PM hints at further opening up of manufacturing sector

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today hinted at further opening up of the manufacturing sector and asked NRIs to pump in more investments into the country.

"Manufacturing should be liberalised even domestically to create a more enabling environment... Indian economy is open for participation and today there are enormous opportunities to invest," he said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

"Enormous opportunities are there in the areas of manufacturing and other new hi-tech areas. I invite NRIs to take advantage of the opportunities in the horizon," he said.

Concerned over rural-urban divide, he suggested a two-pronged strategy to arrest the divide: Ensure labour intensive industrialisation to take lot more people outside agriculture and more investment in agriculture to increase productivity.

"The rural-urban divide is a serious concern of future of our polity... per capita gap between rural and urban areas has widened. For the success of democracy, we need to arrest this," he said. "Labour- intensive industrialisation must take place," Singh said.

When asked about India emerging as a global knowledge super power, he said elementary school education must become the fundamental right of every child. Singh also emphasised the need to make education system vocation oriented.

He stressed on investing more in higher education, research, and to create more IITs and technology institutes. "We are going to expand the scope of IITs and higher education," Singh said and added, "lots more needs to be done".

In her address at the summit, Congress President Sonia Gandhi said India should aim to become a "global force for peace, progress and prosperity" rather than think of itself as a global superpower.

Gandhi also said she was "personally" for private sector's interaction in the education sector, and accepted a suggestion that ex-servicemen should be mobilised to monitor the employment guarantee scheme.

She said she was concerned about problems of farmers but added that it could take time to solve problems that had taken years to put root.

Asked as to when she was going to induct her son Rahul into the party and government, she said, "I am always happy to include him in the party and government. It is for him to decide".

Gandhi said she was somewhat uneasy with the word 'superpower', because India had always been of consequence even when it was treated lightly by the rest of the world.

Gandhi said her intention was not to run down India's achievements. Indian companies had achieved much, Indians living abroad were accomplished and there was much to be proud about.

But there were other untold stories about India that were heart-warming. Women's self help groups, the emergence of educated young men and women from weaker sections of society and the spread of modern technology to villages were important in India's transformation.

And yet, in India the wealthy were reluctant to share their wealth with the disadvantaged. She asked the rich to factor in the poverty of the very poor and urged them, in the spirit of Bill Gates, to share their wealth.

Pointing out that under 80,000 Indians report a taxable income of more than Rs 10 lakh, she said, "That is simply not commensurate with our economic performance in recent years". Low voter turnouts and pervading cynicism about politics could only undermine India's democracy, she said.

But, she said, India didn't need to be classified or certified as a superpower when there was so much to do at home, internally. "In India, we don't think who we are. We know who we are" she said, quoting Peter Sellers in The Party.