New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made his first radio speech in a bid to reach out to tens of millions of Indians with no access to television.
The address, titled Man ki Baat (A talk from the heart), ran on state-run All India Radio (AIR), as well as all FM channels and community radio stations.
It was also shown live on state and private television channels.
The address is an attempt by Mr Modi to connect with India’s public after winning power in May.
The prime minister is very active on social media – he has 6.79 million followers on Twitter and his Facebook page has 22.5 million “likes”.
The 15-minute speech — was broadcast from 11:00 India time [05:30GMT].
Mr Modi began his address by greeting people on the occasion of the Vijaya Dashmi (Dussehra) festival which “celebrates the victory of good over evil”.
The prime minister, who launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan – a countrywide campaign to clean up India – on Thursday asked people to take a “pledge to affirm to remove dirt”.
He said a lot of people had emailed him and written to him through social media with “good” suggestions to have a more clean and developed India and that he was happy to reach more people.
He said it was the first in a series and that “I will try to speak to you once or twice a month on Sundays”.
According to reports, the government has spent more than 10m rupees ($162,828) on advertising the event.
The All India Radio website says it runs 413 stations in India and reaches nearly 99.19% of the country’s 1.2 billion population.
