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Ask A Question To Shri Narendra Modi
Submit a written or video question to Narendra Modi. Selected questions will be answered directly by Narendra Modi and posted in written or video format on this website.
Your Trust - Motivation for Us, Inspiration for All
Respected CM Sir,Thank you so much for supporting me and my question regarding the hukka-bar in Ahmedabad and solving it so quickly. We´re convinced that you believe in action and not just talks. Gujarat should get a CM like you again and again..
- Deepa Shah, Ahmedabad
Respected Sir,You have resolved two complains made by me one about the roads and footpaths of Maninagar and another about the Jamalpur bridge. Thats why I thought of putting a mail across to you about the increasing traffic congestion at Ahmedabad. I feel that your vision along with public opinion will be very helpful in maintaining the peace of Ahmedabad and prevent overcrowding and congestion..
- Dr. Dhaval Panchal, Ahmedabad
First of all, please allow me to thank you for your extremely prompt response from the office of the Chief Minister! I have never ever seen in my lifespan for 73 years, a prompt response such as this from a bureaucratic office. I am very much impressed and thankful to you. Even our White House takes a week or two to respond. I only hear promptly from my friends. Shree Modiji has been the most successful Chief Minister in India. I hope one day India (Indians) get wisdom and give him an opportunity to become the Prime Minister of India. He is the only one in India who can drive his horse ahead of China and provide leadership to the world..
- Dr. Dayal T. Meshri, USA
Many questions are common, and may have already been answered by Narendra Modi. See if your question has been asked by searching previous questions and answers by typing keywords like agriculture, development, illiteracy etc.
What message would you like to give to the students appearing for the board Exams?(Swati - Ahmedabad)
I would like to give my best wishes to all my student friends. My fellow friends, future of nation, who are going to appear for exam of class X and class XII, I wish them great success in their endeavor.
Every achievement is rooted deep in hardwork, determination and dedication. The best of learnings get tested through the journey of life. In that sense we all are students of life.
Here, I would like to quote Swami Vivekananda’s lines – ‘Arise, awake and do not stop till the goal is reached’.
Exams they say are part and parcel of life. Leave all your worries behind and perform for knowledge. Results will follow automatically.
At the end, I would like to share with you my success formula –
"Desire + stability = Resolution. Resolution + Hard work = Success".
I am sure each one of you is capable of contributing to the bright future of our nation. Best wishes to all my student friends.
Share with us one such experience that has touched you the most in the recent times?(Question asked by - Kishore, Urvi Shah)
No experience is more divine Than being a part of 50 Melas, Empowering not one or two, but 50-lakh needy Stand on their feet, in 60 days flat, Reaching out to the last man in the last mile!
Sharing the fruits of good governance,Disbursing tools and means worth Rupees 2700 crores to the deprived, In the full glare of cameras, for records sake, Bringing back to the browbeaten a million smiles!
Heard hundreds of stories, sad and solemn,Had a glimpse of the huts sans thatch, Touched the hearts of the people, where it hurtsLearnt what’s serving the Daridra Narayan, Just sowed seeds of humanity on the footprints of time!
It was no less spiritually exhilarating Than a Kumbh Mela; it’s filled my pitcher up to the brim. Let this intoxicating perfume of Selfless service spread far and wide!
How can the youth contribute for Gujarat and participate in the state development?(Question asked by Darpan Shah, Mahesh, Gomes, Krutagna and Arun)
I have appealed the youth of Gujarat to come forward and do their bit towards serving the society. I have suggested four fields where youth can make significant contribution. When the youth climbs the four mountains of services for education, health, sanitation and environment - Gujarat will said to have truly touched its peak.
1: Education: Can youth devote at least 100 hours in a year for the service to the Gujarat? In a week, some can devote two hours, five hours, 10 hours in a month but it should reach to 100 hours in a year. 100 hours on the occasion of this Golden Jubliee year. Youth should have a firm determination to spend 100 hours religiously for a noble work. You can teach at any place, in any school, any chawl, society, slum area, irrespective of the place, what matters is 100 hours of teaching. If you are undertaking this mission of teaching, you can teach two students, four students, and maid in your house, an old person, you should work hard to teach anybody who is illiterate.
