By IANS
New Delhi : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used India’s 60th independence day Wednesday to urge Indians to keep the country “clean and green” and to protect its environment.
Addressing the nation from the Red Fort, the prime minister quoted Mahatma Gandhi to say that nature had “given us for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed”.
“The Himalayas are part of our inheritance,” Manmohan Singh said, speaking in Hindi. “Many of our rivers flow from them.
“We must protect our glaciers; we must keep our rivers clean and must increase our forest cover.
“Every citizen must ensure that our wildlife, especially endangered species like tigers, lions and elephants, are preserved for the benefit of future generations.
“Keeping India green and clean should be a national and an individual obsession.”
The prime minister also spoke about global warming, and said people should be “economical in our consumption of fuels and energy. This we owe to humanity and to posterity”.