Excerpts from President Pranab Mukherjee’s Address to Nation

* Our institutions of democracy are under stress.
* The Parliament has been converted into an arena of combat rather than debate.
* If the institutions of democracy are under pressure, it is time for serious thinking by the people and their parties.
* Correctives must come from within.
* Our country’s rise will be measured by the strength of our values.
* It will equally be determined by economic growth and equitable distribution of the nation’s resources.
* Benefits of growth must reach the poorest of the poor much before they land in bank accounts of the richest of the rich.
* Our policies must be geared to meet the ‘Zero Hunger’ challenge in a foreseeable future.
* It is heartening that the long pending land boundary issue with Bangladesh has been finally resolved.
* I specially commend the brave civilians who boldly detained a hardened terrorist ignoring the risk to their own lives.
* A nation which forgets the idealism of its past loses something vital from its future.
* India’s strength lies in its unique capacity to blend apparent contradictions into positive affirmations.
* If we do not act now, will our successors 7 decades hence remember us with respect and admiration?
* The answer may not be comfortable, but the question has to be asked.