India can rise again, I have a clear roadmap: PM Narendra Modi

New Delhi, Sep 21: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said India has a chance to rise again as a global economic power and suggested that it could match with China and he has a "clear roadmap" to channelise entrepreneurial capabilities of country's 1.25 billion people.

"This is a country that once upon a time was called 'the golden bird'. We have fallen from where we were before. But now we have the chance to rise again. If you see the details of the last five or ten centuries, you will see that India and China have grown at similar paces.

"Their contributions to global GDP have risen in parallel, and fallen in parallel. Today's era once again belongs to Asia. India and China are both growing rapidly, together," he told CNN in an interview.

On comparison with China, he added that India does not need to become anything else and must become only India. Modi said he had a lot of faith in the entrepreneurial nature of India's 1.25 billion people and "I have a clear road-map to channel it".

On being asked if he ever wished to have some of the authority the dictatorial regime in China had, he said democratic countries have also grown and if there were no democracy then someone like him, born in a poor family, would not be sitting here.

Asked what he would like to tell people as his accomplishments one or two years later, he said the trust people have should never break.

"See the biggest thing is that the people of the country have faith. That trust should never break. If I can win the confidence of the people of India, not from my speeches, but by actions, then the power of 1.25 billion Indians will come together to take the country forward," he said.

When asked if India is concerned over China's behavior in the East China Sea and the South China which has worried many of its neighbors, Modi said we should have trust in China's understanding and have faith that it would accept global laws and will play its role in cooperating and moving forward.

He, however, added that we cannot close our eyes to problems, saying We are not living in the eighteenth century.

PTI