Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday urged Indians to make the country a clean and healthy place.
"Do we want to live in filth?" the prime minister asked, delivering his maiden Independence Day speech after assuming office in May.
He said keeping the country clean was "a big task" and it would need everyone's cooperation.
"Can't our country be clean? If the people decide not to dirty our surroundings, no force on this earth can dirty it."
He said it would be ideal to make India a clean place by 2019 to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, who the prime minister said was a staunch believer in cleanliness.
