Media Vichar Manch

Meeting with Indian Prime Minister

Had an opportunity to interact with the Indian Prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh at his Race Course Road residence in New Delhi on May 30, 2005, as part of a meeting of foreign media organised by the Foreign Correspondents Club. Since it was meeting with foreign media based in New Delhi, the PM spoke most of the time on foreign policy issues - ranging from situation in Nepal to India's bid for security council seat. On most of the issues, he merely repeated the stated position. Perhpas the only deviation was his statements on talks with Pakistan. He used different words to make the point that India is not going to negotiate Kashmir's boundaries in any case.

Keeping up his image of a working PM, Dr Singh said that he wanted to meet the foreign media earlier but he could not because he was simply not prepared for it! In reply to most of the questions, he made long winding comments, reminding many of us of his earlier days as an economist and academician. In informal conversaion with us over tea, he was quite relaxed and very frank about his views on touchy issues like relations with the Left, other allies like Paswan, his 6/10 rating of his government's performance etc. He revealed that all decisions in the cabinet are taken unanimously, to drive home the point that there are no differences among allies and the congress.

posted by Dinesh C Sharma @ 2:48 PM