India will never lose capacity to listen to feeblest voice: President

India will never lose its capacity to listen to the feeblest voice, lose sight of its ancient ideals or forget its sense of fairness, President Ram Nath Kovind said on Wednesday.

In his address to the nation on the eve of 73rd Independence Day, the President said it is a characteristic of Indianness to empathise with nature and with all living beings.

"I say this with the confidence and belief that India will never lose its capacity to listen to the feeblest voice, that it will never lose sight of its ancient ideals, that it will forget neither its sense of fairness nor its sense of adventure," Kovind said.

"We Indians are a people who dare to explore the moon and Mars. We are also a people who persevere to create a loving habitat for three of every four wild tigers on our planet, because it is characteristic of Indianness to empathise with nature and with all living beings," he noted.

Reciting lines of poet Subramania Bharati in Tamil, Kovind said these reflected country's "freedom movement and its expansive goals."

"We will learn both scripture and science, we will explore both heavens and oceans, we will unravel the mysteries of the moon and we will sweep our streets clean too," he said interpreting the lines.

"May those ideals and may that urge to learn and to listen and to become better, may that curiosity and may that fraternalism, always be with us. May it always bless us, and always bless India," he added.