'Mann Ki Baat': Modi highlights India's clean energy push
What's the story
In his latest Mann Ki Baat radio address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized the significance of India's recent strides in clean energy and nuclear power. He said that the indigenous fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu has achieved criticality. "Actually, criticality is the stage during which a reactor successfully attains a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction for the first time. This stage signifies the reactor entering the operational phase," he explained.
Energy milestones
Modi on renewable energy capacity
As of April 2026, India has an installed nuclear power capacity of 8.78GW across 25 operational reactors. In his address, Modi also highlighted that India has added a whopping 6GW of wind capacity in the last year alone. This takes the total installed wind capacity to a remarkable 56GW. The overall renewable energy capacity, including wind, solar and hydro sources, reached an impressive 283.46GW in FY26 with a goal of hitting 500GW by 2030.
Census update
Digital census in 2027
PM Modi also announced that the upcoming 2027 Census would be the world's largest population counting exercise and India's first fully digital one. "While the enumerators going door-to-door will have a mobile app, and citizens can themselves feed their information and verify a special code with the census officials," he said. The Prime Minister also noted that in states where self-enumeration has been completed, census staff have begun enumerating households.
Export growth
Increase in dairy exports
PM Modi also spoke about the increase in dairy exports, crediting investment and technology adoption for helping Indian products meet global standards. He also mentioned a legislative amendment in 2017 that removed bamboo from the 'tree' category. This change has enabled several northeastern organizations and groups to produce better quality bamboo products.