Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

"Join us to build a stronger and more open economy" - PM's speech at meeting with Indian American CEOs

"It gives me great pleasure to speak to a gathering of Indians and the Indian American community here on my first visit to the United States as Prime Minister.

I have long recognized that the Indian community in the United States is a very unique bridge between our two countries. I was delighted that President Bush shared this view when we met a couple of days ago. In American history, no group of immigrants have achieved as much success and respect within the span of one generation, that too the very first, as have Indian Americans. You play a role in US society and economy far beyond what may have been expected given the size of the community and its relatively recent arrival here. Your skills help to make America competitive, your minds are at the cutting edge of research, your services in a wide variety of professions enhance the quality of life in this country. Increasingly, your entrepreneurship has assumed a sharper profile in the American corporate world.

I am delighted to learn that Indian Americans are now also active in creative fields ranging from media to cinema. You have all earned for yourself an enviable reputation for diligence, for creativity, for enterprise, for commitment to the core values of democracy and pluralism that bind our Nations together. This has enabled you to shape favourably the larger American perception of India, among your colleagues at work, your neighbours in your communities and your elected representatives.

Emigrants have come to the shores of America for over half a millennia. Some have come in search of adventure, some in search of treasure, some escaped persecution and some others escaped hardship and deprivation. The Indian American community is again unique in this regard for most of you have come here in search of knowledge, skills, training and professional opportunity. You arrived here not just with hope, but with purpose and this has shaped the nature of your contribution to this great land of enterprise and opportunity.

The psyche of the migrant is a complex one. I understand and appreciate this, having myself migrated from the place of my birth under difficult circumstances and in times of strife. As migrants in search of a home and a living, my family and families like mine had to work that much harder. We had to have faith in the future, for the past was bleak and our present was trying. This was true of many migrant communities in the United States also. However, you, Ladies and Gentlemen, have succeeded here thanks to the foundation in education and skills your home country gave you, and the opportunities for further development your host country has given you. It is, for this reason, that I have always been impressed by the optimism that characterizes the psyche of the Indian American. You have echoed the "Can Do" spirit of the American people. It is also for this reason that you continue to look back at your home country, at India, with love, affection and longing; albeit with an understandable degree of impatience!

I feel particularly happy that the economic policies we initiated at home in the past decade have enabled us to reconnect with you more positively and re-engage you in meaningful ways in the reconstruction of our Motherland. The benign impact of these new economic policies has been supplemented by the new technologies that have contributed to the intimacy and immediacy of inter-continental contact.

When the first wave of migrants came to the shores of the United States they hardly ever went back to their home countries. When the first generation of Indians came to the US over a half-century ago travel was still largely by sea and contact with friends and relatives at home was still limited and cumbersome. According to one study the single largest item of monthly expenditure for Indians who had come to live here in the US in the 1970s and even into the 1980s was the phone bill for calls made home. So it is not surprising that an innovation like Hotmail, the free e-mail facility, was first thought up by an Indian American, Sabeer Bhatia! Millions of families in India and across the world must be grateful to him for having contributed to the creation of a global cyber-community, bringing People of Indian Origin closer to India.

It is this spirit of enterprise and adventure that I want you to inject back into India and I am here to ensure you that our Government is fully committed to the pursuit of such policies that enable this two-way flow of ideas and opportunities. I have always shared the view long expressed by my friend Jagdish Bhagwati, of Columbia University, that the migration of talent like yours does not necessarily constitute a "Brain Drain" but can in fact help create a "Brain Bank" from which we can draw provided we put in place at home the required policies and infrastructure. It will be our sincere endeavor to pursue such policies and programmes at home that will in fact enable a more productive and creative engagement between you and us, between the United States and India.

I am aware of the fact that even from this distance you still do remain concerned about the welfare and prosperity of our people. I would like to assure you that our Government is committed to taking forward the programme of reform and liberalization we initiated over a decade ago. What we must appreciate, however, is that the reforms we need to re-invigorate our economy and unleash the "animal spirits" of our entrepreneurs and the creative potential of our professionals, also involve a transformation of our society and a change of mindset. Our accomplishments, although not meager, pale before what lies ahead. India needs to educate its young, ensure their health, provide every job-seeker reasonable hope, and improve the quality of life of its people. We must emerge as a competitive manufacturing power as well as a knowledge-driven economy. These aspirations are increasingly those of the common man. The message from the recent General Elections, we believe, was an affirmation of faith in the policies we initiated a decade ago but combined with an urgent plea for a more equitable and socially just development process. I am committed to that process and our Government will pursue policies that restore to India its rightful place in the comity of Nations. The accomplishments of Indians abroad convince me that the fault lies not in our individual capabilities but in our collective endeavors and in our institutional structures. I am committed to a reform of the government, and to increased investment - domestic and foreign, private and public - in infrastructure, especially power, communications, airports and urban amenities.

Cities like Hyderabad and organizations like Infosys are already showing the rest of the country the way forward and setting the pace and direction of change. To be able to move at a faster pace we must ensure social and political stability, communal harmony and the fostering of a more inclusive economy and society. India and the United States have had a rich tradition of actively building a plural and liberal democracy. Open societies and free markets are but two sides of the same coin. They are kept in balance by their being inclusive, socially and economically.

With the exception of information technology and more recently the financial sector and management studies, the two way traffic in ideas between India and the Untied States has been limited and far below potential. There is no doubt that some of our policies and attitudes are in part to blame. However, there has also been inadequate initiative taken here in the US. I believe you can play an important role in bringing the knowledge economy in its wider scope in both countries closer. The recent agreements between the two countries relating to the first phase of the Next Steps In Strategic Partnership should help bridge this gap partly. We would also like to see closer interaction in the fields of research, higher education and the development of our infrastructure and financial sectors. People to people contacts are the real cement that bind our Nations together.

I urge you to join us and strengthen our hands in our attempt to build a stronger and more open economy that is also committed to the principles of democracy and pluralism. India and the United States are, in that sense, on the same side of history. We are both equally committed to rid the world of the threat of terrorism, that is both a threat to peace and security and a challenge to the way both our countries want our world to be. That is, a world of freedom and plurality, of inclusiveness and equity. You can play a unique and important role by being the developmental and intellectual bridge between our two great democracies. I invite you to participate in this creative adventure. I assure you that we are committed to taking the necessary policy steps that will enable you to be part of this process more actively."