Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, speaking on the 60th anniversary of independence from British rule, said the country needed to work harder to fight poverty, ignorance and disease despite fast economic growth.
"India cannot become a nation with islands of high growth and vast areas untouched by development, where the benefits of growth accrue only to a few," he said on Wednesday from the ramparts of New Delhi's historic Red Fort behind a bulletproof glass screen."We have moved forward in the many battles against poverty, ignorance and disease. But can we say we have won the war?," he told a crowd of officials and diplomats as well as children dressed in the white, orange and green of the Indian flag.
India is one of the world's fastest-growing economies, but has some of the sharpest inequalities in the world, with hundreds of millions of poor surviving on a fraction of a dollar a day.
Sharpshooters were stationed on nearby buildings as Singh spoke, while troops and armed police guarded roads and key buildings around the country on a day traditionally marked by violent attacks by separatist militants or Maoist rebels.
Earlier, Singh laid wreaths at memorials commemorating the leader of India's freedom movement, Mahatma Gandhi, as well as its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his daughter, assassinated former prime minister Indira Gandhi.
The prime minister, dressed in his trademark light blue turban, then proceeded to the 17th century Mughal-era sandstone fort where he unfurled the national flag to a 21-gun salute.
"NATIONAL SHAME"
Singh promised fresh investment of 250 billion rupees ($6.2 billion) in agriculture, which still employs over half of India's population, and said he wanted a "revolution in modern education" in a country where one in three people are illiterate.
"The problem of malnutrition is a national shame," he added. "I appeal to the nation to resolve and work hard to eradicate malnutrition within five years."
