India, Oct. 13 -- India is the mother of democracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an event on Tuesday, adding that there are open debates in the country over issues and highlighting the linguistic diversity, media landscape as well as growing social media user base.

Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Delhi, PM Modi listed the above as examples of the country's openness to different perspectives.

"India is mother of democracy, there are over 100 languages, around 80,000 registered newspaper and publications, over 1,000 satellite TV channels," he said.

"Not just this, in social media age, in India, there are over 500 million YouTube users, more than 500 million Instagra users... Here, there's open debate over issues," ...