PM Greets Nation On Independence Day

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted people on Independence Day and hoped that the country will scale new heights of development.

"Greetings to my fellow Indians on Independence Day! May our Tricolour fly high and our nation scale new heights of development," he tweeted this morning.

PM Narendra Modi later paid homage at the Raj Ghat - Mahatma Gandhi's memorial on the banks of the Yamuna.

Flowers were offered by the prime minister offered flowers at the blackstone memorial before heading to the Red Fort monument to deliver his maiden Independence Day speech.

He then hoisted the tricolour at the Red Fort on Independence Day

Delivering his first Independence Day speech at the Red Fort here, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described himself as the country's "Pradhan Sevak".

"I stand before you today not as the prime minister but as the pradhan sevak," he said at the start of his speech. "Many, many greetings from the Pradhan Sevak."

He hailed Indian democracy for allowing a person from "an ordinary family" to assume the country's top post.

"It is a tribute to Indian democracy" that a person from "a poor family, an ordinary family is today addressing the nation from the Red Fort," he said while delivering his Independence Day speech.

"I am an outsider to Delhi. But an outsider came to Delhi and got an insider view," Modi said, during his speech.

"I was surprised," he went on. "What I am saying is not about politics."

Shortly, he will address the nation from the ramparts of historic Red Fort.