I am happy to be here once again to speak at this annual conference organized by The Hindustan Times. As I had said last year, these opportunities to discuss and debate ideas are always welcome. Of course, it is not as if these opportunities are rare in our "argumentative" society, as my friend Amartya Sen would put it! We feel proud of this tradition of debate and discussion. It runs in our blood! As I had said while releasing Amartya's book, I welcome this aspect of our national personality. I had also cautioned then that argumentation and skepticism must not be allowed to descend into cynicism. They must be inspired by a desire to seek the Truth. They must be based on a willingness to listen to an opposite point of view. They must be informed by a desire to arrive at a consensus. Where consensus eludes, there must at least be healthy respect for each other's viewpoint.

These are liberal values that the leadership of our freedom struggle cherished and nourished. These values are the basis of all democratic and civilized life. I believe these values are the essential strength of our culture, and are our civilisational inheritance. As I said here last year, the idea of India is built on these notions of pluralism, liberalism, and the possibility of unity in diversity. Any design for a better future has to be built upon the foundation of these ideas.

This year, your conference has given itself a broad theme. "Building a Better Future." You are seeking ideas on how we can build a better future for our people and for mankind. Indeed, through all known history, mankind has pursued little else than fulfillment of the desire for a better future. It is this constant dissatisfaction with the status quo that drives change, innovation, enterprise and progress. In the developing world, there are material reasons for such dissatisfaction. It is often suggested that we in India are culturally conditioned to accept a sub-optimal material existence because many of us seek greater happiness from non-material aspects of life. Even so, it can be nobody's case that we do not have to worry about our material standards of living.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I believe that a great majority of our people are entitled to a far better future than at present. I am, of course, conscious of the fact that we have achieved a considerable amount of progress within our life time. My own life mirrors the progress we have made. Till the age of ten I had never seen electricity. I studied in a village, in a modest home, using a lantern. My eyesight was affected for life as a result. I walked quite a distance to reach school. But education empowered me. I am what I am because my family invested in my education. I earned scholarships that gave me access to the best in education. I have seen India transformed in my life time, but I know there still are villages like the one I grew up in. There still are young boys and girls who study next to a lantern. I am confident their life will be better than that of their parents. Their future will be brighter. But there is a lot of hard work we must all to do to speed up the process by which this can happen.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The challenge before our nation is to address this fundamental aspect of development. Building a Better Future requires us to provide education for all, to provide access to better health facilities, to provide adequate housing and sanitation, to provide a liveable environment in villages and cities.

A large part of the effort to Build A Better Future for our people will have to be in our rural areas for the foreseeable future. No region of India can claim that the quality of life in its villages is satisfactory. Be it sanitation, be it drinking water, be it electricity and roads, be it education and health, be it public spaces and the environment - whatever be the criterion, rural India deserves better.

The growth process of the last century has left village India far behind our big cities. This divide must not widen any further. The physical and social infrastructure in rural India must catch up with at least semi-urban India within the next decade. This is the objective of Bharat Nirman, a time-bound business plan for rural infrastructure development that our Government has launched. Bharat Nirman will build a better future for a vast majority of our citizens.

We have a comprehensive, overarching vision of what we need and must do for our rural areas. Along with Bharat Nirman, we have also launched various initiatives for rural and agricultural development, including the National Rural Health Mission, and have provided increased funding for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. These programmes cannot, however, be just budgetary initiatives aimed at investing more money. They must also be informed by new thinking on better ways to spend this money. We can not "build a better future" with old ways of thinking. Given the demographic pressure on resources, we have to find more cost-effective, resource-friendly and environmentally sustainable models of development.

Our model of health care deserves a second look. Can we afford high-cost, hospital-based curative models of medical care? Are we encouraging new technologies with public subsidies and distorting health care priorities? When I see the most modern of technologies to pursue the most reprehensible of practices, like female foeticide, I wonder what is wrong with our value system. We need greater emphasis on public health, on preventive health care, on creating public awareness with respect to health related practices, so that we can address the health care challenge cost-effectively and in a socially responsible manner.

I hope our socially committed citizens will step forward and participate actively in these programmes so that we can work together to build a better future for all. Till we are able to win the war against poverty, ignorance and disease, that still afflict a vast majority of our people, we cannot tap the full potential of our Nation in building a new India.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our educational system is also moribund in many ways. It is not meeting the needs of today, not to talk of tomorrow. There is a correlation between literacy and development that we can ignore at our own peril. No modern economy in the world has less than 80% literacy. None whatsoever. State governments are not paying the attention they must to raising literacy levels in a meaningful manner. There are serious issues of access, curriculum and management of educational institutions that deserve far greater attention than we are presently giving. As a beneficiary of a merit-cum-means based scholarship system, I am acutely conscious of the benefits that education can confer on people and society. We have not done enough to deliver these benefits to our people.