2: Cleanliness and Sanitation work: Youth can take a pledge for encouraging people for maintaining cleanliness. Design programmes for it, and encourage more people to participate in the programme. Youth should be ready to go to the schools, discuss the issue of cleanliness and educate students about keeping the surroundings clean. Importance of this work lies in how a small act can change over the lives of the smallest men in the state.
3: Serve the patients. Take interest in hospital and improving its general administration. Keeping a check on medicines and other supplies, to check whether facilities provided to the patients are availed by them or not. Find ways to make it easier for patients to avail these facilities. Keep a check on drinking water, sanitation facilities, and their habits of cleanliness. Find ways to prevent contagious disease from spreading. Such small initiatives bear a huge potential to change lives of people and help society to become healthier.
4: Global Warming: It is an acute problem posed to the world. Youth can take forward the preaching of respect Gandhi bapu and inculcate it in lives of the people. To live with least possible objects and pursue for an environment friendly movement- the measures to save water, energy and time.
I would like to know your plans for strengthening English of Gujarati medium students. (Trisha Rathod – Amreli)
Hope your parents are watching you on television at this time. All experts including sociologists and educationists all over the world accept that mother tongue medium is the best medium for imparting education. But child has tremendous capacity to learn languages. He can learn any language easily. Besides mother tongue, if he learns one more regional language such as Bengali, Telugu or Marathi and also one foreign language it would add to the human resource. But in order for a child to learn many languages we need to create that environment. There are highest numbers of Hindi - speaking people in India, as India is a country with the population of one hundred crore people. But if we want to think in the Global perspective, we shall have to learn English well. But, we should neither be impressed with English nor should we get depressed by English. We should learn English as any other language.
I would like to share one of my experiences with you. I began my life as an RSS worker. I used to go to dine with a Maharstrian family in the slums near Calico Mills, Ahmedabad. I used to live in Kankaria area and would go to them every Friday. In their neighborhood there lived a girl who spoke five languages fluently. I remember that girl even today. She spoke Marathi as her neighbors were Maharastrian, she spoke Bengali as her mother was a Bengali, she spoke Malayalam as her dad was from Kerala, she spoke Hindi as she studied in a Hindi medium school and she spoke Gujarati as she used to play with the slum children around! This means that her language abilities were highly utilized.
We have initiated the SCOPE program to sharpen English language skills among Gujarati learners. Besides, any school that desires to set up a language laboratory will get software support from the state Government. The software includes self learning program for improving pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. The students can improve upon these skills themselves. We have initiated this program to compensate for the English language deficiency prevailing in Gujarat.
This century is going to be the century of the Asians. Along with Chinese and Japanese one of the Indian languages too will get prime importance. I would advise the students of Gujarat to learn those languages focusing future. I tell the entrepreneurs who come to Gujarat from China that they will have to teach Chinese to the Gujaratis who come to China for business. As it should not be the case that when they come to India for business we buy their goods and get cheated. We too are entrepreneurs!
What have you thought about removing examination fear from school children? (Shraddha ba Jadeja: Bhavnagar)
I didn’t know that this question was to come. So I answered this question while answering another question. The spirit of competition - racing prevails in the environment. As a result the parents pressurize children to score high percentage. In some cases if the boy scores low marks, the parents don’t even move out of the house for long. And if some guest comes to their place and asks the boy his percentage, the parents would send the boy to fetch water and avoid telling the percentage. We need to change this environment. All the experts need to come forward and find a way out. We all have studied and taken examination but it never used to be so stressful. I feel that the student should look at his achievements in other fields as well then he may not find getting less percentage so stressful. We may also relate these examinations with life situations. For instance if the examiner had a fight at home he may fail you. We face this situation day in and day out. If the newspaper reporter didn’t have a good tea he would portray the whole Government worthless. In fact we are also trying our best to change this environment. Last year we told a university to hold open book examination. Tell me one thing, if the student has not touched his book for the whole year, is he going to find his answer from the book in the exam hall? In that case what’s wrong in allowing students to carry books in the examination hall! Students, wouldn’t you like to take open book exams? These experts do not understand it..! If students are allowed to keep book with them in the examination hall the stress will reduce automatically. Are we testing memory or understanding? The students should be tested for understanding and not the memory. But we all are after memory. So, one who has mugged up things gets good marks and the one who has understood but could not memorize, gets less marks. I am a politician and not an educationist, so I can’t say a final thing. But I do feel that something should be done about this examination stress. I assure you that before 2010 some change will take place.
