NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi Tuesday sought to position India as a trusted ally while stating that supply chains, energy, minerals, payment systems, and technology are increasingly becoming instruments of pressure and dominance and the routes created by globalisation over the past decades have become chokepoints in several cases."One of the biggest questions facing the world today is that of trust, of confidence - the confidence that supplies will continue uninterrupted in times of need. We do not grow at anyone's cost. We grow with the world, and for the world," the PM said at a Bloomberg event. He pitched India's expanding economic and technological capabilities to address global challenges during geopolitical tensions, supply-chain disruptions and growing competition for strategic resources.The PM also said that India's economic growth is anchored in strong fundamentals, financial resilience and a sustained reform drive, as he cited the 7.8% growth recorded in the June quarter. Modi placed India as a global economic and technology power that seeks to help other countries prosper rather than growing at their expense."It is because of this strength that India's sovereign ratings are being upgraded. In a world filled with uncertainty, India offers the assurance of reliability and stability," he said, highlighting GST, labour reforms and steps to make it easier to do business.
"We are pursuing reforms with a clear policy direction. India's reform express continues to move ahead at high speed. For us, reforms are not a compulsion.
Reforms are our conviction," he said.Modi also said that the true measure of economic and technological strength lay not in the ability to control others but in creating opportunities for them, as he argued that India believes in the principle of "power to empower".
"Today, technology is power. Data is power. Knowledge is power. Innovation is power. But the real question is not who possesses power. Rather, the question is how that power is being used," he said, while highlighting the country's digital public infrastructure, affordable mobile data, digital payments and direct benefit transfer as examples of technology widening access to economic opportunities.