It is not only rural areas that need to be better off. Our cities, which shelter a third of our population, too need a better future. The speed at which urbanization is taking place, the day is not far off when over 50% of India's population will be residing in urban areas. Urban areas are the nodes from which enterprise, creativity and prosperity radiate in all directions. They are the engines of sustained growth that can absorb the millions of people who need to be gainfully employed outside agriculture. However, today our cities are often unable to meet the basic needs of their residents on many counts. They need infrastructure which is world class, infrastructure which can cater to the needs of a rising population, infrastructure that can propel industrial and economic growth. While a National Urban Renewal Mission is being launched to meet the infrastructure needs, I sincerely believe that we need a new wave of city building for the 21st century. Empires of the past rejoiced in establishing new cities. We need to create new cities which can cater to a much larger urban population, cities which will be a tribute to our current times.

Whether in agriculture or in health and education or in urban development, the real responsibility for change vests with state governments. There has to be a much stronger articulation of need at that level both by political parties and by civil society.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We also need to understand that the biggest constraint to realizing a better future is poor infrastructure. This we are committed to reversing. We need far better roads, railways, airports and ports so that they can oil our wheels of progress. Our roads programme has been given a new thrust; our airports and airlines are humming with fresh activity; our railways are working on their version of the Golden Quadrilateral to enhance their freight carrying capabilities; and our telecom sector has made us all proud. We still need to address major policy and implementation issues in the power and coal sectors.

While our dreams for a better future require massive investments, we must realize that these require financial resources and that there are limits to what governments can generate. Governments need to show fiscal responsibility and prudence in expenditure management so that fiscal and monetary stability is not impaired. We need to put a check on wasteful subsidies while targeting these to the genuinely needy and disadvantaged. Citizens must be convinced about paying at least a modicum of user charges for the use of public utilities - for preventing wasteful usage and generating resources for investment in better services. Enterprises in both the public and private sectors must run efficiently, compete with the best in the world and generate profits which can be ploughed back for social development.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We cannot ignore the dualism in our society and economy any longer. There is an India that wants to move forward even faster. There is an India that is unable to catch up. The challenge before any Government in this vast and diverse land is to allow those who can and wish to run to do so, even as we help those who are unable even to walk to be able to do so. No Government can ignore either challenge.

There are many Indians who are ready to take on the world, to compete globally, to test their skills and sell their wares on the global stage. We have to enable them to realize their full potential. We must not prevent the full flowering of the creativity, enterprise and talent of our professionals, our entrepreneurs, our artists and our skilled workers. In the past we shackled them with rules and regulations. Regrettably, in many areas, we continue to do so even today. Even where we have unshackled them on paper, we are yet to do so in practice. Bureaucratic mindsets and corruption continue to act as roadblocks to enterprise and progress.

I am pained to hear accounts of how, at various levels of Government, we still inhibit creativity and private enterprise. I am committed to removing these shackles on our businesses and to providing new opportunities for domestic enterprise to gain from interaction with global markets and foreign enterprise. There has to be a coming together between those in Government and those outside to overcome the barriers to change. I hope the Right to Information Act that our Government has enacted will strengthen civil society in this struggle for greater transparency and better governance.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I sincerely believe that any Government, irrespective of political ideology, will be required in a complex polity like ours, to "walk on two legs" to take the Nation forward. We must pursue policies that address the cry for equity and social justice, and at the same time, pursue policies that meet the demands of efficiency and enterprise. And this we must do within the framework of a plural democracy. This is not an easy task. Few countries in the world have attempted this. But this is the only way we can move ahead. Because, this is the only way to address the challenge of dualism.

If we do not pay attention to the questions of equity and social justice and allow only market forces and individual enterprise to thrive, we will be pursuing a socially and politically unsustainable path of development. If we focus all attention only on Government redistributing incomes and providing employment, while suffocating enterprise and creativity, we will be pursuing an economically and fiscally unsustainable path. Hence, the need to "walk on two legs" - of equity and efficiency.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Finally, I submit to you that our desire for a better future for ourselves cannot be divorced from a desire to seek a better future for all our neighbours. As I said recently at the SAARC Summit, I sincerely believe that India and its neighbours have a shared destiny. Our poverty and prosperity are indivisible. I am concerned about where our region is headed. It has the potential to become one of the engines of the global economy in the 21st century. But we could miss that bus. We must show the resolve and the maturity to grasp the opportunities at hand that can enable all of us to seek a bright future for every one of us. India wants all its neighbours to walk with her into a brighter future. Our prosperity will be their prosperity. Their progress will be our progress.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I also sincerely believe that most Indians want to be actively engaged in the global economy, as indeed they have been for centuries. Indians live, work and prosper on all continents of the world. They live in peace, bring prosperity to their communities and work for a better future for all mankind. The future we build must provide space for this inherent creativity and enterprise of our people.

We must have the self-confidence to deal with a changing and complex world. I do believe, as I have said so often, that the world wants India to succeed. There are no longer any binding external constraints to growth. If they are any real constraints then those are at home and we must deal with them. That is the challenge at hand.

A nation of over a billion people is destined to be an active participant in the intellectual, cultural, political and economic transactions of the 21st century. But we have to work hard to realize our destiny. I hope participants at your conference will share this vision and ask how we can create a political and intellectual consensus at home that enables us to take India forward, take every Indian forward and build a better life for each and every one of us.

Jai Hind!