Underlining once again that India is “destined” to be more “globally engaged,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said today he was “disappointed” that this wasn’t getting “adequate appreciation,” including among “our political leaders.” That results in political postures rooted in the past and “out of line” with India’s current interests.

Pointing out that most of the constraints faced in India’s economic growth were “inherently internal”, Singh said that the global environment for the country’s development was “more benign today” than it was “at any other time in recent history”.

Speaking at the silver jubilee function of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), the PM said: “I am often disappointed by the lack of adequate appreciation in our country, including among our political leaders, of the changing nature of our relationship with the world, and indeed with the region around us.”

In fact, he went on to say, “Very often, we adopt political postures that are based in the past, indeed in the distant past and are out of line with our current interests as an increasingly globalised and globally integrated economy”.

The PM also spoke of the urgent need to cash in on the “optimism” about India being shared across the world.

He said that there was “a great deal of optimism about India not only in seminar halls but also in board-rooms across the world” and added that it was this “optimism” that “needs to be sustained and converted to tangible decisions that benefit our economy”.

... contd.