Sabka Saath: PM Narendra Modi's I-Day greetings in all regional languages

Mumbai: Sending a signal across the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day greetings has been translated in all Indian languages and put up on the Press Information Bureau (PIB) site. This is a deviation from the usual practice of PIB putting up the Prime Minister's speech on its site only in English and Hindi.

For a senior BJP leader, the move to translate Modi's greetings in all languages is a clear sign that the Prime Minister "wants to interact with all across the country". The last line of the PM's greetings makes this clearly evident as he says: "I assure you that I will keep communicating with you regularly. Once again my greetings on Independence Day!"

Besides Hindi, his greetings has been translated in Urdu, Bengali, Telegu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Konkani, Kashmiri, Odiya, Digri, Assamese, Mizo, Nepali, Punjabi, Marathi and Gujarati.

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While delivering his first Independence Day speech, Modi emphasised the need for better governance but announced none of the sweeping market reforms that many who handed him India's biggest election mandate in three decades have been awaiting. In his speech, Modi spoke of the need to strengthen the manufacturing sector and appealed repeatedly to investors: "Come, make in India".

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He also spoke about violence against women, saying his head hung in shame to see incidents of rape and sexual assault continuing unabated since the world was stunned by the gangrape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi in 2012.

He said that while the law would take its course, Indian society must be raising sons in the best possible manner.

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"After all, a person who is raping is somebody's son. As parents have we asked our sons where he is going? We need to take responsibility to bring our sons who have deviated from the right path, to bring them back."

He also urged an end to caste and communal violence, drawing a critical response from his political opponents who have accused his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of inciting social tensions for electoral gain.