Mann Ki Baat Says Indian goods, especially khadi, popular worldwideOpt for local products during festival shopping: PM Modi

Tribune News Service

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New Delhi, October 25

With the country entering into the festival season, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today reminded the people to patronise local products, remember all those who served during the lockdown and light a lamp in solidarity with the soldiers who are guarding the frontiers in service of the motherland.

“When we talk about festivals and make preparations for them, the first thought that strikes us is when to go to the market, what all has to be purchased… this time when you go shopping, do remember our ‘Vocal for Local’ resolve. While purchasing items from the market, we have to accord priority to local products,” PM Modi said in his monthly “Mann ki Baat”.

Recalling the lockdown times, he said it was during the period that people came to know members of the society like sanitation workers, domestic helps, local daily needs vendors, security guards without whose services life would have been miserable. He urged people to take these people along during the festivities and treat them as members of own family.

At the same time, he said, “Citizens must also think of brave heart soldiers who are stationed on the borders in the line of duty, even during these festive times.”

“We have to celebrate our festivals bearing them in mind. I would also like to assure our brave soldiers that despite they being away at the borders, the entire country is with them, wishing well for them. I also salute the sacrifice of those families, whose sons and daughters are on the border today. I express gratitude to each and every person who is away from home and family on account of discharging duty to the country in one way or the other,” he added.

“The world is taking note of India’s products,” he said, citing the example of rising popularity of khadi.

PM Modi talked about khadi being popularised in Mexico’s Oaxaca by a person named Mark Brown, who has made it a brand there.

Highlighting the growing popularity of khadi, he said khadi masks had become popular during Covid-19 times and that on Gandhi Jayanti, the khadi store in Delhi’s Connaught Place had witnessed purchases of over Rs 1 crore on October 2.

Interspersing his address with brief chats, PM Modi touched upon various initiatives like popularising book reading by enterprising people or how Manzoor Ahmed Alai, an entrepreneur in Pulwama, became one of the largest suppliers of pencil slats in the country.

He also talked about indigenous sports and pointed to the growing popularity of Mallakhambh, a traditional Indian exercise module on a pole, in the US, Germany, Poland and Malaysia. The PM hailed several initiatives of people running mobile libraries in states like UP and Arunachal Pradesh.