From manufacturing to soft power: India’s 2025‑26 growth blueprint

In a landmark address on the 80th Independence Day, the Prime Minister presented a seven‑stream "Saptadhara" framework that will shape India’s trajectory toward a developed economy by 2025‑26. The first stream emphasizes manufacturing supremacy, urging Indian firms to produce whole products, not just parts, while maintaining low costs, high quality and mass production capable of winning global market share. The second stream targets agriculture and food, calling for the export of indigenous cereals, millets, spices, fruits and vegetables together with strong food‑processing, packaging and cold‑storage networks. The third stream is technology and innovation, where the country will position itself as a hub for data centres, robotics, artificial intelligence and a "Made in India 6G" rollout. The fourth stream, "gati shakti", focuses on expanding expressways, high‑speed rail, modern ports and a multimodal transport system to cut logistics costs and generate vast employment in construction, engineering and design. Defence, the fifth stream, aims to convert India into a global supplier of defence hardware, with special emphasis on drones and anti‑drone technologies, spurring high‑tech manufacturing and aerospace research. The sixth stream merges green and blue economies, promoting green hydrogen, renewable energy, storage solutions, clean fuels, as well as marine sectors such as aquaculture, coastal tourism and sea‑based tech. The seventh stream harnesses soft power—yoga, handicrafts, cinema, animation, gaming, digital content and heritage—to meet rising global demand for creative and digital products, creating jobs for artists, developers and tourism professionals. The Prime Minister highlighted the rise in electric‑vehicle sales from 150,000 units in 2009‑10 to 2.5 million in 2025‑26, the rapid growth of the aviation sector with new airports and routes, and the success of the drone‑ownership scheme that has unlocked assets worth billions for millions of households.