My question is born out of my imagination. My imagination is: ‘In each school there is a table and a chair for each child. On that table there is a beautiful computer with an internet connection and with the help of that computer we are pursuing our studies. What is your resolution for giving shape to my imagination on the occasion of Gujarat’s Golden Jubilee year? (Hiloni Bimsurya: Limda Navjivan High School Medarda, Junagadh.)
A table… and a chair… for each child; and a computer on each table with an internet connection!!! Friends, at the outset I would like to congratulate this girl! She is able to connect her dreams with tomorrow. Many can’t even dream! Once on a railway platform a beggar was eating some bread that he must have been given by some person. He was dipping his bread in his empty palm. I asked him the reason for doing so. He replied, “I m dipping my bread in salt.” I told him,” you are going to remain a beggar all your life.” If one has to just imagine things, why should he not think of some better things!
Some people are miserly even in fantasizing things. But this girl’s imagination is great and let me tell you this dream will come true first in Gujarat. In the whole of ASIA, Gujarat is the first state to reach out to people with the help of broad band connectivity. And broad band connectivity links a village to the whole world. We have made a beginning with each village then it would extend to each school and classes and then to each house! I can’t ensure whether it will happen in 2010, but it will happen that’s for sure. As technology advances, we shall have to give importance to technology and we need to adapt to the technological changes.
would you tell us, how did you study your lessons when you were a student? (Suhani Chaudhari Mansa Taluka)
Suhani since when do you have spectacles, and when did you learn that you need one? Did your teacher tell you or did you parents tell you that you need them; do your parents wear glasses? In our district there is a plenty of milk how did you get glasses? Exactly for this reason I asked you this question. That’s the whole purpose of “Nirogi Bal Abhiyaan” healthy child crusade. I asked her a simple question and that question made this little girl think that though my parents do not have glasses and there is no dearth of milk in north Gujarat and still why I got specs. Mansa is on the top as far as milk production is concerned. All should think about it. And once this question is raised, we are bound to look for on answer.
Suhani has asked me a question that how did I study my lessons when I was small - a student in school. One thing is that I earned a lot of love from my teachers. My teacher did not just check my lesson they looked through me as well. They used to look for the Narendra peeping through my homework lessons. And they used to nurture my strength and workout my weaknesses. As a result I become highly receptive; to the extent that till date I remember which shirt did that teacher wear on that day. I would recall that on such and such a day such and such a teacher was wearing a particular shirt and had told me a particular thing! Meaning that, so much was the impact of my teacher on me.
Our minds are receptive. Most often what happens is, that we are in school (physically present) but we need to check weather we are in school (mentally). It’s our body that’s present not ourselves! If it’s a morning school then at eleven o’clock, we get the smell of the food cooked at home. If we are in school and if we know that, that day dad is going home in the afternoon then we start thinking of the situation and pray that nothing wrong takes place at home. It’s most important to be mentally present in the school .If we are mentally present in the school learning become much easier. Another thing I would like to say that education is not limited to the textbooks. We are learning something from things around - the trees, or an honest dog or anything else! We need to be students all our lives. Dr. Radhakrishnan one of the greatest educationist, used to say “I am a student even today, I am still learning.” If education is a continuous process in our lives then we all shall benefit from that.
You have initiated imparting education through computers.Now when shall we able to go to school without the burden of books? Vraj S.
Shah:Amity School,Bharuch.)
