Independence Day is festival of every heart, says Haryana CM after hoisting flag
'This festival of independence is a festival of every person, a festival of every heart, a day of pride and glory for every Indian,' he said in his address after unfurling the national flag in Rohtak.
Addressing the gathering, the Chief Minister said, 'This time too, the whole country was painted in the colour of patriotism with Har Ghar Tiranga Abhiyan.'
'It is a matter of pride for all of us that the people of Haryana played a leading role in the freedom movement. The first spark of the revolution of 1857 broke out from Ambala Cantonment,' said the Chief Minister.
He said ex gratia for the families of soldiers martyred in the war was increased to Rs one crore. Also, jobs were given to 410 dependents of martyrs, and a decision was taken to give 10 per cent reservation in jobs to Agniveers.
'Today, we have become the fourth-largest economic power in the world. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called upon the countrymen to adopt Swadeshi. Our armies have introduced the strategic power and capability of India to the whole world with their valour and bravery," the CM said.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set the goal of making India a 'developed nation' by the 100th anniversary of Independence in 2047. In the past 10 and a half years, we have freed the people of the state from the system of discrimination. Our promises of giving jobs without any expenses, online transfer, educated panchayats and Antyodaya Abhiyan are being discussed all over the country today,' he said.
CM Saini said that out of the 217 resolutions taken during the Assembly elections, 41 have been fulfilled in the past 10 months. 'In the third term, the government has given jobs to 30,000 youth without any expenses. The future of the youth working under Haryana Kaushal Rojgar Nigam has also been secured. All 24 crops of farmers are being purchased at the minimum support price (MSP). The Backward Creamy layer income limit of the class has been increased from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh,' he said.
He said land has been given to Prajapati Samaj in 1,700 villages to run a pottery business. Also, 1,47,000 houses were constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana to provide a roof over the heads of the poor. Free dialysis service was also started for kidney treatment across the state.
The CM said till now 2,13,000 women have been made Lakhpati Didi in the state, and 100 women were given free drones and training under 'Drone Didi Yojana'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
13 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
India's journey beyond Left-wing extremism
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has witnessed an historic and unprecedented decline in Left-wing extremism (LWE). The menace of Naxalism, long a national security challenge, is now being defeated through a decisive combination of security action and all‑round development. Data shows that between 2014 and 2024, LWE‑related violence dropped by 53% and resultant casualties (amongst security forces) by 73% compared to the 2004-14 period. This remarkable achievement reflects the sustained commitment of the government's zero‑tolerance policy towards extremism alongside robust governance and outreach to affected communities. Representational image(PTI) Once the red corridor spanned around 180 districts across Central and Eastern India, by 2021 it had shrunk to just 46 districts reporting incidents, with only 25 'most affected' districts accounting for 85% of total LWE-related violence. By early 2025, that number had further diminished to only six districts--Bijapur, Kanker, Narayanpur and Sukma in Chhattisgarh, West Singhbhum in Jharkhand, and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, were classified by the home ministry as most affected. The narrative of decline is no abstraction. In Chhattisgarh over 18 months leading up to mid‑2025, over 400 Maoist cadres were neutralised, over 1,300 surrendered, and over 1,400 arrested. Earlier, in 2024, 202 cadres were eliminated, 723 surrendered and 812 arrested, during a time when nearly 14,400 km of roads were laid and close to 6,000 mobile towers established in LWE‑affected zones--a fundamental shift in connectivity and outreach. Central and State leadership has consistently emphasised a dual‐pronged approach. First, enforcement: High‑intensity security operations, technological intelligence gathering, special forces deployment, and legal measures to dismantle networks, arrest urban sympathisers, freeze funding and break organisational infrastructure. The home minister made it clear that operations ranged from drone surveillance, signal analysis, mapping courier networks, to satellite imagery backed by data analytics, equipping security forces with precise intelligence capabilities. The result has been that fatal incidents dropped from over 1 000 in 2010 to just 138 in 2023, and total violent incidents reached their lowest levels in four decades by 2022. Second, development: The government ensured 100% saturation of welfare schemes, infrastructure upgrades, compensation for victims of past deprivation, and educational and health outreach. As reported in August 2024, the government committed to full scheme implementation and bridging infrastructure gaps in remote districts, striving for total coverage by March 2025 in Chhattisgarh through collaborative campaigns and new surrender policies aimed at facilitating demobilisation of youths into mainstream society. Reports confirms that LWE is now in its final stage. Villages are turning away from extremist ideology towards development and integration with constitutional institutions. Past gaps have been fully addressed: The systematic monitoring of development works by security forces, state‑level surrender campaigns, and saturation policies have ensured not only security but trust. In many states once heavily impacted by extremism, government schemes have reached impoverished Adivasi communities who for decades remained unreached. This has undercut the ideological bait of LWE groups and replaced fear with confidence in governance. Furthermore, operations such as the elimination of senior insurgent commander Milind Teltumbde in the November 2021 Gadchiroli encounter symbolise the tactical success of the focused deployment of forces. In that operation alone, 26 Maoists were neutralised with minimal casualties on the state's side. More broadly, Maoist violence had declined by 77% between 2009 and 2021, reflecting a steady erosion of their operational capacity. Detractors may highlight debates over the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA); however, the government has maintained that strong controls are vital against extremist violence. While criticisms address low conviction rates under UAPA, the fact remains that enforcement, combined with rehabilitation and development, has dramatically degraded extremist influence in rural belts where the constitutional presence was previously absent . Facts speak more clearly than rhetoric. Deaths from extremist violence have plummeted, districts and the number of incidents have shrunk, and cadre numbers are declining rapidly due to surrenders and arrests. Where tunnels and forests once harboured insurgency in the red corridor, roads, communications, and social services now flourish, painting these regions green with governance and opportunity. LWE is no longer a viable threat to India's internal security or democratic framework. Their eradication is a tangible outcome, not a political slogan. As India marches forward towards the March 2026 elimination target, it becomes ever clearer that development, intelligence‑driven enforcement and central‑state synergy have together rendered LWE a spent force in the country's national narrative. This article is authored by Prabal Pratap Singh Judev, state vice president, BJP, Chhattisgarh.
