New Delhi:

There are strong links between jobs creation, infrastructure growth and ensuring private capital from abroad can easily access manufacturing opportunities in the domestic market, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar explained Tuesday in an exclusive interview with NDTV.

He said it the government had to build infrastructure and frame policies that make it easy for investors to invest in or run businesses in India, and then took a veiled dig at the opposition, referring to “people blocking infrastructure… business” and accusing them of “blocking employment in this country”.

“From ’14 (when Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power) we have started to rectify policies that made it hard to not just manufacture in this country, but also employ in this country,” Mr Jaishankar responded to a question on making India a more appealing destination for foreign investment.

“… if you were to ask me, ‘Have we done a lot in the last 10 years?’, my answer would be ‘Yes.’ Do we have to do a lot more in the next 10? My answer would be ‘Yes.’ I think there were real mistakes and shortcomings on our part…”

“You know… people often put this in terms of ‘business’. I also put it to you… to me ‘business’ and ’employment’ are two sides of the same coin. The people who are blocking infrastructure… people blocking business… are also people blocking employment.”

Mr Jaishankar stressed on the need to surmount these challenges and said, “Today, I would say, this is how we become more competitive… how we create, bring in jobs” and highlighted the Prime Minister’s June visit to the United States, during which a semiconductor manufacturing firm said it would set up an $825 million plant in Gujarat.

Micron Technology, Inc. said construction of the facility in Gujarat – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state – will begin this year and the first phase will be operational in late-2024.

The goal, Mr Jaishankar told NDTV, is to make India “the place we (foreign companies) are going to go and put up (manufacturing business)… this is what this is all about.”

New Delhi:

Chandrayaan-3. The answer to the question – ‘Why did South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa want to sit next to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the BRICS Summit in that country last week?”

The $75 million Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission has been acclaimed by space agencies and governments across the world and, as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told NDTV Tuesday, it also prompted several positive reactions from BRICS leaders during events in Johannesburg.

The South African President – who hailed the landing as his country’s own – declared after the landing he wanted to be seated next to Prime Minister Modi so Chandrayaan’s ‘good vibes’ “rubs off” on him.

“By the time we reached the retreat, there was some talk about Chandrayaan. The next day (August 23, the day of the landing) we did a morning session and then the PM left to join ISRO (via a video link)… by the second day, even within BRICS talk had shifted to Chandrayaan…” Mr Jaishankar said.

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“I was in a room (attending a BRICS event as Vikram was landing)… with a big screen in the corner. It was difficult to talk without getting distracted,” the minister said, “At some stage President Ramaphosa said, Foreign Minister, you are looking like Chandrayaan is up there (pointing to the screen).”

“I think, by then, it had seeped into peoples’ imagination and, that evening, I must tell you, we were at a BRICS Plus event – so you had about 50 other countries’ prime ministers and presidents – and the speech which President Ramaphosa gave on Chandrayaan was like a collective feeling…”

“In fact, he said, ‘I’m going to sit next to PM Modi and I hope some of it rubs off on me…”

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The Prime Minister had earlier given a briefing to other BRICS leaders after Vikram’s landing, in which he had thanked Mr Ramaphosa for his congratulatory messages, and said, “… my friend Ramaphosa has given a lot of praise for India’s Moon mission. I have been feeling this since yesterday.”

After thanking Mr Ramaphosa, PM Modi had said, “It is a matter of pride for us that this success is being accepted not as a limited success of one country but as a significant success of mankind.”

Mr Jaishankar stressed on the “collective feeling” of joy that Chandrayaan-3 had evoked and said, “That sentiment was very strong and. at one stage, I remember there was a long U-shaped table with 100-150 people seated. People spontaneously got up so the PM had to walk down the length of table to individually accept congratulations. You had a sense this was not just India’s achievement.”

Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing on the Moon meant India joins a select group of nations – the others are Russia (then the Soviet Republic), the United States and China – to have completed a soft landing on the lunar surface; landing site was also closer to the Moon’s South Pole than any other.

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Vikram has since successfully also deployed the six-wheel Pragyan rover, which is deploying scientific payloads and instruments to gather crucial data from the Moon’s surface and atmosphere before the lunar night – which lasts for 14 Earth days – kicks in and forces India’s Moon mission to conclude.