New Delhi: A strong foundation is being created to make India a developed country so that the coming generation gets a chance to live in an advanced nation, union Minister for Railways, Telecom and IT Ashiwni Vaishnaw said Saturday.
The mindset required to build and lay a strong foundation for a country has the risk-taking ability, and passion to accept big challenges, Vaishnaw said while sharing the journey of building Vande Bharat trains.
During his interactive speech at the Times Litfest, Vaishnaw said that work on Vande Bharat started in 2017 which was a very complex task to design a complex machine but despite innumerable challenges, the first Vande Bharat made its way in January 2019.
“The passion to build a nation. The passion to take society ahead. The mindset to lay a strong foundation for the country is different. It has a risk-taking ability. It has the passion to accept the biggest challenges,” the minister said.
Vaishnaw said that the testing of the train was done and, without any replacement in the machine, the train went around to complete a distance equal to 18 rounds of earth circumference.
After the rollout of Vande Bharat, train manufacturers the world over were shaken by the high manufacturing standards, the minister said, adding that they tried that there should be no train built after that.
He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a hard taskmaster and he keeps raising the bar for the next level of targets.
“The PM said that the train is good but make it better,” Vaishnaw said.
He said the tolerance level or margin of error level of design in Europe is 3 millimetres but India has set a target of 1 millimetre which will reduce jerks in the train and the noise level will be one-hundredth level less than that heard inside an aeroplane.
The minister said that with this level of precision water-filled glass kept on the train table will not spill over.
“Such a strong foundation of a country is being created for your generation so that when you grow in your career and life you get the foundation of a developed country, get a chance to live in a developed nation and create passion in you to further develop this nation,” Vaishnaw said.
In the inaugural session, Times Group Vice Chairman and Managing Director Samir Jain called upon students and youth to study literature and absorb spiritual knowledge.
He said schools and colleges only teach physical science but there is a need to study invisible science about love, space etc.
“Universe knowledge is not given at university. University owners captured a very big word — universe — but my call for a spiritual nation means adopting invisible things that you can start studying from this age. This will not be taught in schools and colleges,” Jain said. He said schools and colleges only teach physical science but there is a need to study invisible science about love, space etc.
He said spirituality, religion and country can be linked together in a symbiotic relationship and India should be called a spiritual nation instead of a religious nation. “Our nation is a spiritual nation,” Jain said.
Jain also said studying shastras (scriptures) can help people perform their duties.
PTI