Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

Excerpts of the PM's Question and Answer session at HT Media Summit

Q - Are we looking at an election?

Ans - Election is still faraway. This government is still has one and half years to complete its term. It is my hope and expectation that we will stay the course.

Q - Are you optimistic?

Ans - Of course I am optimistic. We have lots of unfinished agenda and I have highlighted what our plans are to revitalize our agriculture , revitalize our rural economy. We have a most ambitious agenda in the field of education , particularly in higher education. Never before has so much effort been made reform the education system as we envisage in the next one and a half years.

Same way in health care and in transformation of our urban economies. We have for the first time an integrated strategy for comprehensive transformation of India's cities, metropolitan and medium and small towns.

We have a lot of unfinished business to complete.

Q - Are you willing to accommodate the concerns of the Left?

Ans - Well we are a coalition. If you are referring to the recent controversies over the nuclear deal I will take the question head on. What we have done with the United States, it is an honourable deal. It is good for India and it is good for the world. We are in the realm of politics. Within our coalition there are different perceptions. We are trying to reconcile the divergent points of view and I have not given up hope that reason and common sense will ultimately prevail.

Q - Well it all began with a statement you made to a newspaper which was a bit out of sync with your persona and that started all the controversy. Do you think you overstepped a bit ?

Ans - I don't think I overstepped. I was responding to a public statement issued by the four left parties and I don't think I overstepped. I am quite conscious of my responsibilities and what I should say and what I should not say.

Q His question was did you mean to provoke the left

Ans - No I was appealing to their good sense

Q Do you think on hind sight if you stake too much personal prestige on the nuclear deal and if the deal does not go through then it damages your prime ministership ?

Ans - We are not a one issue government. We have been able to make changes in several areas like rural development, NREG, the RTI, expansion of primary health care and what we have doing now to modernize our urban economy. We are not a one issue government. It is true that if the deal does not come through it will be a disappointment but in life one has to live with certain disappointments and move on.

Q - ...

Ans - I will say that we are not a one issue government. Having said that, I do attach importance to seeing this deal through, but if the deal is not through it is not the end of life

Q (i) While we bask in the glory of our continued economic buoyancy precisely because India has increasingly now integrated with the global economy. Do you perceive medium term risks of global recession and global slowdown and exogenous factors therefore beginning to impact the present peace of economic buoyancy in the country?

(ii) In term of the unfinished agenda of economic reforms some of which you articulated yourself on power, health and on education - I think we will need much greater partnership and much greater concerted action between the state and the centre and are you contemplating any mechanism which centre and the dialogue process between the centre and the states?

Ans- : Well the first thing that you raised was the medium term risks, it's certainly true that as you get integrated into the global economy. What happens in the rest of the world. I think does affect us intimately and now that our foreign trade is a much lot a proportion of our national income, now that capital inflows from abroad are a significant part of the story of financing investment in our country. There are no doubt that if the global economy goes in down year there are risks for our economy. But there are acceptable risks and as of now I feel that there is no great danger that these risks will overwhelm as or derail our economy.

Now with regard to the co - operation between the centre and the state, there is no doubt a mechanism and if you have any new mechanisms in mind we can certainly look at these things but this is not the forum for me to discuss the centre - state relations.

Q- On problem of unemployment

Ans. -There are no magic ways to increase employment. Meaningful solution to the problem of poverty as well as unemployment can be found only in the framework of rapidly expanding economy. We need to sustain the growth momentum if we sustain the growth momentum of recent years. I think you'll see lot more employment opportunities being created but growth in necessary could not a sufficient.

Q - Mr. Prime Minister you just talked of in your speech about the reforms of 1991. You rightly described as the initiative pioneer of reforms in the country for good measure I acknowledge that. But why is that you at the helms economic reform have come to a practical standstill. Is it possible in the art of possible?

Ans. First of all it's not true that we've come to a standstill, there much more to economic reforms than you've in mind and I said we need to reform the infrastructure sector. I said we need to reform our education system, we need to reform our public health delivery system and all these areas I think there are credible steps being taken for the first time all over India in all our public (government) schools our children are getting a mid-day meal programme We've planned a massive expansion in education and science and technology, five new institutes of science are being created. How many years we took to crate our second science institute and now three institutes are already on the ground.

Q- Sir even while we talk on economic buoyancy and GDP growth rates but the internal threats that the country faces to day as well as the terrorist attacks that seems to continue limitlessly, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore. Even yesterday the Ajmer Dargah blast. Do you think that the government is actually soft on terror and that the home minister is really not capable of handing these attacks?

Ans - I think we've a difficult situation but I wouldn't say that we should. We have to mobilise all our resources and the will power of our country. Defeat terrorist machines and there's no lack of firmness of purpose when it comes to dealing with terrorist act. The terrorist have an advantage of surprise they can chose the targets and it's not possible to protect each and every soft target think may be differently with regard to strategy for dealing with terrorism in future. But there be no mistake about our resolve to meet this challenge head on.

Q- On Indo Pak - talks.

Ans - Well in the last years we've never had such an intensive dialogue India and Pakistan on all outstanding issues that we actually have had and if the process appears to have slowed down these are largely the result of the internal problems in Pakistan, I don't want to talk about it as far as our government is concerned we are committed to finding pragmatic and practical solutions to all outstanding probes that have plagued the Indo-Pak relationship in the past I have always said repeatedly that destiny of people of India and Pakistan are closely inter linked and I cant think of a prosperous south Asia if there's no reconciliation India and Pakistan.