In his first 'townhall', the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday touched upon every aspect -- from promoting India for tourism to menace of 'Gau Rakshaks (cow vigitilantes)'.

He said most of the cow vigitilantes are 'anti-social' elements who are running 'shops' in the name of cow protection.

“It makes me angry that people are running shops in the name of cow protection. Most of them are anti-social elements hiding behind the mask of cow protection," he said that while addressing a crowd of around 2,000 audiences in his 'townhall'.

Such people are 'anti-social elements' at night, but becomes 'gau rakshaks' during the day, he said adding that he will ask State governments to take strict action against such people.

“I will ask State governments to prepare a dossier on such people as 80 per cent of them will be found to be involved in anti-social activities which no society will approve of,” Modi said.

The Prime Minister said such people should rather work towards how these animals are dying because of eating plastic bags and how are they treated at the cow shelters.

Those who want to serve the animal should rather work towards stopping cows from eating plastics as that will be a bigger service, he said.

Tourism

On tourism, he said India is a great country and has so many things to see that it can make the people from world mad.

Apart from a wonder of the world like the Taj Mahal, there are many things to experience in India, for people of the world to see.

For example, in 'Tamil Nadu, from one corner to the other, taste of idli will change from one place to another in 10 places', he said.

As so many Indians are settled in other countries and made so many friends, they can request five families of that country, each to visit and see India, he added.

The 'townhall' was part of the celebration of MyGov's second anniversary. MyGov portal has become a medium of interaction between the government and the citizens in a big way.

Minister of Information Technology, Ravi Shankar said that the MyGov team should aim to have 10-15 crore users for the portal.

MyGov as of now has 35.2 lakh registered members, 33.9 lakh comments in 589 discussion themes and around 1.82 lakh submissions in 489 tasks.

On foreign policy front

On the foreign policy front, the Prime Minister said “India first” is the central point of his government’s diplomatic engagements.

“India first is the central point (of our foreign policy). It is about protecting India’s strategic interest, it is to ensure that India marches forward in achieving economic prosperity by leaps and bounds and reaches the position which it is destined to reach,” Modi said.

The Prime Minister said time has changed and world has become interdependent, and no country can afford to live in a particular group.

“The time of grouping has come to an end. Every country is linked to some other country,” he said, adding walking together in most cases has become the norm.

Showering praise on the Indian diaspora, he said they can play an important role in strengthening India’s ties with foreign countries and we should utilise their strength.

“The diaspora community has become very proactive, assertive and they can help in improving ties with many countries. India is making its place (in the world) with new energy and prestige,” he said.

Answering a query on India’s external engagement, Modi said there was no need to use words like aggressive, progressive and proactive in talking about the country’s foreign policy which the questioner had used.

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