Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it was the strength of 1.25 billion Indians that had powered the big decisions taken by his government in the first 75-days of re-election amidst chants of “Modi hai to Mumkin hai”during his address to the Indian diaspora at the UNESCO headquarters in Parison Friday..

He listed criminalizing the practice of “Triple Talaq” and indirectly referred to removal of the “temporary” provision of Article 370 that had granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir along with several otherwelfare schemes among the “big” decisions taken by his government.

“Triple Talaq, was an inhuman practice, we have ended thepractice that hung like a sword over hundreds of thousands of Muslim women foryears,” he said, adding that his government had set some goals for the countrythat were considered “impossible to achieve earlier”. He listed the “recordnumber of new bank accounts” and the beneficiaries under PM’s Central healthscheme as some important milestones.

“We have showed red card to several evil social practices inthe last five years,” he said and added “In new India, the way in which actionis being taken against corruption, nepotism, loot of people’s money, terrorism,this has never happened before.” There was no place for temporary in India,” hesaid in a veiled reference to his government’s decision to abrogate Article 370that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. “It took us 70-years toremove temporary,” said the Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, the mandate given to himin 2019 elections was “not just to run India but to create a new India”, addingthat the country had seen “several positive developments in the last five-yearsduring which the youth, women, farmers and the poor were put at the centre of government’s programmes.” He also said that several studies had confirmed rapideradication of poverty in India.The Prime Minister, who is on day long visit toFrance, said India-France ties were beyond friendship. There was no single platform in the world where the two countries had not worked together. So, Idevote this day to India-France relations,” he said.

He said India and France partnership could be summed up bycombining words “IN” (for India) with “FRA” (for France) to create “INFRA”.INFRA, he said, represented the joint efforts between the two nations in thefield of “Solar Infra”, “Technical Infra” and “Space Infra” among others.