Europe trip, co-chaired a business round table with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. "Prime Minister emphasised on the broad-based reforms carried out by the government and highlighted the growing numbers of start-ups and unicorns in India," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a press release. He invited business leaders to invest in India's youth. The event saw participation of top representatives from the governments and selected CEOs from both sides, who engaged in discussions on topics ranging from climate cooperation, supply chains, research and development. The Indian business delegation was led by Sanjiv Bajaj, and included Baba N Kalyani, C K Birla, Puneet Chhatwal, Salil Singhal, Sumant Sinha, Dinesh Khara, C P Gurnani and Deepak Bagla. The German business delegation included representatives of Siemens, BASF, Bosch, Volkswagen, GFT Technologies Schaeffler and Deutsche Bank. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar too participated in the meeting.
