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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday addressed a mega rally in Srinagar’s Sher-e-Kashmir Cricket Stadium.
Here are the highlights from his speech:
* India is incomplete without Kashmir: Modi.
* My mother used to give me Rs 5 or Rs 11 as a token gift, on my birthday, every year -- never more than that. But last year she gave me Rs 5000 and said, son, take this money for the flood-affected people of Kashmir.
* When the Chinese President visited India, he had made elaborate plans to celebrate my birthday. But I politely declined, saying, when my friends in Kashmir are struck by floods, I cannot celebrate.
* I want to bring back those days when rest of India used to look forward to come and visit Kashmir.
* Kashmir has suffered a lot over the years, generations have seen their dreams being crushed.
* When my home state Gujarat was struck by an earthquake in 2001, thousands died and lost their homes, and the world thought the state would never recover. But I decided that I needed to bring my state out of that crisis, when even the World Bank had said it would take at least seven years to recover after such a crisis. No matter how big the challenges, they can be overcome.
* People used to say that would never catch up with China. But today, the same people say that India is not only catching up, but actually moving ahead of China. Just before arriving here, I was reading a report by Transparency International. For the first time in 50 years, India has come ahead of China.
* Jamuriyat, Insaniyat, Kashmiriyat - these are essential.
* Sachin, Sehwag or Dhoni, whoever hit a six, they did it with the willow from Kashmir.
* This is the land that gave birth to Sufism, which taught us to bring everyone together. No matter how much the world advances, we are nowhere without humanity.
* This was not the final figure, but just the beginning, it will change the future of J&K --while announcing a package of Rs 80,000 crore for the state.