Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for comprehensive approach to avert climate crisis. Speaking at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York, he said India is spending 50 billion dollar in the next 5 years for judicious use of water.
Prime Minister said that India leads by example to prevent catastrophic developments due to climate change. He said, more needs to be done to tackle issues related to worsening of climate crisis. Mr. Modi added that the time has come to make it a peoples' movement.
In a brief address, the Prime Minister said, need and not greed has been the guiding principle of India. Mr. Modi informed the world leaders that India has banned the use of single use plastic and urged global community to do the same. Prime Minister Modi said, India has made significant progress in renewable energy options in keeping with its commitments. He narrated how the government has provided clean cooking gas connections to 150 millions of families and talked about India's Jal Jeevan Mission for water resource development.
A notable surprise during Prime Minister's speech was the presence of US President Donald Trump, who was not expected to be there. The Climate Action Summit has been organized by UN Secretary General Antonio Guetteres to bring all stakeholders especially the governments at one platform and act together to address the issues related to climate change.
The Prime Minister also launched coalition for disaster resilience infrastructure to assist countries in making their infrastructure resilient. He invited all UN member nations to join the coalition.
After the climate meet, Prime Minister spoke at the United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting on Health Coverage. The meeting titled, ‘Universal Health Coverage: Moving Together to Build a Healthier World', brought together heads of state, political and health leaders, policy-makers and universal health coverage champions to advocate the health for all. It is aimed at garnering financial and political commitments from countries and sustain health investments.
Mr Modi highlighted the bold steps taken by India to achieve universal health coverage. He said that health does not simply mean freedom from diseases. He said a healthy life is every person's right and the onus for this is on government to ensure this.
Mr Modi said, India has taken a holistic approach towards this subject and is working on four main pillars of health care, preventive health care, affordable health care, improvements on the supply side and implementation in mission mode. He said, to ensure affordable health care, India has rolled out the world's largest health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat. Under this scheme, 500 million poor have been given the facility of free treatment worth up to five lakh rupees annually.
Mr Modi said, India's efforts are not limited to its boundaries. India has helped to provide access to affordable health care including by way of tele-medicine to several other countries, especially to African nations.
