Enormous Good Fortune For Country To Have Somebody Like Him: Jaishankar Hails PM Modi

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that it is enormous good fortune of the country to have a leader like him, who tirelessly works for the welfare of the people.

He further said the extraordinary thing about PM Modi is that he gets the pulse of so many things which he turns into policies and programmes.

On his journey from being a diplomat to a politician, Jaishankar said as a diplomat he always worked with the politicians but entering the relentless, 24x7 world of politics with no weekend is different.

"I feel it's been an enormous good fortune of the country to have someone like PM Modi at this time. And I am not saying this because he is the prime minister of the day and I am a member of his Cabinet. I am saying this because when you have a once-in-a-century health challenge, it's only someone who's so grounded can say okay there is a health challenge, but what will do for the persons going home; what will you do to feed them; how will you put money into their account. The idea that women will manage the money better will not occur to many people," Jaishankar told the Indian community in Bangkok.

"Good leaders are people very grounded, very experienced with an enormous feel for what is happening but who also has the passion to take the country to a different level -- enormously grounded and enormously visionary. And such people, I can tell you, come once in a lifetime," Jaishankar said.