The Chief Minister's Office of Uttarakhand announced on Sunday, 27 July 2026 that Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami listened to the 136th episode of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Mann Ki Baat programme at Gandhi Park, Dehradun, alongside former servicemen and families of martyred soldiers.

Context

The gathering at Gandhi Park brought together veterans and bereaved military families as an audience for the Prime Minister's monthly radio address. Chief Minister Dhami described the programme as one that gives 'skaratmak disha' (positive direction) to the lives of citizens, calling it an 'effective medium for reaching development and public participation themes to every person.'

According to the CMO post, PM Modi used the episode to highlight achievements of DRDO, India's growing self-reliance in defence production, defence exports, water conservation, promotion of handicrafts, and the Vocal for Local initiative.

Policy Backdrop

Mann Ki Baat was launched by Prime Minister Modi in October 2014 as a monthly nationwide radio address covering citizen-centric policy themes. It has since become a recurring platform for communicating progress on flagship programmes including Atmanirbhar Bharat, which was announced in May 2020 to reduce India's dependence on defence imports and accelerate domestic military manufacturing.

DRDO, the Defence Research and Development Organisation, sits at the centre of India's indigenisation drive, developing systems ranging from missiles to electronic warfare platforms. Defence exports, once negligible, have grown substantially as a policy priority under the current central government, with the government having set ambitious export targets for the sector.

Stakeholders and Impact

Choosing a gathering of ex-servicemen and martyr families as the audience for this episode carries symbolic weight: it links India's defence self-reliance narrative directly to those who have borne the personal cost of national security. Border states such as Uttarakhand, which shares sensitive frontiers with China and Nepal, have increasingly hosted such central outreach events to connect veterans with national security and development messaging.

Handicraft artisans and local manufacturers in the state also stand to benefit from the Vocal for Local push highlighted in the episode, as the campaign encourages consumers to favour Indian-made goods. Water conservation, the third theme flagged by Dhami, is particularly relevant to an ecologically sensitive hill state dependent on glacial rivers.

The event was attended by Cabinet Minister Ganesh Joshi, Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Bansal, MLA Munna Singh Chauhan, functionary Subhash Badthwal, Secretary Yugal Kishore Pant, and retired Major General Sammi Sabharwal, among others.

What's Next

Future episodes of Mann Ki Baat are expected to continue tracking India's defence export milestones and border infrastructure progress — both areas of direct relevance to Uttarakhand. At the state level, officials are likely to follow up with ex-servicemen welfare scheme rollouts and handicraft promotion programmes that align with themes raised in this episode.

CM Dhami's public endorsement of the Prime Minister's message reinforces Uttarakhand's positioning as an active participant in the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission, with border-area development and veterans' outreach likely to remain central to the state government's political and administrative agenda.