Rubbishing the “propaganda” against the “historic” Indo-US nuclear deal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said the agreement will have no impact on the country’s strategic interests or foreign policy but was important to maintain economic growth.
Apparently referring to the concerns of Left allies, Singh told the AICC session at New Delhi on Friday that there are “doubts and misgivings in many minds” about the agreement.
“I would like to say that the propaganda that is being made that this nuclear deal will any way hurt our strategic programme is totally false,” he said deviating from the text of his prepared speech.
“I have stated repeatedly on several occasions that this agreement concerns only civilian side of nuclear energy and that it will have no bearing on the strategic and security programme, which will remain intact without any international interference,” Singh said.
He said the “propaganda” that it would affect “our sense of judgement and independence of our foreign policy is equally false.”
Price rise unavoidable, efforts on to make food affordable: PM
The government has said price rise in certain essential commodities was in line with the global trend, but it would work towards making food items available to the poor at affordable cost.
“I am aware that many of you are concerned about the prices of certain essential commodities. To some extent, we will get some relief from the beneficial effects of our initiatives to increase agricultural output.”
“However, we must keep in mind that global prices of basic food commodities have seen a rapid rise for a variety of factors. We do not have any control of these factors,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at a day-long AICC session at New Delhi on Saturday.
He, however, lauded the government’s efforts to keep inflation under control in the range of 3-4 percent despite global crude oil prices nearing 100 dollar a barrel-mark.
“When our government came into office, the prices of crude oil was about 35 dollar a barrel. It has now reached almost 100 dollar per barrel.”
“Global prices of foodgrains, pulses and edible oil have seen a sharp rise. However, it has been our endeavour to shield the poor and vulnerable sections from the effects of this rise and we have been quite successful in this regard,” Singh said.
The government has done a lot in the last three and half years and the main achievement of the UPA alliance has been that economic growth has averaged around nine percent per annum, Singh said, adding: “This growth rate is significant because in the absence of economic growth, we would not be able to deliver on our promises on all other fronts.”
Singh singled out Finance Minister P Chidambaram for praise for steering the economy toward high growth.
