Independence Day 2021: What India achieved in 2020, 2021

India is celebrating its 75th Independence Day this year. The country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the Indian flag at Red Fort in Delhi in 1947, and the practice has been continuing from that time. After hoisting the flag, the Prime Minister addresses the nation, where he lists the milestones achieved in the year gone by and his vision for the country's future.

Protests, natural calamities, security threats, and above all Covid-19, is what India has dealt with in the past year. But we have overcome all the hurdles and showed a remarkable resilience. India has come a long way since Independence and has shown stunning growth in the fields like science and technology, medicine, agriculture etc. This Independence Day, it is the time to celebrate all those things that India has been able to achieve in the last year in different fields.

Science and Technology

Indian scientists have shown brilliance and an exceptional performance as they took strides in technical advancements. India is ranked third in scientific publication as per NSF data and third in terms of PhDs as well as in number of startups.

This year, India tested its first hydrogen fuel cell powered car, marking another stride in reducing the petrol and diesel import bill. The scientists also announced that humanoid robot VYOMMITRA, developed by ISRO scientists, will be boarding Gaganyan mission and perform enviornment control and life support functions and will be able to give warnings related to enviornment and pressure change inside the cabin. Further, ISRO and IISc scientists together have been able to make "space bricks" which could be used for the habitation on moon's surface. "Param Shivay", the first indigenous super computer, was assembled and installed in IIT (BHU), while "Param Shakti" and "Param Brahma" at IIT-Kharagpur and IISER Pune respectively under the National Super Computing Mission (NSM). Param Siddhi, the high-performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) achieved global ranking of 63 among top 500.

Phew! It was hard to summarise all the inventions made by our scientists this year, so we listed just a few of them. 

Health and Medicine 

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the medical and healthcare professionals have been at the forefront of fighting the infection and giving care to those who contracted it. The subsequent wave compounded the problem, putting on fast-track the process to make vaccines. Our scientists successfully created the first indigenous vaccine (Bharat Biotech's Covaxin) to inoculate the entire population of the country. Under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, comprehensive healthcare programmes were launched all over the country under which 10.74 crore families became entitled for a health cover of Rs 5 lakh for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation.

In major developments, alternative medicine practices like ayurveda was brought into mainstream, and many other programmes like National Ambulance Services (NAS), National Mobile Medical Units (NMMUs) etc were also augmented.

Sports 

Sports has always been the heart and soul of India. In the Tokyo Olympics this year, India gave its best-ever performance, winning seven medals in various disciplies, including a gold in javelin throw. Meerabai Chanu won silver in weightlifting, adding to the glory of the country in the world's biggest sporting event.

In tennis, Sania Mirza made her comeback and teamed up with Ukraine's Nadiia Kichenok for womens doubles and defeated Peng/Zhang, 6-4, 6-4. Bala Devi became the first to sign the contract with Scottish football giants Rangers Women’s FC, Anshu Malik won a silver medal in the women's 57 Kg Wrestling World Cup in Serbia and table tennis player Sharath Kamal won his first singles title at the Egypt Open.

Defence 

The year 2020 was momentous for the defence sector also. General Bipin Rawat was appointed India's first chif of defenc staff (CDS), who acts as advisor to the defence minister in all tri-services matters. Indian Army this year encountered adversaries on Line of Control (LoC) and Line of Actual Control (LAC) and gave befitting replies on both the fronts. Apart from that, more than a dozen Rafale fighter jets were inducted into the Indian Air Force (IAF). An air-launched version of supersonic BrahMos missile was integrated on Su-30 MKI fighter, naval ships Jalashwa, Shardul, Airavat and Magar were deployed from for Operation Samudra Setu to undertake repatriation of Indians who were stranded in the wake of Covid-19 in different countries across the world. These ships, along with others, evacuated 3992 Indian nationals.

Finally, the government took a big step in making the country aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) when defence minister Rajnath Singh approved a ban on import of over 200 weapons and systems. These will now be made in India. The move aims to give impetus to the growing domestic industry and achieve enhanced self-reliance in defence manufacturing.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure has seen major achievements last year, with construction of highways fast-tracked and more and more border areas connected thorugh roads and bridges. Some of the important construction works include world's longest highway tunnel, the Atal Tunnel, built by Border Roads Organisation (BRO), 80-kilometre-long road link from Dharchula (Uttarakhand) to Lipulekh (near China border), 44 bridges of strategic importance in sensitive areas close to western, northern and north eastern borders.