Union Minister Anurag Thakur graced the event “India News Manch: India’s Biggest Political Conclave” with his presence on Thursday.
Speaking on combating terror, Thakur mentioned strengthening the UAPA law so that the perpetrators of terrorism can be brought to justice and said, “In order to make it a federal agency, the government brought legislation. Today, the antiterrorism agency, the NIA, can even carry out the investigations abroad.”
When asked about the eradication of Naxals from the country, the minister stated that the government intends to completely eliminate the Naxals and that a rigorous investigation is already underway.
While the minister was questioned about Bilawal Bhutto’s statement, he said, “India adopted track, trace, and target to combat terror, and this has rattled Bilawal,” adding, “This is the India where the government no longer refrains from entering the enemy’s territory to attack, and we will continue to do so to combat terrorism. While during the Congress regime, the scenario was different as the army had its hands tied.”
Not only this, he slammed Congress for questioning the Indian Army’s competence.
Responding to the Tawang issue, Anurag Thakur said that under this government’s umbrella, no one has been able to take even an inch of India’s land.
The minister further lauded India’s efforts during the pandemic. Talking about the achievements of the government, he said, “India has done the best management in the world during Covid times, and it is under the guidance of Narendra Modi ji that along with the management of Covid, the inflation is also under control. On the contrary, the countries that had never witnessed inflation, are currently experiencing four- to five-fold inflation.”
Talking about the recently concluded FIFA World Cup, Thakur said that Lionel Messi is his favourite footballer, and he is happy that Argentina won the World Cup in a final that will be remembered for ages to come.
When asked about India’s prospects in football in the near future, Thakur went on to highlight, “India has recently successfully hosted both the U-17 men’s and women’s World Cup. For any country to succeed in a sport, it takes 12-16 years to fine tune and reach that stage and our efforts are on to take football forward in the country like we have been hosting ISL, I-League. Among old trophies, we have the Durand Cup, the Subroto Cup, etc. India was a successful team in the 1950s, but what happened thereafter?”
“I am not here to criticise the former governments here. But the Modi government has successfully increased the budget for sports from Rs 840 crore to Rs 3,000 crore so as to uplift sports culture in India. Earlier, Rs 600 crore used to be spend on sports infrastructure, but now the budget has been increased to Rs 2,700 crore (both indoor and outdoor),” he added.