Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said India needed rapid transformation if it were to meet the challenges of the future. "If India is to meet the challenge of change, mere incremental progress is not enough. A metamorphosis is needed. That is why my vision for India is rapid transformation, not gradual evolution," he said at the first 'Transforming India' Lecture organised by the NITI Aayog. He also said the transformation of India cannot happen without a transformation in governance. A transformation of governance cannot happen without a transformation in mindset.

And that cannot happen without transformative ideas. With his entire Cabinet in attendance, Modi said the change has to be for both external and internal reasons. Each country, he said, has its own experiences, resources and strengths. “We cannot march through the twenty first century with the administrative systems of the nineteenth century,” the prime minister said in his opening comments.

Modi said that ever since taking over the reins of the Union government, he has personally participated in structured brainstorming sessions with bankers, with police officers and with secretaries of government, among others. “The ideas coming from those sessions are being incorporated into policy. These efforts have been to tap ideas from inside. The next step is to bring in ideas from outside,” Modi said.