News18
14 minutes ago
- News18
Trump Zelensky Meeting PM Narendra Modi Speaks With Russian President Valdimir Putin
Trump Zelensky Meeting | PM Narendra Modi Speaks With Russian President Valdimir Putin | News81 Last Updated: India Videos Prime Minister Modi's recent phone call with President Putin highlights India's pivotal role in seeking a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict. As tensions rise, Modi emphasizes dialogue while navigating U.S. sanctions impacting Indian oil imports. n18oc_india News18 Mobile App -
Hindustan Times
14 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
India: Improving learning outcomes is possible at scale
Education lights every stage of the journey to a better life. It is essential for individual potential, economic growth, and social development. Education (HT) However, all too often, efforts to provide education give children the opportunity to go to school but don't guarantee learning. For example, across 10 low- and middle-income countries, only half of women who had completed primary school had achieved basic literacy. The World Bank estimates that 70% of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries cannot read or understand an age-appropriate text. Though worse in these countries, ensuring children gain foundational skills to succeed in school and life is a universal challenge. In the UK, we watched with alarm as our position in the international PISA rankings for 15-year-olds' reading plummeted from 7th in 2000 to 17th by 2006 to 25th by 2009. What was happening in our schools? As an opposition MP and our Party's education spokesperson, I ventured to find out. From 2005 to 2010, I visited schools weekly and spoke with teachers, experts, and academics, uncovering a deep ideological battle over how children are taught to read. The so-called 'Reading Wars' began in the US in the 1950s with the book 'Why Johnny Can't Read' (1955). It blamed declining reading standards on new teaching methods that no longer taught the sounds of the alphabet and how to blend those sounds into words. This was known as phonics and was claimed to be a boring way to teach children to read; better, some said, to teach children to identify words on sight and by cues, such as the story or grammar context or even by looking at the picture. The only problem with this approach is that it didn't work for thousands of children and there was no evidence that such methods helped children learn to read. Once we came into government in 2010, and I became schools minister, we changed the law to require teachers to teach reading using systematic phonics. We also changed the teachers' standards, so all primary teachers had to be able to teach systematic synthetic phonics. We introduced a test for all 6-year-olds, the phonics screening check, to ensure schools were teaching decoding and 'sounding out'. It also helped identify early those children struggling with reading. Gradually, reading rates improved and more students, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, became better readers. England rose from joint 8th in 2016 for 9-year-olds' reading to 4th in the world in 2021. Outperformed only by Russia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, England became known as 'best in the West'. And in the PISA study of 15-year-olds' reading, England has now risen to 13th. What we achieved in England demonstrates that implementing improvements in foundational skills at scale is perfectly possible. And India provides another example. According to its National Education Policy 2020, over 50 million elementary-grade children lack foundational literacy and numeracy skills. The Indian government responded by making foundational literacy and numeracy its top education priority and launched the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN) Bharat Mission. It is one of the largest foundational education programmes in the world, reaching over 50 million children and 1.7 million teachers across more than 600,000 schools, backed by over $290 million annually. The latest Annual Status of Education (ASER) report, covering nearly 650,000 children across 605 rural districts—the highest-ever participation—shows the share of Grade 3 children who can read a Grade 2-level text rose from 16.3% in 2022 to 23.4% in 2024. The proportion of Grade 3 pupils in government schools able to solve a basic subtraction problem climbed from 25.9% to 33.7% over the same period, recording the highest gains in two decades. Regional results are equally strong. For example, Uttar Pradesh's government schools raised reading levels by 15 points, from 12.3% in 2018 to 27.9% in 2024, and numeracy proficiency grew from 26.9% to 40.7%. India's experience holds many lessons, especially for low and middle-income countries grappling with entrenched educational inequities and post-pandemic learning losses, but I want to highlight two. First, since its launch in 2021, the NIPUN Bharat Mission has been backed by clear national and state-level targets, dedicated budgets, and routine public tracking of progress. Accountability measures such as Uttar Pradesh's NIPUN Bharat Monitoring Centre enable local officials to review data and trigger remedial action when needed. Second, the Mission trains teachers in evidence-based practices to teach literacy and numeracy, including phonics and decoding for reading. This mirrors the reform we implemented in England and has shown significant results, with over 1.7 million teachers trained--a scale without precedent. These are promising results, but there is more to do, and it is critical that India stays the course. An extension beyond its 2026–27 deadline would allow the Mission to broaden its reach, embed reforms into routine practice, and generate more sustained, system-wide change--turning early momentum into lasting transformation. As we've seen in England, policy grounded in evidence, backed by political will, and delivered consistently at scale can change lives. India's NIPUN Bharat Mission is proof of that and deserves both renewal and the time to finish the job. This article is authored by Sir Nick Gibb, former minister of state, department of education, UK, and co-author of a forthcoming book 'Reforming Lessons' published by Routledge.
