No apprehension about new US Govt: Manmohan Singh - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, has said that he does not have any apprehension about the United States viewing India differently because there has been a change of administration in Washington. In an interview given to the Editor of Newsweek International, Fareed Zakaria, in CNN’s Global Public Square (GPS) program here ahead of his four-day trip to Washington as the Obama Presidency’s first official state visit (officially beginning on Monday), Dr. Singh, when asked whether he expected the warm and cordial relationship India enjoyed with the Bush administration to change under President Obama, said: “I have no apprehension that our relationship with the United States will change because of a change of administration.” Elaborating further, the Prime Minister said that credit for the relationship that existed between India and United States should go to the Indian-American community and assorted institutions, lobbies, caucuses and bodies representing India’s interests in the United States in a comprehensive and positive manner. “There is no doubt about the role that people-to-people contacts, the large Indian-American community, has played and contributed to changing the way the United States, and indeed the world views India now. Nearly every Indian family has a relative in the United States, and this is testimony to the warm relations that these two countries enjoy,” said Dr. Singh. Asked for his comments on what he saw as the key factors responsible for the global financial meltdown, Dr. Singh replied: “Lack of regulation. A monetary policy that was far too liberal; that should have been tightened well in time.” He further went on to say that as far as India was concerned, “We were more prudent than the other countries. Good supervision and natural prudence has helped us to tide over this crisis.” As far as the financial difficulty facing the United States was concerned, Dr. Singh said: “The US always has shown a remarkable ability and consistency in bouncing back from its economic problems.”