Delivering her sixth Budget speech in the Parliament on Thursday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, "PM Lal Bahadur Shastri gave the slogan of 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan', PM (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee made that 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Jai Vigyan'. PM (Narendra) Modi has furthered that to 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Jai Vigyan and Jai Anusandhan', as innovation is the foundation of development. For our tech-savvy youth, this will be a golden era. A corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore will be established with 50-year interest-free loan provided." But what is Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan? In a radio address in 1965, when India was reeling from the effects of economic stagnation and lack of growth, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave the slogan of 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan' (hail the soldier, hail the farmer). He urged the farmer to produce more, the trader to market supplies at fair prices, and the consumer to exercise greater restraint on consumption, towards the greater goal of reducing dependence on food imports. Jai Vigyan added to Shastri's slogan in 1998 On the iconic day of May 11, 1998, which is when India started observing National Technology Day, three very special technological advances were showcased by India’s scientists and engineers — Operation Shakti, also known widely as Pokhran-II nuclear tests; the successful test firing of Trishul missile; and the first test flight of the indigenously developed aircraft Hansa. The euphoria of demonstrations of these technologies was such that the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee added ‘Jai Vigyan’ (Hail Science) to Shastri’s ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’. Speaking at the Pokhran field firing range on the day of Operation Shakti, Vajpayee commended the feat achieved by the scientists, engineers and armymen through teamwork that resulted in the successful conduct of the tests. PM Modi adds Jai Anusandhan to vision of India's future Prime Minister Narendra Modi's focus on research and innovation had expanded former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri's slogan of Jai Jawan Jai Kisan to include Jai Anusandhan (hail research), Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech on Thursday. In the interim Budget, Sitharaman announced a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore which will be used to provide funding to long-term projects at low or nil interest rates. This, she said, will encourage the private sector to ramp up research. "We need to have programmes that combine the powers of our youth and technology,” she said. The slogan was first raised by Modi in January 2019 while imploring scientists to formulate an action plan to boost research in colleges and state universities. He urged Indian scientists to focus on agriculture, particularly drought, cyclones and farmers with small land holdings. Modi was delivering the inaugural address at the 106th session of the Indian Science Congress at the Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Phagwara. The PM said that research was the only way to make India a world leader. He also raised the slogan outside the HAL airport in Bengaluru in August last year when he arrived to congratulate ISRO scientists on the success of the Chandrayaan-3 Mission. #WATCH | Karnataka | Prime Minister Narendra Modi raises the slogan 'Jai Vigyan Jai Anusandhan' outside HAL airport in Bengaluru. PM Modi will shortly meet scientists of the ISRO team involved in Chandrayaan-3 Mission. pic.twitter.com/1FHiz9or4h — ANI (@ANI) August 26, 2023
