Time is right to create a 'Naya Bharat', says Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that the time was ripe to build a "New Bharat", and pointed out that various factors were coming together to create favourable circumstances that presented a grand opportunity for the country to embark on an unprecedented development journey.

"There are occasions when everything starts to come together to build a foundation for a brighter and more robust future. I can see that the time is now," the PM said in an address at the ET NOW Global Business Summit, stressing that the interim budget was based on principles of stability, consistency, and continuity, and gave a "Modi Ki Guarantee" that India could become the world's third largest economy in his government's third term.

The Prime Minister also said that the White Paper presented in Parliament a day earlier -- it highlighted the economic challenges under the previous government -was brought out only after the situation was fixed over the last 10 years, stressing that the government chose national interest over narrow political ends.

"I could have released that data 10 years back... I was stunned to see what I discovered in 2014. The economy was in tatters. There was disappointment among global investors. Had I released this data then, it could have sent a wrong signal... That would have suited me politically but national interest did not let me do that," Modi said.