Vraj has asked a question that is relevant to all. All educationists are concerned about it, education without any stress or burden ‘Burden free Education. It’s true that technology is going to contribute in making education less burdensome, computers will make learning easier, but in order to make the overall education less burdensome, we shall have to change things from the basis. In today’s world of information explosion, information is the primary requirement. In fact the education should encourage a child to experiment. Experts would certainly think in this direction. I will welcome any such experiment in this state. Another issue is the examination; education has been linked with examinations. And as a result, parents are also keener on marks than on merits. Should we be thinking or merits or marks? In the process, the child is treated like a machine. The child is pushed into one end of the pipeline in the morning and he comes out of the other end of that pipeline at nine in the night. We need to change this situation. Makes will automatically follow merits. How do we focus merits? If we think of the merits, marks will automatically follow and shall get rid of the cut throat competition. We shall look into and these fundamental issues.
We may have to do a lot but it will make things easier, for instance if you want to draw something if you want to paint something you will not need to carry your color box. But all that will happen when all school have computers and each child accesses computer. Today we may not have one computer per child, but we have decided to have at least 10 computers per school so if there are 40 students in a class then they may work in groups of three and get use to computers. I have given a call to people to donate computers and people have started donating also. But, as I said we all will have to change out mind sets. Its true that it’s becomes a grave issue. The burden of education is weighing on students’ minds and need to come out of it. Vraj’s question expresses a painful scenario.
Every Year We hold "Shala Pravesh Utsav"(School Initiation Festival).We all like the festival very much. What made you think of holding this festival? (Twinkle Patel, Navsari.)
Twinkle’s question is, how did the concept of “Kanya Kelvani Rath Yatra” (Procession for literacy of a girl child) and “Shala Pravesh Festival” (School Initiation Festival) occurred to me. Friends, It was the end of the 3rd day of my first term as CM in the year 2001. In a meeting with all ministers, the then education minister Sudhirbhai Mankad told me,”With regard to women’s education Gujarat is at the 20th position. The scenario is worse than that is in Bihar. On one hand lots of things were going on in my mind on assuming the post of the CM. And on the other hand this matter came up. At that time I was away from Gujarat for about seven years and there had not been an occasions where I’d to look closely at the Government’s matters. So I was shocked by these figures. It really pained me that is this the situation of girl’s education in a state like Gujarat? And right at that point, God directed me to take up this crusade. All government officers – IAS, IPS and other joined hands and it turned into a movement. As a result we started getting 100% enrollment and reduction in the drop out rate from 40% to 2.5% but in 2010 when Gujarat celebrate its golden Jubilee, we resolve that, there should be a zero - ‘0’ drop out rate in Gujarat. That is there should be no drop outs anywhere in Gujarat. All the sons and daughters of Gujarat will get literate and for that we should persuade parents, increase the number of school, should employ more teachers, have to increase the budget and the Government will have to take more responsibilities. All that we are doing and I can say that this program of girl child literacy was born out of a pain a distress!
Sir, according to you, who is a healthy child? What should be done to make the ‘Healthy Child Year’ a success? (Parth Patel; Mahesana)
A child whom you feel like taking in your hands despite your getting late for your bus, is a healthy child! A child whose mere presence makes the atmosphere charged like a bouquet of flowers is a healthy child. The child might have one finger less or more but that does not prevent him from being healthy. A child is healthy when he does not have any disease. Any physical handicap does not make him unhealthy. With whatever physical body structure if the child has all his mental and physical faculties working well is a healthy child.
At times we see a child crying but his mother working in the kitchen may not be able to hare the child’s cry. This child may not be called a healthy child. The cry should be so loud that even if the mother is on the third floor she has to come running to the child. Have you ever seen a child crying for getting out of the cradle? No, he would simply jump over!
I would tell all, especially the mothers that; if your child is healthy you will not have to go for weight reduction programmes. Running after the child would automatically reduce your weight. A healthy child keeps the family healthy!
Respected CM Sir,Thank you so much for supporting me and my question regarding the hukka-bar in Ahmedabad and solving it so quickly. We´re convinced that you believe in action and not just talks. Gujarat should get a CM like you again and again..
