One billion hungry stomachs to 2 billion skilled hands: PM hails India’s progress

New Delhi: A week before he hosts world leaders at the G20 summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asserted that the 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas' model can be the guiding principle for the welfare of a world shifting from a “GDP-centric approach” to a “human-centric one”.

“Irrespective of the size of the GDP, every voice matters,” Modi told PTI in an exclusive interview conducted late last week at his Lok Kalyan Marg residence.

US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Saudi Arabia’s King Mohammed bin Salman and other leaders will gather at the newly-constructed Bharat Mandapam conference hall on September 9-10 for the pre-eminent annual meeting of 19 developing and developed countries and the European Union.

“Many positive impacts are coming out of India’s G20 Presidency. Some of them are very close to my heart,” Modi said in the 80-minute interview, focused on G20 and related issues, with PTI’s Editor-in-Chief Vijay Joshi.

The prime minister also said that for a long time, India was perceived as a nation of over 1 billion hungry stomachs but now it is seen as a nation of more than 2 billion skilled hands.

"For a long time, India was perceived as a nation of over 1 billion hungry stomachs. But now, India is being seen as a nation of over 1 billion aspirational minds, more than 2 billion skilled hands, and hundreds of millions of young people." G20 accounts for 85 per cent of global GDP, 75 per cent of international trade and 65 per cent of the world population.

India took over the G20 presidency from Indonesia last December, and will hand the baton to Brazil at the end of the year.